08-23-2006, 11:58 PM
Somewhat against my better judgement, I picked up TQ recently and am about 2/3 (?) of the way through the normal difficulty game (in Memphis), with a -- so far -- pure hunting-mastery archer.
The game is more fun than I expected, even if it lacks a single piece of original DNA in its software genome. I can almost hear the developers saying: "Maybe this feature hasn't already been tested in another action RPG --- I think we better not include it in TQ."
Actually, one thing I haven't seen before is "mana reserving" skills --- these are buffs that take up a certain amount of your mana pool when active, but have unlimited time duration; as someone who detests continually having to recast buffs, I really like them. I'm sure someone else can say what game this idea was lifted from.
The graphics are really pretty, with swaying grass fields, extra arrows stuck in the ground, nice water, and so on, though the game seems to labor unnecessarily with shadow effects, especially when there are lots of fires around. The connections with Greek mythology are neat. I found it fun, for example, to run unexpectedly into the Caledonian boar, even if Medusa turned out to be rather a wimp. What were all those stone statues doing outside her cave if the worst she could do to me was stun me for a second or two with a little gaze attack? I suppose she arranged the statues there to unecessarily alarm novice heroes, and make them wonder if they should be carting with them into her lair non-existent mirrors or shiny shields.
TQ overall is definitely too easy, although not quite as easy as the demo suggests -- I have managed to die a few times. But it has always been for one basic reason: being too stingy in drinking a health potion. The one time this was unavoidable was in a boss fight against Alastor in the catacombs beneath the Parthenon. You get locked in the room with him (as with most of the other main bosses) and the minions he summons. I went in with 20 potions, which turned out not to be enough -- the main bosses have quite a bit of life and take a while to whittle down, at least for my archer. It was just a matter of returning to life (when you die, which carries a small xp penalty, or start a new game, you appear at the last activated "rebirth fountain" -- the basic mechanism in the game for saving your progress, though the monsters respawn in a new game), portaling to town (you have unlimited portals to any portal=waypoint you have already activated), stocking up on 50 health potions (just to be on the safe side, along with 10 mana, I mean energy, potions, which normally I never use, to cast the "study prey" debuff on Alastor, who had a mana draining attack), portaling back down to the rebirth fountain, and taking him out.
I would say TQ feels throughout like the first few levels of the Church in D1, and if anything gets easier as you increase in clvl and acquire better equipment. The harder difficulty levels, nightmare and hell, oops I mean legendary and epic, with their resistance penalties (wonder where they got that from?) and other stuff, may be different. I don't know. On the other hand, given the length of the countryside you have to go through, however pretty, I doubt that many people could stomach really having to work hard at killing stuff.
One particular gripe I have is that the monsters have a limited range of travel from where they spawn, as if they were bound by elastic rope. They only chase you so far and then turn around and start to run back. For normal monsters this is irrelevant, but if you're swarmed (doesn't happen too much) or face a boss with a lot of life, it is trivial to kill them by:
hit-retreat-(mobs run away)-advance-hit-(mobs run back)-hit-retreat-(mobs run away)-...
Pretty silly really. At least they lock you in a room with the main bosses.
There are many other little things too that suggest a lack of attention to detail --- for example, rotating traps that fire out missiles, but never actually change the direction of the missiles, so you simply stand in one place and take out the traps. I like the 3d-isometric view, but in TQ -- unlike most other similar games -- there seems to be no way to change the angle and perspective of what you see, unless (as is possible) I missed something. I keep holding down my right mouse button and trying to rotate the view, with no effect. Character creation options are really minimal. (You mean, all I get is this lousy T-shirt color? And my gender, of course.)
Item generation is definitely screwed up. While there is some overall progression, it's very spotty. It almost seems like I got more items with a clvl 8 requirement when I was clvl 2 than when I was clvl 10. Then there was the blacksmith out in the wilds of Greece who was supposed to offer great items, yet the standard merchants in the next town (Delphi, down the road, not far away) had better stuff...
Overall, TQ is a reasonably fun game (and definitely a cut above games like Divine Divinity or Sacred). In the long run, though, I think two critical elements are needed for replayability: randomized environments, and a strong multiplayer component. The multiplayer component exists in TQ but, as far as I can tell, is pretty weak and is more-or-less a single player add on, not even up to D1 b.net standards. As far as randomization is concerned, it's not enough to have random item drops -- I really believe you need randomization of the environments to succeed. I suppose the reason that TQ, or many other games, have these huge, mostly linear, pretermined environments, is because that' the only way they think they can provide enough content. (And maybe they can provide enough new stuff to keep people happy in MMORPGs -- I don't know.)
In fact, I would suggest a personality test for computer RPGs, based on the following categories:
1) Interesting/Boring gameplay
2) Single/Multiplayer support
3) Fancy/Ordinary graphics
4) Random/Deterministic environments
So, for example, the worst possible game would be a BSOD. Well, actually, the worst possible game is Dungeon Siege, which was a BSFD, but that just goes to show no classification scheme is perfect. I would put TQ as perhaps a marginal ISFD, though it could also be a BSFD. Diablo (1&2) would be an IMOR, KoTOR or Oblivion would be an ISFD, and Guild Wars an IMFD.
The game is more fun than I expected, even if it lacks a single piece of original DNA in its software genome. I can almost hear the developers saying: "Maybe this feature hasn't already been tested in another action RPG --- I think we better not include it in TQ."
Actually, one thing I haven't seen before is "mana reserving" skills --- these are buffs that take up a certain amount of your mana pool when active, but have unlimited time duration; as someone who detests continually having to recast buffs, I really like them. I'm sure someone else can say what game this idea was lifted from.
The graphics are really pretty, with swaying grass fields, extra arrows stuck in the ground, nice water, and so on, though the game seems to labor unnecessarily with shadow effects, especially when there are lots of fires around. The connections with Greek mythology are neat. I found it fun, for example, to run unexpectedly into the Caledonian boar, even if Medusa turned out to be rather a wimp. What were all those stone statues doing outside her cave if the worst she could do to me was stun me for a second or two with a little gaze attack? I suppose she arranged the statues there to unecessarily alarm novice heroes, and make them wonder if they should be carting with them into her lair non-existent mirrors or shiny shields.
TQ overall is definitely too easy, although not quite as easy as the demo suggests -- I have managed to die a few times. But it has always been for one basic reason: being too stingy in drinking a health potion. The one time this was unavoidable was in a boss fight against Alastor in the catacombs beneath the Parthenon. You get locked in the room with him (as with most of the other main bosses) and the minions he summons. I went in with 20 potions, which turned out not to be enough -- the main bosses have quite a bit of life and take a while to whittle down, at least for my archer. It was just a matter of returning to life (when you die, which carries a small xp penalty, or start a new game, you appear at the last activated "rebirth fountain" -- the basic mechanism in the game for saving your progress, though the monsters respawn in a new game), portaling to town (you have unlimited portals to any portal=waypoint you have already activated), stocking up on 50 health potions (just to be on the safe side, along with 10 mana, I mean energy, potions, which normally I never use, to cast the "study prey" debuff on Alastor, who had a mana draining attack), portaling back down to the rebirth fountain, and taking him out.
I would say TQ feels throughout like the first few levels of the Church in D1, and if anything gets easier as you increase in clvl and acquire better equipment. The harder difficulty levels, nightmare and hell, oops I mean legendary and epic, with their resistance penalties (wonder where they got that from?) and other stuff, may be different. I don't know. On the other hand, given the length of the countryside you have to go through, however pretty, I doubt that many people could stomach really having to work hard at killing stuff.
One particular gripe I have is that the monsters have a limited range of travel from where they spawn, as if they were bound by elastic rope. They only chase you so far and then turn around and start to run back. For normal monsters this is irrelevant, but if you're swarmed (doesn't happen too much) or face a boss with a lot of life, it is trivial to kill them by:
hit-retreat-(mobs run away)-advance-hit-(mobs run back)-hit-retreat-(mobs run away)-...
Pretty silly really. At least they lock you in a room with the main bosses.
There are many other little things too that suggest a lack of attention to detail --- for example, rotating traps that fire out missiles, but never actually change the direction of the missiles, so you simply stand in one place and take out the traps. I like the 3d-isometric view, but in TQ -- unlike most other similar games -- there seems to be no way to change the angle and perspective of what you see, unless (as is possible) I missed something. I keep holding down my right mouse button and trying to rotate the view, with no effect. Character creation options are really minimal. (You mean, all I get is this lousy T-shirt color? And my gender, of course.)
Item generation is definitely screwed up. While there is some overall progression, it's very spotty. It almost seems like I got more items with a clvl 8 requirement when I was clvl 2 than when I was clvl 10. Then there was the blacksmith out in the wilds of Greece who was supposed to offer great items, yet the standard merchants in the next town (Delphi, down the road, not far away) had better stuff...
Overall, TQ is a reasonably fun game (and definitely a cut above games like Divine Divinity or Sacred). In the long run, though, I think two critical elements are needed for replayability: randomized environments, and a strong multiplayer component. The multiplayer component exists in TQ but, as far as I can tell, is pretty weak and is more-or-less a single player add on, not even up to D1 b.net standards. As far as randomization is concerned, it's not enough to have random item drops -- I really believe you need randomization of the environments to succeed. I suppose the reason that TQ, or many other games, have these huge, mostly linear, pretermined environments, is because that' the only way they think they can provide enough content. (And maybe they can provide enough new stuff to keep people happy in MMORPGs -- I don't know.)
In fact, I would suggest a personality test for computer RPGs, based on the following categories:
1) Interesting/Boring gameplay
2) Single/Multiplayer support
3) Fancy/Ordinary graphics
4) Random/Deterministic environments
So, for example, the worst possible game would be a BSOD. Well, actually, the worst possible game is Dungeon Siege, which was a BSFD, but that just goes to show no classification scheme is perfect. I would put TQ as perhaps a marginal ISFD, though it could also be a BSFD. Diablo (1&2) would be an IMOR, KoTOR or Oblivion would be an ISFD, and Guild Wars an IMFD.