Dungeons & Dragons: Tactics Pre-E3 Previews
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In addition to the mandatory story-driven quests that you undertake as you explore the all-new realm created for the game, you'll come across numerous side quests that are entirely optional and, in many cases, can only be completed if your character has the appropriate good/evil alignment. Since no fog-of-war mechanic has been implemented in D&D Tactics yet, we were able to scroll around the demo map at will. We were pleasantly surprised by what we found, since what initially appeared to be a map comprising little more than a network of dimly lit cave passages also incorporated grassy exterior locations and the interior of a building. The character models and locations are nicely detailed even at this early stage in development, and they look especially impressive when you take advantage of the zoom and rotate options on the camera.
And a snip from WorthPlaying's article:
The bulk of the game's combat is traditional turn-based tactical combat, pitting your party against a variety of traditional D&D monsters like wolves and orcs. The interface we saw for the menu navigation was temporary, but suggested that the final product would definitely have some kind of basic menu-driven system. You won't be able to know the enemy's exact HP count, as in a properly run D&D game, but can guess how much health it has left by the kinds of damage animations it enters. Your party can include members of any of the core classes, with the optional psionic character classes and rules available as well. Characters generated in the game can be easily ported back onto paper for use in a proper 3.5E game, and you can create as many characters as you can fit onto your PSP's memory stick. Even better, you can copy and trade characters from friends' games freely, and use them in your own games. Aside from the main single-player campaign, special co-op and versus modes for up to six players will be available (sadly, only in ad-hoc mode).
