Dungeons and Dragons: Tactics
- September 04, 2007 00:00 AM PST
Imagine that in order to drive a car, you were required to know the inner workings of your car as intimately as a mechanic, or that to fly from New York to Los Angeles you first needed to log hundreds of hours as pilot. You probably wouldn't travel as much, right?
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Now imagine that in order to play the latest role-playing game you had to memorize a hierarchy of weapon and armor strengths, feat trees, and encumbrance statistics. You wouldn't play unless you found that stuff fascinating, would you?
This Wasn't In the Manual?
Incredibly, this is exactly the sort of thing Dungeons & Dragons: Tactics demands of its players, and the result is one of the most tiresome RPG experiences in recent memory. You create a library of characters of any standard race and class--from familiar fighters and wizards to controversial psions and psychic warriors--and the uninspired cookie-cutter story manages to take parties all the way from the Barrow Mounds to the Astral Plane, but at absolutely no point does the game make even the most basic undertaking easy or enjoyable.
Not sure if your dwarf barbarian has enough strength to load up on goodies from that chest without buckling under the weight? Wondering if the armor you just snagged is better than your current get-up? Trying to decide what new feat to bestow upon the monk that just gained a level? You can either pore over text information hidden in three different places, or just wing it and find out hours later that you've irrevocably crippled your hero.
Practically every other RPG has an intuitive comparison system built in, so you can see how your stats would change if you were to equip a piece of gear, and the more elaborate ones have the good sense to include some kind of visual skill tree so you can plan your character's long-term development. In Dungeons & Dragons: Tactics, you're lucky if the information about feat prerequisites is present anywhere in the game, let alone easy to find. You might think the "automatically select" feature would help you out on this front, but it always seems to pick at random; how else can one explain it thoughtlessly putting all a fighter's skill points into theatrical performing, or suggesting a butt-ugly orc for an elegant elf's portrait?
That's Not the Light At the End of the Tunnel
Dungeons & Dragons: Tactics isn't a total write-off; torch light spills around corners nicely, how you behave over the long campaign can actually alter your alignment, and multiplayer modes allow for deathmatches and co-op dungeon crawling. But just as a good Dungeon Master knows when to put aside the dice collection and emphasize storytelling over mechanics, so do better role-playing video games have the good sense to make rote tasks like inventory management and equipment acquisition easy to contend with. Unfortunately, Dungeons & Dragons: Tactics bucks such common sense at every turn, and its obstinate insistence on making every last task an adventurer might perform a painful chore sinks any chance it might've had to be truly absorbing. Even dedicated role-players are better off with a pencil and some paper.
PROS: Co-op multiplayer, long campaign, some nice lighting effects, deep support of v3.5 rule set, inclusion of psionics.
CONS: Everything from managing inventory to leveling characters is a tedious mess, hopeless UI hides vital information, level designs are slavishly devoted to right angles.
