Posted on: December 23, 2010

Karloff

Games: 9 Reviews: 2

Not bad, but not great.

It's a reasonable D&D sim, but not as good as memory'd have it. It may mean more to you if you remember the old rules; probably a lot less, if you don't. Trip attacks. You'll see tough foes dash past your front line fighters, execute flawless trip attacks on the mage, then beat the spellcaster senseless. It's a strategy, sure, but it's one you'll get very tired of. Nulb. Why does it exist? Hommlet has all kinds of things going on and a huge romance quest. Nulb has almost nothing going for it. Why didn't they just ditch Nulb and skip straight on to the Temple? Yes, Nulb's in the original tabletop RPG, but that was written on paper, not in stone. The combat's interesting and occasionally challenging. The fishing quest will drive you nuts until you get the secret. Once you hit about 6th or 7th level, the challenge goes out of it; 8th or 9th, and you'll be Cleaving your way through most of the encounters. Difficulty does not adjust, which also means that, at low level, you'll get murdered time and again. I guess this is why you shouldn't go into these things with great expectations. It was fun for what it was, and if I'd seen this ten years ago I'd have loved it. Time has passed since then and games have improved. Accept it for what it is: a nostalgia trip, but not a world-shattering experience.

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Posted on: June 18, 2014

retoriplastique

Verified owner

Games: 190 Reviews: 2

The most flawed of cRPG gems

Engrossing turn-based combat (without grids, yay!) is the basis of this representation of the 3.5 ruleset, making for a shallow roleplaying experience (gotta fill the holes with your imagination) but a deep squad-based tactical game, probably the best at that as far as D&D games go. Much better than Neverwinter Nights in that regard, it's a game that is not for everyone - it's not perfect by any means and many of the downsides that don't bother me as much will probably make others ask for a refund immediately. But there must be some deep reasons for loving so much a game that corrupted my saves (it was my fault for save scumming probably), kicked me in the teeth and reduced my sleep hours to the bare minimum: It's just that creating different builds and party combinations and launching into combat against the unforgivable difficulty curve of the game (hits you like a brick until your spellcasters become too OP, just like in 3.5). I loved the game at first sight even with it's severe bugs back in the day, but you don't need to suffer the same pains I did then. There are community patches that are a must, google will help you with that. Among other things, you can unlock the level 10 cap of the original game up to level 20 (clerics will become degenerate gods by then), and even a couple of new campaigns for your party of adventurers. I really miss Troika Games. No other dev has hit such a streak of janky masterpieces as they did.

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Posted on: November 13, 2012

ColorsFade

Verified owner

Games: 13 Reviews: 1

The Best Turn-Based RPG Ever

First off: for anyone complaining about the bugs, immediately go download the Circle of Eight patch/mod (it *is* compatible with GOG version of this game) and patch your game. Bugs Be Gone. Enjoy. End of story. Now, to the game: This is, simply put, the best turn-based RPG ever put to a computer screen. It's combat engine is better than anything I've seen, including the Fallout games (those are better games, story-wise, but the turn-based combat is really thin compared to ToEE's D&D adapted engine). ToEE does what no other computer RPG has ever done, and that is accurately and wonderfully implement the Dungeons & Dragons rules, right down to movement and attacks of opportunity! It's thrilling and fun to watch the table-top D&D rules that so man of us grew up on come to life in a game like this. Combat in this game is strategic and fun! I've never seen a game do D&D rules this well. The story is taken straight out of an adventure module from D&D and is chocked full of neat maps, unique locations, fun loot, some pretty intense combat situations. It's everything you'd expect from D&D. The only thing the game really lacks is some memorable characters. This is one area where games like Baldur's Gate and Fallout have an upper hand - they have memorable NPC's and arguably a much better and deeper story. But those games are deeper and broader games. This is an adventure module, and for what it is, it's a load of fun. This isn't the huge world of Fallout wasteland or the Sword Coast. But what's there is great. And besides, what this game is really about is party-based adventure. Combat is really the heart and soul of ToEE. This game is pure delight for those of us who like to construct our entire adventuring party from scratch, and then go out into the world and adventure. Table-top D&D has always had a far richer combat experience than any computer game could ever emulate. But ToEE gets as close to the real thing as I've ever seen. I mean, attacks of opportunity! Heck yes! AoE spells (Web) that actually matter! And movement is something that is actually important. It's simply awesome to move your cursor around the game and watch the computer calculate your character's path on the ground with bright lines, with markers for attacks of opportunity, letting you know if you can actually make that move and attack, or not. The turn-based combat lends itself to far more strategy than the spacebar-stoppage of games like Baldur's Gate. It's awesome fun to watch your part walk away from a really heated battle with lots of NPC's, somehow surviving because that last sword strike felled the final enemy... It's just awesome fun. The shame is that more games like ToEE aren't made. Because this sort of turn-based D&D RPG is brilliant fun.

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Posted on: October 22, 2010

lucad

Verified owner

Games: 92 Reviews: 1

A too short, but extremelly loyal D&D masterpiece.

If you so allow me, let me start by using an example. Picture this with me: Your 5 man party have just entered a cave rumored to be inhabited by a tribe of cannibal magic-thirsty goblins. You know that they are used to trap invaders, using the many tunnels you, however, are too small to enter. You come to a narrow and long corridor, that reeks of an ambush. Any worried leader would pretty much decide to prepare the front and the back against attacks, while readying everyone on the middle to start blasting both ways with anything that fires, freezes or explodes targets. Now, in most real time strategy games you'd be expected to pause and move everyone at the same time, select spells and struggle to hold your formation against the AI of your characters who desperately charge against the enemies that might come. In ToEE you don't. With a simple right click you so much decide your fighter to stay his ground and automatically strike any incoming creature, as choose the target for your wizard's magic bolts. Every action of the game takes in consideration the real P&P rules, and does this in a way that feels not only easy to experienced users and beginners alike, but on a way that actually feels natural. While the mechanic of the game really is its own pearl, the history also holds it ground. Having excellent variations of itself - each one depending on your party's alignment - and intelligent dialogues and quests, it actually doesn't feels that heavy to read all the lines. And trust me when I say there ain't much to read if you don't want to - fighting is pretty much a click away of any action packed scene on the game. Now, you might be asking me, luc, you gave this game four stars out of five. Where are it's flaws? The answer? Length. The game is extremely short. Anyone used to Baldur's Gate or the infinite expansions of Never Winter Nights will notice how the game progresses too fast for it's own good, as it rushes to the final scenes. Doubling the game length - or even tripling it - would pretty much be what I'd be looking for. Conclusions? A real master piece of it's time. ToEE makes an excellent addition to any RPG fan's shelf. The party setup, the spells, feats, equipment, story, side-quests... Everything that matters is there. And, if you don't really mind, the game's so addictive that it's length actually awards it with an extreme high replay rating.

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Posted on: August 31, 2015

furthest_flung

Games: 3 Reviews: 11

A fantastic game... after patching

This game was an oasis in a sea of desolation in the CRPG scene after BIoWare went off to be less and less RPG makers, and it seemed like no turn-based Western RPG would ever be made again. Here it was: An actual, honest-to-God faithful representation of the 3.5 ed D&D game system, with standard and move actions, ability to toggle special types of attack like all-out attacks or defensive fighting, reach weapons (OK, so minimum range wasn't quite implemented...), different enemies had truly different types of attacks (watch out for stirges that deal constitution damage through bleeding!) and you even had places where sleeping in dank corners would possibly lead to diseases. There was a real, decent attempt at role-playing options in the vein of Baldur's Gate, and your alignment really did seem to matter... ... What went wrong? Why wasn't this the second coming of the Gold Box series or Baldur's Gate? Well, it was a buggy mess. And it took fan patches over a few years to actually put the game back together. It's a true tragedy that a couple more months couldn't be spent on playtesting and bug hunting. Don't get me wrong, WITH the patches, if you're a CRPG fan, there's absolutely no excuse for not playing this gem right now.

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