Solasta: Crown of the Magister

The gameplay is addictive and relatively faithful to what you would expect. Combat is fun and highly enjoyable - the biggest asset of the game, one of its strongest points compared to some other titles. The environments are very good, particularly visually and the world they've built is interesting. However, there are some elements of the game that could be improved on or revised, such as the character models, story and general ideas that could be injected into this game or any future instalment to increase the likelihood of replayability. Character models, especially those of major NPCs and PCs, need more customisation options as well as a general increase in quality. They are not awful (I have seen much worse), but they really only hold up in general gameplay and combat; where you aren't so focused on them and the camera is a distance away. In cutscenes, the quality issue becomes much more noticeable, especially the hair. Despite this, enemy designs hold up well and do distract somewhat from the appearances of the PCs. I consider the story very short for an RPG, which is a shame when there is so much material to be expanded upon and explored. Overall the CotM campaign is interesting but starts to fall flat a bit later on towards the end. Thankfully, the devs have included a map and campaign editor which does help with replayability, so this is where I believe the modding community/other players will help the game shine a bit more. At a quick glance, the editor seems to have only the assets used in the main game, though I feel that more effort could have been put into adding more to increase the output of players creating fully-fledged campaigns. I believe this is something the modding community will remedy over time. It is a bit disappointing that some backgrounds, races and classes had to be purchased separately from the main title. I personally felt these should have been included in the vanilla game, opening up more interesting possibilities for DLC.

I know game is based on tabletop game, but I never played it, I don't know the rules and I'm reviewing it as computer game. Stoyline is.. well medicore. Its a "four randoms save the world" cliche. I like voice acting and general conversations however. Graphics is okay..iish? Environments are good, PCs and monsters are OK. They don't look good in cutscenes. UI is weird, looks like prototype. Game has terrible UX, its so clunky and you must fight interface all the game. Why I give it 5 star then? Because there is one thing game excels at and its the combat. I'm impressed with tactical combat, encounters are nicely and carefully crafted, its not like "you walk in the room with 3 zombies inside". There are a lot of terrain movement, fortifications, etc. Combat itself is a "tale of low numbers" which I really like in games. Basically, damage/hp scaling in game is very low, you won't do milion dps here but it makes game very balanced. I like the idea of managing resources that you can recover on campfires. I wish game would be more balanced around it (more spell/skill usages, but limited campfire use, because in some areas you can abuse campfires to enter every battle with full supply). I think game should have more careful balancing though. While all of my players feel worth in party, I feel there is something off about spellcasting in this game. There are some spells that are higher level but deal less damage than lower level ones (fireball outdamages flame strike). Also, spell damage seems really out of place. When I fight 3 arches, I know they do 10-15 damage to me. However a single 30hp spellcaster can AOE me for 60+ damage with some ice spells. Also, game should have more tutorials about rules for non-tabletop players. Half of game I didnt know why "sometimes" my spells deal exacly half of the dice damage. It took me sometime what is concentation about. I didn't knew why some enemies cancel my spells. What conditions are to deal bonus damage with rogue, etc.

The system is well done and the gameplay is quite engaging if you like Turn based games. Put off buying this for months, but BG3 had me reinterested in DnD. Solasta does a really good job of pulling you into the DnD game. Writing varies between entertaining dialogue ( some of my Barb's comebacks are hilarious, frankly) and fairly tedious jumble-word fantasy plot crap. Tighten down the plot and edit out a lot of the cliches that occasionally make it feel like your high-school TTRPG game, and this would be a five star game for sure. Summary: Fun turnbased fantasy game, probably better than you are expecting it to be. Well worth the money!

So, I really like Solasta. I purchased all the DLCs. I have beat both campaigns a couple times. I mainly got it to get a better feel and understanding of 5e rules and game play, and to prepare me for both table top play and BG3... when it eventually releases. The concept of "character traits" driving dialogue seemed a bit odd, but it works decently well. Having characters reply based on their "personalities" and classes makes different playthroughs a bit more unique. The overall balancing and structure of the game is pretty good, to include the quests. They are nothing amazing or super memorable, but they aren't bad. So... what are some things I don't like? Limited to a party of 4 and no animal companions or familiars. I like playing a ranger, or a spellcaster with a familiar. Nope, not happening here. And being limited to a party of 4... kinda sucks. It limits how much I want to replay. While I fully grant that I don't NEED a tank, cleric, rogue, and pure spellcaster, and could theoretically have a party full of bards or whatever... I really don't like playing without those classes. What I then like to do is experiment with those other 2 party slots with other classes or interesting multi-classes. But, I don't want to not have my full healing. I don't want to not have my full spellcasting. I don't want to have someone who can't sneak and deal with traps and backstab... so being limited to 4 really isn't awesome. WHY does this game stress out my computer so much? It has to be terribly optimized... because it gets my computer HOT and will literally crash it over and over. I have a Acer Predator Helios and it can handle Cyberpunk 2077 at decently high settings for hours without a problem... yet this game just tries to murder my laptop. It makes no sense. So, yeah. If you could have a party of 6, animal companions/familiars, and the game was properly optimized... it would definitely be 4.5 star game. As it is... 4 stars.

Finished a game and from a tactical perspective I liked it. interesting terrain, ability to fly or walk on walls is really cool. Game is not to short, so the game would end almost immediately after you start enjoying it, nor to long, so you would have to suffer for 1000 hours of a boring grind. Story is there, that is it, not really interesting, no memorable characters (well maybe with an exception of a first scavenger, but only thanks to a good performance of a voice actor ), it is not unbelievably stupid, it is just there to explain to the player why they have to go somewhere and do something. While I did enjoy the game, I have to admit that the RPG part is a bit lacking. A lot of skills that simply do not have a use in game (blacksmithing, or slight of hand, or mostly stealth, or if you have a mage, the lock opening, or acrobatics, same goes mostly for all talking skills, since there is not a lot of skill checks for them in game, or history/arcana perks, since sometimes you can see a skill check for it but in most cases I see no difference if I will pass it or fail it, and probably more ) or languages that are not used, not enough feats, and ability to upgrade your stats only to 20 through level-up's, magic was mostly good, but some spells were bugged (magic missile shot 4 shots instead of 3, same goes for scorching ray ) and I found a lot of descriptions lacking necessary information. Scrolls completely lack any description of the spell that they should summon. Some classes are significantly more useful than the others. BUT I see a potential in this game if it will be further developed, add more feats, expand on RPG and story parts for this game, and maybe it will be an absolute gem. I am giving this game 4/5 with hope of further development, as it is now it is closer to 3-3.5/5