Australian Gamer Review :: Dungeon Siege: Throne of Agony

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Dungeon Siege: Throne of Agony

Reviewed on: Playstation Portable
Available on: Playstation Portable

The PSP has seen the release of a few nice RPG titles lately, and Dungeon Siege has got its chance to make an impression. Does it work? A portable success? Or a cramped failure?

Players: 1
Genre:
Release: TBA

Developer: Super Villain
Distributor: 2K Games

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If you're familiar with the Dungeon Siege games you'll know it's a kind of villain sim, where you are the "end boss" of a stereotypical RPG, and you have to make traps and breed minions to stop the incoming adventurers.

OK, so it's not. I thought it was. I always got confused by Dungeon Siege and Dungeon Keeper. In my defense, I'm not the only one. I mentioned Dungeon Siege to someone recently who asked if that was the one where you're the boss of a dungeon, etc.

Aside from Dungeon Siege and Dungeon Keeper, there's also a Dungeon Master and Dungeon Quest. That's a lot of dungeons.

I've looked into the actual definition of a dungeon recently, and I have to say, it just doesn't fit. Many of the levels of Dungeon Siege see you wandering across snow capped mountains, or through deserts. Clearly not dungeonal in any real way.

While I'm on the subject (and don't worry, I'll get off it soon enough) I've also looked into the definition of a Siege. And you know what? It's not that either. A siege is a military blockade of a city or defended position. Two people going into a cave does not in any way make a siege. An assault. An incursion. And attack. A sally even. But not a siege.

So on agreeing that Dungeon Siege is neither a dungeon nor a siege, how is it as an actual game?

The answer is... Very very good.

Portable games aren't cheap. Whether for PSP or DS latest titles range from $60 - $80. This can be really hard to justify when "big" games are often the same or cheaper. It's hard to wonder whether maybe portable games should be cheaper just because there's so much less to them.

Portable games are almost always a cut-down, hacked up port of a "real" game anyway. Right? Right?

Wrong!

It's been a long time since I've played a game that really felt like it was a full game on the PSP rather than being a port of a PS2 game cut down to fit (and I'm referring to things like Ghost Rider here, not Final Fantasy X).

Dungeon Siege: Throne of Crankiness is a real game. It's a real RPG, with weapons and skills and even a small party. It's also a very pretty looking game. Cut scenes to menus to boss characters and effects. All are effectively created, and look as fancy as they rightly should.

The gameplay mechanics are likely to be familiar to more or less anyone who has ever played an RPG, and it's easy to get right in and play. Probably the most unusual and interesting thing is the addition of a "follower".

Followers are essentially party members, forming with you a small party. You choose a follower at the start of the game, and then later can find more. Just like you the followers level up and gain new skills (you choose where to invest their valuable skill points).

The Follower concept is a nice one. Having a genuinely useful minion who can add on extra damage, or heal you, or provide powerful buffs is a great concept. Unfortunately it's not by any means flawless. Your follower is controlled by the computer, and some of the decisions it makes are questionable with a capital Duh. Attacking un-aggressive mobs, or trying to attack things through walls are good examples, with just wading into combat and dying also being a fairly routine event. Some of their AI routines are kind of dumb, like for example the one that heals you and also gives you a short term (20 second) buff will buff you first, THEN heal you. WHY? Heal me first, you berk! For a start, if I'm about to die, I'd rather be healed than buffed. Duh. Secondly, I want as much time with the buff on as possible, I don't want to spend that time standing there being healed.

Another thing that's unfortunate is that you can't/don't upgrade your followers' gear. What they start with, they stay with, meaning their damage, etc, kind of lags behind a little bit. The ability/option to buy new weapons and armour would be a nice addition to the game, maybe letting you give them your hand-me-downs, etc.

The main problem with the follower concept is a simple one. They're useless. Seriously. I chose a rogue style fast melee fighter, and found that aside from the healer one none of them were any help. They just got me killed. As a result I ended up just taking the healer, to keep things moving faster.

There is one major problem with Dungeon Siege. I would even have to put it as a fatal flaw. It's unbelievably easy. There's a sort of natural curve to RPG games, where everything gets steadily bigger, from the items dropped to the difficulty of the enemies. This exerts a sort of downward pressure, making it hard to get too far ahead for your level.

But they messed up somewhere. With just basic playing (no deliberate replaying for leveling, or farming for gear, etc) I was able to stay well and truly above the skill level of any and all enemies, consistently pulling ahead after about level... 20 or so. This overskilling accelerated to the point that towards the end of the game standard enemies were a single shot kill. Bigger enemies maybe two hits. I killed the final boss of the game in three quick hits, under two seconds, and with no damage.

Something is wrong.

Another related issue is money. It's by far too easy to get. After (again) about level 20 there's just nothing left to buy, and your money builds up. I think I had about 8 million gold by the end of the game. Not a thing to do with it.

As you fight, enemies drop loot. This is usually crappy loot. Essentially what in WoW might be called "vendor trash", meaning stuff that's only useful to sell to the vendors for pocket change. Thing is in WoW vendor trash will stack, and you can have quite a bit of inventory to hold it. Dungeon Siege bag space is much more limited. In actual fact it's very very limited. Everything you have on you comes from a common pool of points. That includes what you're wearing. Yes, I mean that. This means you actually can't carry very much crap, and less and less as the game goes on and you get more gear slots filled (rings, trinkets, etc).

There is a system in place to give you more inventory. Higher strength lets you carry more stuff. It kind of makes sense logically. But if you're a magician type, you're going to get real cranky at having to waste points on strength just to be able to carry some gear.

This inventory limit makes the game strangely cramped. You basically pick up everything you can, then ditch them for more expensive things as you collect them. Then when you're all filled up you use a Town Portal scroll to one of the remarkably few actual towns, and unload, returning to repeat the process.

There's no challenge to the levels themselves. I knew there was a problem when I wandered into a new area and randomly chose a dungeon to ensiege. I got bored it was so easy. It turned out to be several dungeons ahead of me in the story.

Another strange thing about Dungeon Siege is the quests. I am not a big fan of WoW's "collect 10 feathers dropped by this type of monster" quests, but at least there's a little bit of variety. Dungeon Siege seems to have almost nothing in the way of quests other than the very linear story quests. Almost always you're on the way to one quest and one only. Mixing things up a bit would have been appreciated. Adding some "kill a bunch of these" type quests, or hidden items in various levels, rare spawns, whatever.

Combat in Dungeon Siege has been fairly well covered in better reviews, so I won't bother going into detail, but I will say one thing. All the depth and complexity of the combat system is pretty irrelevant. Enemies are so easily killed by X, X, X, X that anything more complicated or advanced is just a waste of time. You'll experiment with the special moves and combos for a while, then just get bored. You're better off putting all your points into "hit".

I'm not really sure how to sum up Dungeon Siege. Initially it's massively impressive, and even with its later ease it's still a sprawling epic with a nice story to follow. It takes a surprisingly long time to play, and as a way to kill time on a bus trip you can do a hell of a lot worse. It's really a pity the difficulty wasn't more tightly controlled, as we could have easily had an absolute gem.

Overall I enjoyed Dungeon Siege a lot, but... it could have been so much more.

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Final Verdict

What could have been a classic game on the PSP is only "pretty good" marred by the difficulty level being set way too low. It's a real pity, too.

Pros
Great graphics, and a lot of fun. An RPG adventure that doesn't feel like it's cut down for the platform. Nice and long.
Cons
Way. Too. Easy. Also no challenge. Not difficult enough. Underly hard. Can I make this clearer?