Dungeons Amp; Dragons Tactics

[Fritzi Vanderweel]

DungeonCrawling Meets Tactical Strategy in an adventure that sets out to appeal to fans of both console tactics games and Dungeons and Dragons veterans. Featuring a deep implementation of the AD&D 3.5 rules for the first time on a handheld, the game sets a pretty daunting task of being accessible for new players and challenging for experienced role players. Does it succeed? Read on and see!

It is seldom a good sign when I become 'of two minds' about a game. It usually means that there is simultaneously something terrifically compelling and also something terribly wrong with the game. It means that while I have found that singular nugget that developer hope will hook gamers into the experience, I have found it at the expense of walking through the minefield of issues that were left lying around somewhere during the design or implementation phases of the project. Such is my plight with Dungeons & Dragons Tactics.

I know it really doesn't matter what the game is called or what the box art looks like or if there are any spelling or grammatical errors on the back cover ... it only matters if the product inside is good. However, just starting this review I have already typed Dungeons & Dragons Tactics twice ... errm ... three times, and it really rolls poorly off the tongue, whereas D&D Tactics is a wonderful sounding title that instantly communicates the same thing to anyone who has been involved with gaming of any type for any time period. So from here on out the game is simply D&D Tactics.

Perhaps the greatest and most immediately apparent strength of D&D Tactics is the brand itself - the game sets out to bring a pure AD&D experience to the PSP that is as close to the tabletop game as possible, with the PSP as DM and you as the adventurers. The game makes the interesting choice of not adopting any of the classic lands already established in AD&D lore but instead opens a new area to explore and define as their own. Your story takes place in a border region between the feudal peoples of the Lendesi and the tribal clans of the Vinsaxi. The region contains all of the usual terrain types, towns and dungeons of any classic fantasy tale, and as the story unfolds you will either be tasked or find opportunities to explore all of the possible areas. The use of a new area allows the developers to carve out their own method for telling the story without feeling beholden to existing terrain boundaries or clan borders, and it works pretty well. You will not be so smitten that you will be clambering for new tales in this land, but neither will you have issues with choices made that clash with years of established history for the other regions.

D&D Tactics claims to have depth enough for tabletop veterans yet simplicity enough to be enjoyable for those who neither know nor care about poring over massive manuals and tables of statistics and rules. That is a pretty ambitious task, and one that the game does a merely adequate job of meeting. The entire documentation for the game consists of about 35 pages (in a 50 page manual with 15 pages of PSP info and credits) including explanation of game modes, multiplayer, controls and so on. That really doesn't leave much room to explain the underpinnings of what is going on during a battle for either the novice or expert. For example, an experienced player doesn't get adequate explanations of how some of the passive skills such as intimidation actually work in battle, and a novice to D&D will likely be left wondering why they see that little word 'Miss' so often.

There are two things that save the game in this regard - tutorials and a glossary. The glossary section of the manual will never replace an actual rule book, but it works well enough to answer most of the questions that will come up while preparing for adventure - things like Saving Throws and Hit Dice and so on. Combined with the in-game text it provides just enough information to help new players make headway with some of the daunting D&D jargon, but I would still recommend choosing from the selection of existing characters the game offers for the first few missions at least. The actual gameplay is explained much better through a series of tutorials that address the implications of some key D&D features without getting into details - Attacks of Opportunity, Flanking, Area of Effect spells, and so on. In fact, I would recommend the tutorials for everyone as an introduction to the game's view of the D&D world.

Let me just say that I unabashedly loved the character creation process ... I was tingling thinking about the possibilities as I went page by page through the creation of each character I planned to include in my party. Of course, you don't need to spend the ludicrous amount of time I did toiling over each and every detail of every character stat, feat and skill. The game offers two quick-start possibilities: you can just grab a bunch of pre-made characters and start adventuring, or if you want some control there is a 'recommended' option for each step in the character creation screen. Want to control everything but the skill point distribution for your rogue? Choose 'recommended' for that and make your selections for the rest. It is a very flexible system that will feel make those familiar with PC games such as Neverwinter Nights or Baldur's Gate feel right at home. You choose a gender and race, your character class and alignment, then begin assigning attributes - you start with statistics, then skills, and then feats and whatever spells might be appropriate to your character class. Then you choose portraits and appearances, a name and you're done.

However, the character creation system is not without flaws - while the in-game comments on everything you do will be somewhat helpful, they are too technical to really guide someone new to D&D, and provide too little detail to provide the necessary nuance to an experienced player attempting to understand how skills and feats will play out in a 'tactics' game setting. For example, if you are new to D&D you will approach the main menu and wonder about creating your own party. You will first find that the manual is no help in this regard - there is no 'simple guide to setting up a party'. The only way to learn about building characters is to just jump right in and do it!

At the same time, as an experienced D&D player you would expect to be able to choose a human fighter or Paladin and take Power Attack and Cleave as your first level feats. You can't do that since the feat menu doesn't auto-update to reflect what is chosen - Cleave becomes available at 2nd level, but that isn't explained anywhere. Also, while alignment is important to the game in terms of choices and ultimately the ending, it is apparently only the alignment of the main character that matters. You can have a Paladin team up with five chaotic evil characters without any issue I could find. The developers have stated that no one will leave your party if you choose against their alignment, nor can Paladin's 'fall' based on choices.

So you have created a group of adventurers and gone through the tutorials, now what to do? You start a new adventure and you're off! You will choose your 'main character' and then a set of five 'additional characters'. The main character is the one who speaks to everyone, appears in all cutscenes and is the leader of the group. The main character is also the only one whose death will end the adventure.

Having selected your party you are dumped unceremoniously on to the world map at the town of Arion. There are a number of things you can do here, most of which will become core activities throughout the non-adventure parts of your game time. These include using the 'Party Management' screen to fiddle around with your party member's inventory or view their characteristics or swap items between them or level them up; make a stop in at the 'Adventurer's Guild' (or Temple or Wizard's Tower or whatever that locale features) to buy or sell items or potentially hire new adventurers to accompany you on your quest (since six is still the maximum, anyone you replace will have to wait for you to possibly re-hire them). You can also view information about the location, and finally you can start the quest for the area by choosing the 'Adventure' option. While you wait (about a minute or so) for the adventure to load you can read the details on the screen along with whatever hints are offered.

The first thing that happens in any adventure is that you place your characters on contiguous squares on the grid. This is a familiar enough start for anyone who has played strategy-RPG's before, but is somewhat different than what most RPG gamers would be used to doing. But it is central to everything you do throughout the game - each adventure map is a large grid, and every bit of the action is turn based. (I will explain more about the game world in a later section on maps) Each turn consists of two actions - movement and a 'standard action' such as attack, magic or using an item. In addition, each character has a movement range based on their race, size and encumbrance. So once you've placed your characters (you only get to choose two for the first quest), you will get some dialogue between the characters and then you start the game in earnest.

In many turn-based games in the cRPG and jRPG sub-genres, you move around the map in real-time and only drop into turn-based mode for battles. And in PC D&D games such as Temple of Elemental Evil, you move as a group while not in combat and don't have to deal with movement ranges and the like until combat begins. Not so here: from the very beginning you will see that you need to control every action for every character whether you are in 'Adventure Mode' or 'Combat Mode'. You select one of your characters, choose move from the menu, step around the grid and press X to choose your final location. Then if you are in adventure mode you can select your other character or continue making actions with the first character. However, even in adventure mode the game treats everything as both turn and round based. The turn consists of two actions per character as mentioned, and the round consists of all allies and enemies using up their turns. This means that every 'standard action' you want to perform costs a round. So you are in Adventure Mode it will take at least two or three rounds to have your cleric buff your party with Bless and your fighters with Bull's Strength and ... huh, did I lose you there?

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