Solasta: Crown of the Magister

I like my role playing games to be ROLE playing games. I mean rich, interesting stories, lore and depths. I felt Solasta had nothing of the sort: it’s a shallow, story-dumb game. I played in co-op, we both made efforts to get into the plot and make interesting characters. Solasta offered such a poor support for role play that we cringed multiple times listening to awfully blend dialogues and predictable story. I'm actually sad it gets to that because I personally believe the game has some of the most innovative ideas to renew a genre that is looking too much in the past. But, Solasta devs lacked money and time. What a great idea to have dialogue lines delivered by the character that is closest to its corresponding characteristics like how shy, pragmatic, careful, greedy, etc. A fresh take on old-school RPGs that could be simply amazing if there weren’t so little pre-recorded dialogue lines… So sometimes, it’s bluffing how a player-made character becomes alive by leaning on being pragmatic, careful or greedy, and sometimes, it is stupid how out-of-character lines are delivered forcefully to make the (weak) plot advance. The combat system is quite nice, but it would require better explanations (why can I poison my bow but can’t stack a poison bow and a buffed special arrow?). Places look dead. 3 people to talk to in an entire city? Nobody is moving. Dead. Coop saves the game in my opinion.

... this would be just another unfinished alpha-quality early access. Yes, the mostly faithful implementation of the 5E system gives me nostalgic feelings, but this game has _so_ many issues: [warning, very mild spoilers] - Character creation is clumsy ... took me +1h before I managed to create a party where the voices and traits vaguely fit the characters - Every other dialoge you can see characers glitching in and out of pose (e.g., I can see my paladin sitting for 2 frames before he stands straight) - dialoges don't match subtitles - parts of dialog are not voiced over - althoug some character lines are sometimes funny, they often talk and react like real-world people playing D&D, not like "believable in-world characters" - some spells literally break the game ... Dominate Person a bandit ... keeps following me over the world map, next location the game blocks all UI whenever I try to enter combat - UI is generall bugged. Wanna hold that frost cantrip when that fire elemental comes close? Too bad, gonna Firebolt it anyway ... - Some missions just pop up and make no sense. Walk by some cells, hear nothing, see nothing, suddenly quest appears in inventory to "help these slaves". Wat? I didn't even interact with anyone, let alone know who to help why and whatfor. - Wanna push that pillar over? Yep, gonna step right in front if it and ... ouch my head hurts. I could go on, but you get the point. Yes, if you like D&D and your real world friends are busy the game lets you practice 5E tactics and might even give you some ideas. If you're looking for an immersive bug-free(!) adventure you don't need to save-scum because something-just-broke, maybe wait for a few more months.

This game is strange. It is pretty and totally empty. Even though it looks like you can RP some party adventures there is Zero added immersion to this affect. Example: These 4 meet at the tavern. The conversations are excellent and they are all drinking and telling stories. Some great laughs with how the choices made during character creation are added to the dialogues. Fun stuff. After this intro (tutorial part) it ends. Nothing. Empty echoes. The only you can do after this is rent a 4 bed room for 10g where nobody sleeps and time simply slips by....for exactly 8hrs. No drinking, dice games or other options. Simply nothing. The rest of the game is exactly what the example above describes. It is an empty shell of a game. The UI is excellent and the visuals are great. Love the spell casting visuals and audio.....very NWN2-like. The game is on rails empty and it gets boring fast. The random encounters are also lazy. Some are brutal/impossible for the level, some are a real challenge but doable, then some are basic curb stomping. Very strange and lazy devs for the encounter tables. Starting at level 1 (level 2 post tutorial)? All 4 characters are veterans of some sort (my dwarf even wears a campaign badge) and they start as a 'Farmer Newb Trope'? Come on. If these 4 are going to be Level 1 then make the story one of the common tropes for Zero to Hero. With these 4, per the story, they should start at level 4 or 5. Especially given 50% of the encounters are very difficult until level 4-ish. The story is fun though and I loved all the comments and banter during combat. The rest of the game stinks or lazy though. Too bad. This could have been a good one with the toolset included. Lastly, is this what AD&D devolved into with 5e? I think I will stick with Rolemaster and AD&D 3.5.

It's hard to give this game straightforward opinion. On one hand we have amazing adaptation of DnD, with some uncommon but very good ideas. On the other hand we have a game looking like from previous decade with stiff animations, shallow story with very bad written dialogues. But in the end I can't say it's a good buy. We have to consider the price of the game: time spent in developement AND early access (which tbh wasn't looking much worse then "released" game) and how the game looks in 2021 says it's all. You cannot sell product for that price in this times by just giving good mechanics. You have to care about the story, graphics etc. Besides you can max level into level 10, which is just big bummer as you basically blocked from half of the skills and stuff. Also there are only 5 races and 6 classes! It's even less then BG3 early access. As I can understand logic behind not implementing classes and races due to some world design, but we still get some skills that are clearly marked that they are not even used in the game, WTF!? You can play custom campaing but it lacks actual tabletop experience (maby multiplayer with DM?). This game is still Early Access. There is nothing that distinguish it from unfinished product in developement. Do not buy it, check it on Game Pass.

I bought this while it was on sale, and I'm glad that I read the other reviews first because, as already a lot of others have said, the game is not worth the full price. The combat system is great, and the DnD rules are well-implemented, which makes it fun to try out different characters. Those are the only good things about this game, unfortunately. The campaign's story could've been a lot better. Towards the end, it's totally rushed, and you can clearly see that the devs were in a hurry to get the game released. The voice acting is cringe-worthy, and the 3D cutscenes are not nice to look at because the character models look like pulled from the early 2000s. This money would've been better invested in delivering a great story just using a text-based system without 3D cutscenes like in Divinity: Original Sin or Pillars of Eternity. Also, the fact that some basic classes like druid, barbarian and monk are only playable when you buy the according DLCs leaves a taste of an unfinished game where the focus was on getting it released quickly and making more money by hiding basic classes behind a paywall. Because of the great combat and character system, I am having more fun at the moment with user-created campaigns (the Lost Valley DLC is slightly better than the main campaign but still lacking in depth, so I won't give the 3rd DLC "Palace of Ice" a try until it's heavily discounted). Thankfully, the devs have delivered a decent dungeon-maker tool so that people can implement interesting campaigns themselves. To wrap it up: The combat and character system are fun, but the campaign's story is linear, predictable and lacking in depth. Get this game and the Inner Strength + Primal Calling DLCs when they are on sale, and have a look at user-created campaigns. Then you get to enjoy good stories too.