While there is a world map you traverse, the game is pretty linear. The Crown of the Magister’s locations are well designed. The story also starts stronger than it ends, though that has more to do with the quality of mystery present at the story’s beginning than uneven writing. The game isn’t all that narrative heavy, and the story is primarily there to lead the party from one exotic location to another. While Solasta’s story won’t overwhelm anyone with its originality, players who have taken part in an official Dungeons and Dragons campaign will feel right at home. Our bosses on the council often argue amongst themselves. I found it amusing how my scholarly dwarf was always polite and well spoken, whereas my ranger was always direct, undiplomatic, and insulted my other characters when they performed poorly in combat. Some of these are associated with certain alignments and others with certain backgrounds. In The Crown of the Magister you give each character 3 personality traits. We get to play each character one by one in these flashbacks, and at the same time learn about combat mechanics, skill checks, lighting, manipulating items in the environment and so on.Įven though you design all of the characters in your party yourself, Solasta does a far better job of giving them personalities than other recent party-based games do, In fact the only game which I consider comparable is Wizardry 8. The game starts off with an extremely memorable tutorial, where your four characters are sitting around in a tavern, bragging about their adventures to one another. I found Solasta does an excellent job teaching you its rules. I never play the recommended party in the initial playthrough of a game, and for my first playthrough went with a paladin, ranger, rogue, and cleric for my party. While this is only a portion of the 5th edition’s classes and races, I feel there are enough choices that I could (and probably will) replay it a second time and have a different enough party to make another playthrough interesting. The Crown of the Magister currently features six classes, each with 3 specialties and 4 races, each with 2 subraces. Solasta is my first experience with the 5th edition of Dungeons and Dragons. It’s just that those activities present you with an occasional change of pace from your main task, which is exploring and fighting your way through various dungeons, ruins, caverns, and other exotic locations. You do have a hub, chat with NPCs, get an occasional side quest, can periodically talk yourself out of a conflict, and are rewarded for carefully combing maps. In that way its much more like the aforementioned Temple of Elemental Evil or Icewind Dale. Its much more a linear quest that focuses primarily on dungeon crawling and combat. There’s no big open world, there aren’t tons of quests waiting around every corner, and there are no memorable companions for you to recruit. What Solasta isn’t, and what could potentially disappoint some players, is a Baldur’s Gate. It does an excellent job of giving you the feel of a tabletop game, even actively rolling dice on screen each time your characters make an attack roll or attempt a persuasion check. Solasta: The Crown of Magister is definitely more of the former. Since then I have been a huge fan of games which try to capture the feeling of a Dungeons and Dragons tabletop game, whether it is something pretty close to the original experience, like Temple of Elemental Evil or something more derivative like Pillars of Eternity. I started playing RPGs on the tabletop, and I can still remember my uncle surprised us years ago when he brought the D&D starter box with him on a visit.
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