Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes of Neverwinter Beta Review
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Heading off on an adventure is a reasonably simple task too. The map is broken up into segments to explore, clicking on one will then bring up a zoomed in map of the area and nodes that contain quests. Each quest has some detail on what it entails, the rewards gained and any pre-requisits you have to have met to undertake the quest. These pre-requisits however wont stop you from playing the game as you wish, as for the price of a few Astral Diamonds you can buy an adventurers pass and circumvent these troublesome cock-blocks. Undertaking an adventure does cost you energy points however, these units do refill over time so you can do a couple of adventures and then take a break or two, alternatively you can use those Astral Diamonds we're becoming so chummy with to fill it instantly, 250 of those bad boys will also make it so your energy gauge never depletes! Each quest also has its own adaptable difficulty level so you can go back later after having levelled up and face a greater challenge and thus receive a greater reward, its a system that works very well indeed.
The levels themselves take place on an isometric grid based map, each dungeon is split into various rooms and can have branching paths rather than just straightforward room to room movement. In a rather neat touch, similar to many DnD games, adventures are narrated by onscreen text which adds an extra layer to the gameplay on show. Combat is turn based, and works similarly to games like Advance Wars or Final Fantasy Tactics, you have to move within range of the enemy for your selected attack, choose it from an action wheel and then execute it. It can all be done with a mouse and so it makes for very easy, and very casual, game playing, yet it still carries all the depth of a full bodied RPG as elemental magic can cause ongoing damage and status effects can really hinder battle progress. Looting of chests and corpses is present, and is done through a pot luck style system of clicking on a covered tile and revealing the '˜prize' below. Its different, but ensures for true random drops, although these can be made less random by taking luck potions to reveal a tile at a time. No dungeon can call itself a true challenge to an adventurer if it didn't contain traps, and so those found in HoN regularly contain them! These can be thwarted with a handy Rouge, the only class capable of disarming traps. Finishing a dungeon then gives you some well earned experience points and can level you up, levelling in turn gives you new abilities to play with and explore too.
