The Dwarves is a mixed bag. The storyline is good and follows the book pretty closely with a few slight changes. Events that don't feature Tungdil are absent as are a few characters like Mallen and Sverd. There's a character in the game, Giralda who isn't in the first book, she's cool but could've been fleshed out a little more. The way the game is narrated feels nice and cosy, although it is mostly done through voice over and text boxes on the world map. The voice acting and writing are good and the games greatest strengths. Big events are shown in cut scenes, which mostly look nice and show off the character design, which is a bit cartoonish but charming. Other storytelling is done through point and click adventure style levels. These work pretty well and you can tell King Art's team have some experience with that genre. Unfortunately, the combat engine is really disappointing. The quasi tactical battles feel awkard on both a mouse and keyboard and with an Xbox controller. The way commands are issued feels sloppy. The companion AI is awful, ai characters either stand still or run to their deaths. Archers fight like melee characters. The power ups are bland. Enemies mostly just swarm, it's too chaotic for RTWP. The battles are repetitive with objectives mostly consisting of killing dozens of orcs or bringing your party to one end of the map. The boss fights aren't so much challenging as they are frustrating and time consuming, the bosses frequently teleport or heal in a way that extends the fights but doesn't make them more fun. The camera gets in the way a lot. It's somewhat easier to deal with using a controller, but it's still requires frequent adjusting. The menus on the character selection and equipment screen on the other hand, are easy with a mouse and keyboard but really hard to navigate with a controller. Hopefully they'll make a better sequel. The story is great, and there's a lot of potential but it needs a lot of the kinks ironed out.
This game sucks. I wanted to like it, I really did. But it's just not good. There are aspects of it that are good. The combat is fun, but you have to slog through over 10 hours of the most mundane detective quest ever conceived. The NPCs are dull. the jokes are painfully unfunny, the medieval lord is named... Jake? Not Jacob, or any remotely appropriate fantasy sounding name, but Jake. They might as well have named him Zippy or something. It's just awful. One of your companions is a knight that sounds Texan, another is a fully voiced MUTE! Because apparently people who can't speak should be voice acted. I want to punch the person who thought that was a good idea right in the nose. I do not understand why this game is so popular. It's garbage, I deeply regret buying it.
