If you’re a fan of DnD games or want a game that sticks to the DnD rule set, pick this game up and use the fan patches.
If you’ve ever played Dungeons and Dragons (DnD), you’re familiar with the TOEE adventure, a pre-designed adventure/module that professional game writers created for players to purchase and then Dungeon Master to their own party and friends around a table. Well, Troika first picked out the Greyhawk setting and then proceeded to choose a popular adventure and came to the conclusion of choosing the TOEE module. They chose to go with a pre-designed adventure so that they could focus more on developing the game instead of creating a unique adventure, plus if it was one that fans were familiar with, they’d be more adept to being interested in it. The story of the TOEE is pretty cut and dry with an adventuring party coming into the village of Hommlet and learning of the Temple of Elemental Evil. The temple, which was closed up by ancient wizards and mages to once and for all lock all the evil demons inside seems to have been breached and now strange things are lurking across the land where it had once been peaceful. There is quite a bit of small tasks and quests to do throughout the village Hommlet where you can build up your party and each of these quests are unique enough to easily separate themselves from each other, but it just seems like you’re grinding away to build your characters up before you make your way to the actual temple. And this feeling of ‘grinding’ is from the game being an actual DnD adventure instead of something created fresh from the developers. When Black Isle created the storyline for the Baldur’s gate games, they started fresh for both and built the adventure from there giving the player quite a few hours of gameplay with a lot of quests along the way that made the story progress keeping the player interested. TOEE does have quite a few quests, but all the quests are centered around a couple different areas and the amount of walking can get quite tedious if you’ve seen it ten times before. Unlike either the Baldur’s Gate or Icewind Dale games though, in TOEE, your characters only go from level one to level ten and this what might make the grinding so long because of the lack of areas to explore when progressing through the game till you reach the final temple. But we’re not here to compare the two games, I’m just trying to show how the story of TOEE can be seen as lacking.
The Temple of Elemental Evil is the first game ever to use the 3.5 rule set of DnD and this is convenient because these are the rules that everyone interested in DnD associates with. In the beginning, you’re able to create up to five party members which is quite fun with all the different combinations you can have. Along your adventuring way, you’ll be able to gain members around the different villages to up your party to eight members total to take on Greyhawk’s toughest monsters You’re able to choose everything for them in the 3.5 rule set all the way down to their alignment and alignment does count because each alignment has a different starting point in the game. The issue you’ll have with dealing with alignment is that all of the characters within your party have to be somewhat close in alignment so you won’t have to deal with confrontations between opposing personalities. There are quite a bit of different customizations that you can do to your characters including height and weight along with different hair colors. Trying to stick as close as they can to the rule set, Troika made combat within the game turn-based game. While this helps to regulate the DnD rule set easier, it also makes the game last quite a long time in some battles. And because of the many different rules in DnD, this is where the game runs into trouble. Dealing with different abilities such as dodge and the different types of attacks in DnD, it can be quite hard to implement every rule perfectly into the combat system. Even though combat is turn-based and because of it, the rules being easier to implement, this is where the game struggles. Because of all the rules and different configurations that are needed with the different feats and abilities, bugs are numerous in TOEE and to hardcore DnD fans, this is unacceptable. To the average gamer that is not as familiar with the rule set, they could probably easily play the game without noticing any of this, but Troika had to know from the outset that this game would appeal more to the hardcore DnD people. One thing should be said about the turn-based combat though, and that is that it creates a strategic depth not found in other DnD games, but at a cost of having a slower gameplay with numerous bugs.
Graphics within the game are quite nice with the different characters that you can create and the different NPCs spread throughout the game are both unique and separate from each other because of all the different types of clothing that is available at the different shops around the towns. Each of the characters and monsters have nice animations where cloaks and hoods sway with each footstep to make the characters more realistic in the game. The different environments that you’ll adventure through are nicely detailed with a combination of pre-rendered backgrounds and constant graphics. The village of Hommlet and the village of Nulb are quite different and so are their art designs and the design of the Temple of Elemental Evil was done to what anyone could have imagined it. The art and graphics have to be somewhat of a high point in this game and this gives some humor to the situation because in games such as this, dealing with DnD, fans would probably have graphics be one of the lowest components of the game that they would want to care about, but this is where TOEE shines. The different spell affects are quite nice and unique and the combat animations look great with each and every character you see.
The music within in the game shines also, but there is basically only one problem and that is that there really isn’t enough of it. With the extended amount of time that you’ll be in combat, you’ll soon learn to loathe the musical score that plays while taking on the different zombies and wraiths in the Temple of Elemental Evil. When choosing and making your different characters, you’re able to choose different voice sets for them which you’ll hear throughout the game as you give them different actions. While the different voices are nice, there really isn’t a lot of choose from at the start up. However, the different voices of the NPCs that you’ll meet throughout your adventures provide depth to the different characters.
One nice feature that this game could have had was a multiplayer component. There is some replay qualities to the game with the different combinations of characters you could take along the adventure, but I think developers are overshooting themselves when they say that TOEE has a non-linear storyline. There really is one set path for you to take, it’s just the grinding that you’re subdued to throughout the games length. And not having any modding tools released for the game truly does hurt the fan community down considerably. Some fans have gotten together to try and make their own patches for the game considering that only three were released for this game, and that’s quite a small amount considering the amount of bugs in the game. The fan patches help out quite a bit, but one can only compare this game’s support to Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines, another game by the same developer where fans had to take it upon themselves to patch the game up the way it was meant to be played.
Everything aside, besides the numerous bugs, the lack of patch support and having no modding tools available, TOEE does try its hardest to stick true to the DnD 3.5 rule set. You could easily say that this game incorporates DnD rules the best out of all the DnD games so far including the BG and IWD series and also Neverwinter Nights. From Troika’s three titles they released before they closed down including Arcanum, TOEE, and Vampire: TM – B, one can easily see they had great visions for their games, it’s just that they couldn’t execute the final product all the way through whether it was because of the lack of time, funds, or support from their publisher, one can only guess. If you’re a fan of other DnD games or want a game that sticks to the rule set, pick this game up and use the fan patches and have a good experience.