Solasta: Crown of the Magister Review - Page 3
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It's a pretty decent fantasy setup, all things considered, but the actual story feels a bit too abrupt. I don't know whether it's the translation or something budget-related, but things happen way too fast, supporting characters don't get enough room to breathe, and occasionally the actual writing can feel less than convincing.
But at the very least, the story is functional enough to point you in the right direction and make you curious about what awaits you around the next corner, with the game's locations ranging from humble goblin villages to ancient gravity-defying palaces.
All these locations are designed with both verticality and illumination in mind, adding extra layers of complexity to the game's formula. And because the game actually gives you the tools you need to circumvent these additional challenges, like the ability to run on walls, fly, or teleport short distances, it harkens back to the games of old, like the Might and Magic series where things like these weren't seen as an aberration.
And while the main quest is linear and the world map mostly exists just to provide a bit of flavor, you'll still get access to a good chunk of side quests that will allow you to revisit certain locations and fight some new, usually more challenging, enemies.
Add to that a number of quests related to your characters' backgrounds, and you get plenty of content, resulting in a playthrough of roughly 30-40 hours, which is about the perfect video game length as far as I'm concerned.
Following your many excursions into the Badlands, you'll be able to visit a friendly town, restock, and interact with the game's factions. This mostly means unloading the artifacts you find onto them in exchange for reputation. You get enough of that, and you'll get access to the special faction stores selling some very nice items. This will be one of the more reliable ways of outfitting your party with better gear.
Then, you have your good old dungeoneering that's pretty much self-explanatory. And finally, there's crafting. Unfortunately, if you choose to ignore crafting in Solasta, you'll be missing out on some really powerful items. But the flipside of this is a cluttered inventory where you never know when and if you'll need this or that ingredient. It's a real shame there aren't tabs to sort between gear, consumables, ingredients, and quest items.
And in general, Solasta's gear selection is a bit uneven in that some item types are overrepresented while others are few and far between. But the items that do exist tend to be pretty fun and rarely offer mere enchantment bonuses. You add to that D&D's Attunement system where each character can only equip up to three powerful items, and you get some meaningful gearing choices. And, in a rare but welcome occurrence for an RPG, unless you break the game in some way, you'll never have enough gold to buy everything you want.
All geared up and stuck in some dungeon, your party will be dealing with numerous combat encounters that also benefit from the game's verticality and illumination angles. Having to think in three dimensions when coming up with a battle plan is nice, but seeing the AI crawl across a wall or fly at you through the air is even better.
