User Rating: 5 | Dungeons & Dragons Heroes XBOX
Iam a big fan of Action-RPG games since Baldurs Gate:Dark Alliance for the XBOX. I had high hopes that Dungeons and Dragons:Heroes would be another great Action-RPG for my XBOX, but after playing it for a few hours my felings are mixed. The game story is easy to understand, four heroes stormed a castle and killed the evil sorcerer named Keladin, but with the last ounce of his life he cast a spell which instantly kills all four heroes. 150 years later a group of evil clerics revived the long dead wizard and now he's planning to take over the world once again. The only way to save the world is to revived the four dead heroes that defeated the wizard 150 years ago, and this is where you come in. At the start of the game you choose one of four heroes to play. There are the fighter, wizard, cleric, and the rogue. They each have their own strength, weakness, and their own set of skills. The gameplay is reminescent of gauntlet with Dungeons and Dragons rules, you explore the levels in order to reach the exit at the same time you'll be killing monsters, collecting loot, and gathering expierence to level up. The first thing I noticed when playing the game was the frame rate, it constantly drops during the game which is really annoying. The second thing I noticed about the game was the difficulty level, surpisingly the game is easy. This sounds good, but it actually limits the game's appeal: enemies are only challenging in groups, your character quickly becomes to powerful, the game makes it too easy for you to stock up on health and mystical will potions, and the game's ressurect amulets(they revive you from death) eliminates any need of strategy. The simple gameplay also effect the role playing elements of this game, while each character has their own set of skills you quickly learn that some of them are overpowered, a good example would be the sorceress magic missle, you can quickly maxed this spell early and it's effective through 75% of the game. Another good example is the fighters whirlwind, you can get this skill early, and once you do you'll easily destroy groups of enemies through the entire game. There also seems to be a lack of variety in the weapons and armor. For a game that has D&D rules, each charcter can only use one type of weapon: Fighters use swords, wizards use staffs, clerics use hammers, and the rogues use daggers. The game has an interesting twist on the weapons though, your starting weapons(Ancestral Weapon is their name) was the same weapon that your character use to defeat Keladin 150 years ago not surprisingly your weapon's strength has diminished, but their is a way to restore your weapon to its former glory, throughout the levels there are special items called Ancestral Crystals that are hidden in some of the level's "secret" areas. There are 20 crystals in the game, and for every 5 crystals you collect your Ancestral Weapon becomes more powerful. This feature is a double-edge sword, if you find all the crystals then your starting weapon will always be useful, but this eliminates any reason to use any of the weapons that you find or buy from the game's only shop. All four characters use the same armor. There are some good things about the gameplay: the controls are perfect, its very accessable game, the games pace is good, and you never stay in a level for a long time. The game also supports four player co-op, and though its a much more enjoyable expierence than the single player mode, its still easy and framerate problems are still there. Graphicly, this game has a rough look to it. The levels look decent, but the character models are mediocre, and you'll noticed this as you watch in-game cutscenes. There is a problem in the game that throws of the voice acting during the cutscenes, and the frame rate even drops in the cutscenes. The sound is decent, but it has the same problems as the graphics. Overall, this is a decent game, but it just doesn't offer any sense of challenge. I do recommend this game for multiplayer, but that's it, the single player expierence is just repetive, boring, and offers little rewards. For me this game has been nothing but a disapointment.