Dungeon Lords MMXII Review
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Skills and spells also saw some changes. In the original versions of the game, all characters could cast spells from all four schools of magic (Arcane, Celestial, Nether, and Rune), and by collecting more copies of a spell, you could cast it more often. Now in MMXII, characters can only learn spells from the schools of magic associated with their core classes, they can only have one copy of each spell, and spells have a mana cost and a cooldown. Meanwhile, the skills got rearranged. Instead of skills referring to "light," "medium," and "heavy" weapons and armor, they now refer to different types of weapons and armor, and so there are skills for swords, daggers, chain mail armor, plate armor, and so forth.I found these changes to be depressing. In both cases, Heuristic Park downgraded something from being unique and interesting to being just like every other RPG out there. I used to think that the homogenizing and dumbing down of games was due to publisher interference, but it's tough for me to believe that anybody interfered with Heuristic Park over MMXII. So maybe developers are starting to believe that they can only be successful if their games are just like everybody else's, when -- for me at least -- the exact opposite is the truth. Give me something brilliant and possibly flawed rather than the same old stuff I've seen countless times before.
Interface
Heuristic Park also tried improving the interface, and while they had more success here than they did with the character system, about half of their improvements came with annoyances. For example, in the original versions of Dungeon Lords, there were only ten saved game slots, which weren't nearly enough given how buggy the game was. But now in MMXII, you can have as many saves as you want, and there are even autosaves... but the game creates a brand new autosave every time you change maps or quit the game, leaving behind a trail of saves that even Hansel and Gretel would be proud of. All of these excess saves mean that every so often you have to go back and delete 20 or so saves -- and hopefully not delete a good save by mistake -- when it shouldn't be necessary. I have no idea why Heuristic Park didn't just use one autosave, or perhaps rotate through three autosaves or something.
Or consider the inventory system. In the original versions of Dungeon Lords, you had a great big inventory, but there weren't enough filtering options to make it easy to see what you were carrying. Now in MMXII, you have six inventory bags -- one each for weapons, armor, jewelry, potions, junk, and quest items -- that sort items for you. The problem is that each bag only holds 20 items, and you quickly run out of room. So instead of seamlessly playing the game, every 15 minutes or so you have to fiddle with your inventory and drop stuff so you can pick up more stuff. Worse, you're not allowed to drop quest items, but some quest items (like shadow stones from the Shadow Ruins) drop way more often than they're used, and if you pick them all up, then they overflow your quest items bag and start taking over the rest of your inventory space.
Or consider the control scheme. The original versions of Dungeon Lords had a perfectly acceptable scheme, where you'd use the WASD keys to move, the mouse to steer, and the left shift key to interact with things. Now in MMXII, there are two modes. Mouselook mode works just like the original scheme, except it uses E for interactions (making it just like Bethesda's control schemes). Meanwhile, in Point & Click mode, steering and movement are done with the WASD keys, and the mouse is used for interactions. The problem here is that Mouselook mode is far more convenient to use, but in that mode the game doesn't indicate when you can interact with something; you can only see that in Point & Click mode, which otherwise seems pretty useless. So instead of one acceptable control scheme, the game comes with two semi-broken ones.
But not all of the interface changes are bad. The game now has a very friendly hotkey bar where you can trigger up to 12 potions or spells. There's a new map screen that makes it easier to see your surroundings. All of your spells and nether katals are now automatically stored in a spellbook rather than your inventory, which makes it easier to sort through them. You no longer have to exit to the main menu to load a game. The game now supports wide screen monitors. You can now alt-tab away from the game. Overall, even with the annoyances, the interface in MMXII is better than the interface in the earlier versions.
Gameplay
As I mentioned earlier, Dungeon Lords (regardless of the version) is an action RPG. You control a single character, and you're allowed to swing weapons, cast spells, block with a shield, and make defensive rolls. The blocking and rolling are necessary because numerous enemies can debilitate you in some way -- banshees can freeze you, trolls can stun you, witches can entangle you, and so forth -- and so the more attacks you can avoid, the better off you are. Dungeon Lords isn't really a game where you just click on an enemy until it dies.
As you explore your surroundings, you frequently come under attack. The spawn rate for monsters is outrageously high (no matter how you adjust the settings) so you never clear out a dungeon or a region, and you have to stay on your toes. You don't encounter a huge number of enemies in the game, but they fight you in different ways, and you have to change your tactics accordingly. For example, when banshees spawn, you have to keep your shield ready so you can block their spells, or else they might freeze you and slowly whittle away your health.
