Posted on: January 1, 2015
Bluddy
Games: 929 Reviews: 18
Not Soldak's strongest game, but still good
My first experience with Soldak games was with Depths of Peril, followed by Din's Curse. I implore you to try those fantastic games out even if you don't end up buying Drox. As in all Soldak games, Drox builds on the foundation of the previous games, while mixing up the formula. The dynamic quest system is clearly the best and most unique part of Soldak games, and here it's used for a more mundane purpose: races have quests that need to be done for them, or they'll suffer consequences. The main problem is that you don't care about any specific race -- you're just a mercenary for hire. This works well in some games, but here, there isn't enough to interest you if you don't have a vested interest in one of the factions. I will say that the faction system is done very well here. Each race is trying to win, and you can play races against each other. If a race declares war on you, your allies will be dragged into war, and that can easily cause a huge galactic war. You can also be dragged into war by one of your allies. This makes the relationship system very cool, though a dominant strategy in the game is often to suck up to the strongest race. The game has multiple victory conditions like Civilization, but I feel like this hurts the gameplay in this case since it's not a 4X. It makes you just find the shortest path to victory, rather than giving you a challenge. Another difference from previous games is that your items determine your skills. This is really good in that you gain new skills over time, rather than keep the same skills forever. Inventory management is complex, as your ship has limitations set by skills, space, and power. The downside of this approach is that there are just too many items (given that this is an ARPG) and it's too much work to keep calculating if an item is better than your current items. All in all, this is a fresh take on a genre that is at least interesting, even if it's not my favorite. Regardless, I think many people will enjoy it.
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