Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes Reviews

Customer Ratings:

This is a pretty decent game. The graphics are good. Overall gameplay is simiar to Baldur's Gate (xbox): Basic D&D rules are used, but player skill is also required. For instance, when you shoot a bow, you have to aim it yourself, but if you hit, the damage is calculated based on D&D rules. Blocking works similarily.

I like the cooperative multiplayer mode this game offers. This allows you to play the game (main storyline) together with a friend. This is the most appealing aspect of this game in my mind.

Unfortunately, the save game system is a bit of a turn-off. Often, the save points seem to be positioned badly. I would appreciate a save point right before a boss-battle. This is generally not the case. Also, going back to a previous save point after having cleared out most of the level is not an option, because the world isn't truely persisted. In other words: Although the game saves that you picked up gold and other things you might have found along the way, it does not save that you have slain the monster. This might be a good way to gain more XP, but it doesn't help your progress all too much. So you will find yourself fighting through a few minutes of silly battle that you have done before, just to even get to the boss-battle. Argh!

I have now played this game on and off. I keep coming back to it, because overall, it is a pretty good game. But usually I end up a few hours further down the story, but frustrated, and it takes a while before I come back and continue, because I dread re-playing something that I have already done before.

I really wish someone would finally come up with a better save-game concept. The conventional wisdom seems to be that console players do not want to save anywhere and anytime. Instead according to game publishers theory console players want save points. Well, I have news for them: I do not buy into this theory. I am a console gamer, and I still want to save anywhere. And with a system like the xbox, this is no technical problem at all.

Overall level design is OK. As someone pointed out here: It is pretty linear. I do not mind that, but some people do. Some levels could be designed a bit better. One of the worst level-design issues actually has to do with the save game system. Often, save points are positioned very inconveniently. One boss-battle for instance has a save point right in the area where you fight the battle. But when you move over the save point, a stupid dialog pops up, telling the player that saving is not allowed during boss battles. You then click the button to make the dialog go away, and bam!, the enemy whacks you and you die. I mean, why even put that stupid save point there if it can not be used until the enemy is killed? It would be easy enough to put it right afterwards, especially since the game is so linear.

Anyway: If you like D&D role playing games, you probably want to check this one out, but be aware that it is a bit action-heavier than D&D games on the PC.

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This game seems strangely reminiscent of games like Diablo I and II for the PC. That is, it's a hack n' slash dungeons and dragons game. I found the game extremely fun, albeit a bit short. I do not consider myself to be an exceptional gamer and I had very little problem beating this game. The graphics are only above average, although the fire and other lighting effects are great. The gameplay is rather simple, run up to the back guys and hack at em with your sword until they're dead. The button mashing gets a bit repetitive, especially since the enemies are just slightly tweaked recycles from earlier levels. The game is much more fun with friends as you can create a party of up to four characters. When playing as a single player, you can control only one of the characters. I was hoping that the computer would control the others, creating a four-person party, but that is not the case. If you liked Diablo and other hack n' slash games, get this one, it's a lot of fun. More traditional D&D fans might not like the combat system. However, the level up system is quite extensive and offers a lot of variety for the different characters. Overall a great game.

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In a nutshell, it's AD&D wiggled into the Gauntlet package.

Pros:

Good multiplayer game if you've several friends with 3-5 days of free time.

Also fun as a single player game.

Lots of powers to buy up and further diversify each character.

Cons:

Despite the diversity of skills/powers that can be bought up, it all boils down to "look at my new trick for doing/avoiding damage."

Linear gameplay with no means of exploring or jumping ahead.

Gets repetitive fast.

Low replay value.

Finish the game in 3-4 days of solid playing.

Zero character development. Total hack n' slash.

There is no actual story/plot beyond "go kill X again." Yawn.

Mini-adventures/quests are equally linear and inconsequential. Double yawn.

Standing around aimlessly while waiting to heal up.

Backstory is so ridiculous as to be laughable.*

* The backstory has the four heroes killing the Bad Guy centuries ago. But as the Bad Guy is dying in this fight, he gets off a spell that 1) kills all the characters and 2) destroys their weapons by shattering their magic into 20 shards which are then dispersed to multiple planes of existence. Hello? If the guy is so powerful as to be able to cast something like that as he's dying, why didn't he do that right when the heroes walked through the door? It's just outright bad story.

So while the game is entertaining most of the time (the first time through), it becomes tedious in places and won't be one that you go back and play time and time again. Lack of any plot/story makes it a combat-only game rather than an engaging epic, which is the heart of the AD&D gaming system.

I'll be selling my copy after I've loaned it to some friends to play.

Honest reviews on Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes

"Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance," despite bearing the "Baldur's Gate" name, was more of a hack-and-slash game in the "Gauntlet" vein than anything as grand or complex as its Dungeons & Dragons heritage might have suggested. Even so, it made for a very fine game, and a quite successful one to boot. Well, all successful games have their imitators, and so "Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes" was born. If "Dark Alliance" was thin on roleplaying, then "Heroes" is downright skeletal. It bears even more of a resemblance to "Gauntlet" than its predecessor... but it's actually a solid game, despite its flaws.

You get to pick from four different hero types at the beginning of the game (fighter, wizard, rogue, or cleric), you give that character a name, and you're on your way into the realm of Bael, where an evil wizard is rising to overthrow all that is good and just in the world. A familiar setup, to be sure yet it gets the job done, particularly since the storyline is clearly not much of an emphasis in the game. Even so, the game's animated cutscenes are quite well rendered, and convey that tiny sliver of story in an entertaining fashion. The rest of the time, you roam the world in a way that's highly reminiscent of "Gauntlet" or the aforementioned "Dark Alliance," except now you have complete control over the game's camera. You can rotate your view or zoom in or out to your heart's content. Even so, it tends to be a bit of a hassle, particularly in the cooperative mode. It doesn't help that playing from the furthest zoom makes you and your enemies so tiny you can barely see what's happening, or that at the closest zoom the walls and other bits of scenery can completely obscure your vision in the midst of a brutal fight.

Camera niggles aside, the action is well-handled for a game of this type. There are a thousand monsters waiting to throw themselves at your sword, and hacking, slashing, and casting your way through them can be quite enjoyable. The enemies are many and varied, and in later levels become rather challenging (despite the game's overall simplicity, I mean, but more on that in a second). Each area of the game comes complete with a nasty boss monster as well, and even though they're exactly what you would expect from a D&D game (beholder, dragon, lich, etc.), they make for some exciting battles. Even so, I never once failed to destroy one of these end level baddies on my first attempt. In fact, I never died only to find myself having to restart from my last saved game, and that's because the game is so generous with gold that you can literally build a surplus of health potions and continues (or special items that allow you to resurrect on the spot). So despite the swarming opponents you'll face, you'll never feel all that threatened. That can be good or bad, I suppose, depending on how you look at it, but because the game is so easy it also feels very short.

The game gets off to a bad start. The first cavernous area you're forced to explore is the very definition of bland. The next area, which comprises the forest just outside of Castle Bael, is a little better, but not by much, and the aforementioned fortress stronghold isn't anything to write home about either. Even so, things do start to get a whole lot better as you progress. Even though it's more than a little contrived, you'll eventually wander through an ice-encrusted snowscape, a fiery ironworks, and a pyramid-spattered jungle, the variety is nice and makes you forget just how boring the first few episodes actually were.

In the end, I liked "Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes." If you're a fan of "Dark Alliance," this is a good way to spend your time until "Dark Alliance II" comes out. "Gauntlet" fans should also take notice. Still, it has its share of problems, and does not match the quality of either game previously mentioned.

Final Score: B-

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This is a fun hack and slash RPG in the style of Gauntlet and Baldur's Gate. I thought the controls were well thought out, giving you lots of flexibility over what functions you assign to what buttons. Unlike the other games, you can zoom way in and out, although with multiple players you are almost always zoomed out. Like Baldur's Gate, you manage many types of items, gain spells/powers/etc, which makes it more involved than Gauntlet. The graphics are nice, and and there's a good variety of enemies.

I think the main drawback to this game is that it's too easy. By the end of the game, your character is *really* powerful and you have tons of money with nothing to spend it on. The bosses were all pretty easy to defeat. Baldur's Gate is much more difficult and its storyline is a bit more involved.