# Review of Dungeons & Dragons: Daggerdale by Atari



## Neuroglyph (Jun 2, 2011)

For almost as long as Dungeons & Dragons has been around as a paper-and-pencil format, there has been a video game version out there trying to capture the essence of the most famed fantasy role-playing game ever created! My first experience with a D&D video game was back in the late 80s, playing *Pool of Radiance* and *Curse of the Azure Bonds* with my fellow enthusiasts from our college gaming club. Sneaking computer games into the university computer lab was strictly forbidden and always presented a challenge. But eventually, we were lucky enough to have a gamer on the inside, and could grab a dozen PCs during our buddy’s late evening shift as moderator – so long as we remembered to bring a copy for him to play!

Over the years, the D&D video game play evolved as editions came and went, with a wide range of game experiences. But whether the video game was set in world of the _Forgotten Realms_, _Dragonlance_, _Eberron_, _Mystara_, or even _Spelljammer_, the D&D community quickly learned that some play experiences more authentic than others – as anyone who has played Westwood Studio’s _Eye of the Beholder_ can attest, as they sidestepped their phalanx of 6 characters, all joined at the hip, around illithids, driders, and well, yes, beholders!

But now D&D players have an opportunity to play the first video game written under the new 4E rules. *Atari*, using *Steam* as a distributor, have a new D&D video game experience for owners of both PC and XBLA - *Dungeons & Dragons: Daggerdale*!


*Dungeons & Dragons: Daggerdale*


*Publisher*: Atari
*Distribution*: Steam
*Year*: 2011
*Media*: PC & XBLA 
*Cost*: $14.99 (from [ame="http://www.amazon.com/Dungeons-Dragons-Daggerdale-Pc/dp/B002I0JLEQ"]Amazon.com[/ame]) 

 
*Daggerdale Setup*

Installing Daggerdale was not as smooth as I would have expected, and was actually a bit of a trial overall. As I don’t have an XBLA, please note that my game play experience was all on a PC, so maybe Xbox gamers have an easier time of installation than I experienced. I got a couple copies of *Dungeons & Dragons: Daggerdale* over the Memorial Day weekend, and started loading them onto my PC and my buddy Tizzbin’s machine, both of which are pretty spiffed up and designed to handle a full-blown WoW raid without so much as a hiccup.

The first surprise was how long it took to install the game from DVD. For a game that is supposed to be about 10-12 hours of game play in total, it took at least over 45 minutes just to get the files off the DVD. I’m not sure exactly how long it took, because after 40 minutes,Tizzbin and I got bored watching the bar slowly fill as we flipped through the enclosed 17-page instruction booklet, and we went out to the Chinese buffet for lunch. Thankfully, when we got back, the game had completed installation.

But after that installation, I had to go through another 20 minute installation of signing up for and then downloading the *Steam Client* files. If you have a *Steam* account already, you don’t have to go through this process – Tizzbin already had Steam, lucky for him – but that adds even more onto the installation process time.

Then because we wanted to try the cooperative play mode, we both had to sign up for *GameSpy* accounts, in order to use their servers to duo on. *Daggerdale* supports parties of up to three players at a time, but you cannot play the game locally, even on networked machines, unless you have game controllers. [FYI: Keyboards, apparently, do not count as a game controller.]


*Daggerdale Character Creation*

Finally we were ready to play - we got all the game loaded, our Steam accounts setup, and joined GameSpy to enter cooperative play mode. But sadly, the troubles weren’t over yet! The ‘Join Game’ interface to get our duo going was all one color - including the cursor – so it took several minutes of clicking around on the screen to finally find the box to fill in the name of the game to join! By this point, I must admit I was already frustrated with the Daggerdale experience, and I had not even started ACTUALLY playing the game yet!

But getting into the game, and getting the graphics setting squared away, Daggerdale started looking pretty good – until it got around to character generation anyways. In *Daggerdale*, you can select from four pre-generated characters: a male halfing Wizard, a female elven Rogue, a male Human Fighter, and a male dwarf Cleric. Once you click on your selection, you go to a screen to select powers and feats and a character name. That’s about all the optimization you’re allowed, as you cannot change the race/class combination, character appearance, equipment, stats, or anything else.

Powers are selected by adding “points” into a power to make it more powerful. Fighters get three points, all other classes get two, and you can add more than one point into a power, although frankly, I never figured out what significance that made. Here are the breakdown of powers each class can start with in *Daggerdale*:



*Wizard*: (2 points) – Magic Missile; Fireball – Class Power: Teleport
*Rogue*: (2 points) – Blinding Barrage; Compel the Craven – Class Power: Rogue Dodge
*Fighter*: (3 points) – Shield Bash; Knee Breaker; Battle Stance – Class Power: Block
*Cleric*: (2 points) – Shield of the Gods; Daunting Light – Class Power: Healing Word
Now some of you might be noting that there are encounter and daily powers in the mix, but it’s not really an issue – they are all treated as at-will powers with a few seconds of cool down in *Dungeons & Dragons: Daggerdale*! _Teleport_, by the way, is noted as “Expeditious Retreat” in the description text, but it’s a full blown t-port, and not a shift of any kind. As far as the other class powers go, _Rogue Dodge_ is a tumble, _Block_ is self-explanatory, and _Healing Word_ heals 25 hit points of damage.

But even Character creation was marred with frustration, because the interface was so poorly designed. The characters name box overlapped the race class information, and the feat selection list had tons of overlapping text in it the farther down one scrolled, which made me wonder if we were playing a beta version of the game.

And some of the feats listed made no sense for the class to which it was offered. For instance, the Fighter could select a feat to make me attack using my INT instead of my STR, thereby gimping my character completely. Since the characters are pre-rolls anyway, I would have expected that the feat list would have been pared down to make sure that a gamer didn’t accidentally nerf their own character.

This was not the only place I had a problem with the interface. A situation arose later when I tried to sell some dungeon “junk” magic items that were apparently cursed (more on that later). When clicking the down arrow key to scroll through my list of items, it actually caused me to sell an item, which could not be bought back – another example which made me again wonder if I was playing a beta version of this game.


*Daggerdale Gameplay*

As with all video games, *Daggerdale* opens with an introduction to get the player into the right mood. In an age where companies like Blizzard are creating intro movies to games, complete with orchestral and choral scores – the opening to *Wrath of the Lich King* still gives me goosebumps to watch it – it was disappointing to see Atari offer up a intro to *Daggerdale* consisting of no animation whatsoever: just still pictures moving across a screen in layers with a voice over. Frankly, I’ve seen better fantasy flash animation on some sites, so I found the intro here pretty lackluster. 

Once you get into the game, the characters look and move smoothly, and have some pretty nifty animations to their powers and attacks. The game perspective is a *Diablo*-esque view, with camera angle controlled by the mouse, and movement by WASD keys. It took a bit of getting used to, learning to steer and move the camera fluidly, but presented no real problems overall. *Daggerdale* actually supports character collisions, which makes it possible for the Fighter to interpose himself and keep monsters from getting to casters – although we later found out this was a terrible and losing tactic in the game, as melee combat should be avoided at all cost! The Wizard’s _teleport/expeditious_ retreat ability makes it possible for him to move past the Fighter and even on the other side of monsters, and is the most mobile and tactical character of the four.

To add to the “role-playing” element of the game, there are cut scenes periodically to show what enemies are up to, or to converse with NPC quest givers. These cut scenes stop the action very abruptly, and are frankly jarring to the play experience, but I guess is Atari’s attempt to add that role-play feel to the game. The cut scenes consist of the same still life animation, with maybe a couple jiggles, and some strange “murph…mmmpgh…urghph” sounds to represent speech as dialogue scribes across the screen. 

Frankly, it sounded awful, hearing the dwarves talk to you was like listening to gagged sea cows trying to converse underwater – not that I have actually heard such a noise, but I am pretty sure that’s what it would sound like. And in a couple cases, the cut scenes actually teleport characters from one place to another, to bring them in front of the person who is “talking” – which is really annoying if you have not “run over” all your gold yet to pick it up.

Yes, looting money is done by running over the little piles of it on the ground, although magic items and potions are picked up by standing on them to target them and clicking the F key. And the auto-targeting in the game was atrocious, with very little the player could do control what he was aiming at.

Now on the upside, the music in the game was evocative, and did enhance the gameplay experience. Moving through the dungeon, the music changed depending on foes faced, although the mines of Tethyamar got a bit repetitive in a very short time.


*“D&D Comes To Life!”*

*Atari* makes quite a few strong claims about Dungeons & Dragons: Daggerdale, particularly with regard to the authenticity of the experience. Per *Atari’s* website, *Daggerdale* delivers a “detailed world of the iconic Dungeons & Dragons franchise has been painstakingly recreated for a rich, complex, and thrilling game experience.” But really, there is very little here to make that claim on, other than some titles tacked onto powers and place names used in some cut scenes. Personally, I get the feeling that the programmers of *Daggerdale* never actually played D&D of any kind, otherwise they never would have committed so many misconceptions about what 4E was really like...


_D&D Misconceptions_

_Starting 1st Level Characters have over 100 hit points_: all four of the characters in Daggerdale have between 101 and 120 hit points to start their adventuring career. Also, healing surges are not a concept which the designers decided to employ, allowing the Cleric to Healing Word for 25 hit points of healing every 15 seconds or so.

_Fighters start in cloth armor, just like wizards_: All classes start in cloth armor, and there is no way for the Fighter to upgrade anytime soon, which makes the defender quite a liability to play early on.

_It takes 10000 XP to reach 2nd Level_: Thankfully, you can gain experience points pretty fast, but 10,000 is a dauntingly huge number to look at leveling up. Oddly, you also get a stat point, feat, and “power ups” for your abilities at 2nd level, which bears no real relation to D&D 4E.

_Minions have lots of hit points_: Minion does not mean the same thing to the designers of Daggerfall as it does to D&D 4E players – which I found out when I charged a pack of goblin minions to cleave them, and got mauled in the process. The all have far more than just the expected 1 hp you would expect when seeing a minion, and some took up to 3 attacks to drop. Packs of monsters can be quite troublesome for melee characters, and facing 6-8 monsters at a time is not unusual. And there was this weird glitch where sometimes a monster would stand back up after they die and just hang there – but these “ghost” monsters didn’t attack and were just images, but made play difficult when you would run back to attack them and find they are nothing but a “bug”. Oh, and did I mention that monsters re-spawn in an area, so if you don’t clean them out fast enough, you can find yourself being flanked by monsters from corridors you thought were empty. Run-and-gun is more the style of play than dungeon exploration in *Daggerdale*.

_Monsters and barrels explode with treasure_: With a truly arcade feel, monsters explode when they die in a shower of goodies, like a piñata, which can then be collected after the area is clear. Occasionally, I was disconcerted to see a magic item or potion get stuck and hover in the air in defiance of gravity – a pretty bad glitch for a non-beta game. And the dungeon corridors are filled with barrels to break, which fling about sacks of gold and potions out of them – reminded me of Zelda, when I was wondering through the dwarven halls of my so-called NPC allies, and opening their chests and smashing their barrels to take their stuff. I guess the dwarven miner NPCs just leave these barrels around for adventurers as rewards for doing their quests.

_Rogues are masters of the bow: _Playing the elf rogue felt more like playing a ranger than anything else. She fired devastating shots with her bow, had no sneaking ability to speak of, and had a burst effect with her _Blinding Barrage_ which was pretty good damage to a lot of monsters. In hand-to-hand, she was just a weak as the Fighter, quickly surrounded and mauled, despite her _Rogue Dodge_. Coupled with a Wizard though, and using range attacks, I’d imagine would be a fairly effective duo.

_All Magic Items are cursed to maintain balance_: Every so-called magic item that was dropped from a monster in the first few boards was cursed in some way. In order to get a bonus to saves or defenses, the item was less effective in some other way, as though it had to have detrimental affects to offset their benefits. 

_Monsters cannot cross a doorway threshold_: Like vampires, all monsters were having trouble crossing some doorways, allowing the wizard or rogue-master-of-the-bow to pick them off over time while they stand there looking dumbfounded, trying to figure out how to path to the adventurers. This sort of exploit made the game experience rather sad, but given the size of the monster packs sent against 1-2 characters, I quickly got over my un-heroic play style and just fired away.

_Magic spells and arrows can be side stepped_: Yes, apparently, once a spell of arrow is fired, it travels in a straight line until it hits a target, but not so fast that a twitchy player can’t simply sidestep the attack! Wizards are the masters of this in Daggerdale, and are capable of taking down elites and bosses using teleport to side step damage, and then kite monsters all over the dungeon, fire magic missiles and fireballs at them until they win. Monsters apparently have no idea they can side step incoming blasts, and just sort of mindlessly wander in the most direct path to the hero – right into lots of damage!

In fact, once my Fighter had chugged his last health potion, and finally shuffled off his mortal coil – to the tune of a lot of much colorful language – I watched the Wizard (played by Tizzbin) mop up the remaining 20 or so monsters in that section of the dungeon, and came back to find my Fighter at camp. 

Honestly, at this point, I just plug-pulled the game in utter disgust, and decided to watch Tizzbin play - he seemed to be well on the road to mastering the game despite my absence. 

By not playing the game like D&D 4E - you know where the Fighter actually tries to get into melee and defends the party - and just treating it like a twitch-style arcade game, Tizzbin went on deeper into the dungeon with his Halfling wizard, using kiting and teleports to destroy whole groups of monsters. He got really good at exploiting tunnel geometry to hinder monsters, firing “charged up” bolts of magic missiles and fireballs at all manner of goblins and skeletons, while using teleports to get away when they got close, or when they fired a rage attack at him.

And if the Wizard takes the feat _Immolate the Masses_, then he heals a few hit points every time he kills a monster. This meant that when Tizzbin did slip up and take the rare hit, he’d kill a couple mobs and top off his hit points. He almost never used potions, even when facing two and three elite monsters at a time. And he also never upgraded his gear after even an hour of play, because gear means almost nothing compared with ones arcade skills.


*Overall Score*: 1.7 *out of* 5.0


*Conclusions*

*Dungeons & Dragons: Daggerdale* is not really D&D, so much as it is a weird version of _Gauntlet_ with a few D&D names and labels tacked on. There is nothing to indicate that you are in Daggerdale, as all you see for much of the game are mines, and later the inside of a tower purported to be in Daggerdale. One could just as easily have claimed this game to be *Dungeons & Dragons: Shield Lands* or *Dungeons & Dragons: Sharn*, with a few references changed in the cut scenes in order to make the enclosed dungeon environments work in _World of Greyhawk_ or _Eberron _campaign settings.

Frankly, if D&D fans want an “authentic” D&D experience, they won’t find it in *Daggerdale*. And I find that disappointing because I was really hoping for a game experience that would showcase how much fun D&D 4E can be. But for gamers that want a D&D play experience, they will have to look back on good old D&D Online (DDO) – which has been out for years, is still free-to-play, and does a pretty bang-up job of presenting D&D 3.5 in a video game format. *Dungeons & Dragons: Daggerdale* ends up feeling like nothing more than a twitch-play video game wearing a D&D hoodie, and is frankly an embarrassment to the D&D franchise. In the future, I would certainly hope that the next time that Hasbro/WotC decide to sell the license to programmers, that they at least try and retain a little more control of the quality and authenticity of a video game which is going to be wearing the D&D logo.

_So until next review… I wish you Happy Gaming!_

*Author’s Note*: This Reviewer received a complimentary copy of the product in DVD format from which the review was written.

*Grade Card (Ratings 1 to 5)*


*Presentation*: 2.0
- Gameplay: 1.5
- Graphics: 2.0
- Sounds & Music: 2.5
*Content*: 1.0 
- Crunch: 0.5
- Fluff: 1.5
*Value*: 2.0
*Author's Addendum*: Here is a link to *another Daggerdale review* written by Tizzbin, whom I mentioned playing the game with in the article - he actually managed to persevere to the bitter end! Enjoy!


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## Colmarr (Jun 2, 2011)

Ouch. If even half of the above is true, this is exactly the sort of game we _don't_ want representing D&D.


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## Aberzanzorax (Jun 2, 2011)

I read four other reviews from a couple of days prior to this one. I'll say this one is the most thorough/relevant, but I also want to say it's pretty consistent with those other reviews.


Seems no one likes this game much.


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## Mournblade94 (Jun 2, 2011)

I played the trial version of Daggerdale fortunately and did not buy it.  I originally intended to play the full game to prove my point how 4e was tailored to video games.  

I couldn't do that.  This game does not resemble the 4e game in any shape or form.  It is just garbage.

4e would make a perfect transfer to video games.  MANY MANY people were brought into D&D from pools of radiance and SSI.  Why wouldn't wizards use the video game market to get buyers into the game?  This game will hurt WOTC's product of 4e because those "not in the know" may think 4e like this.

There is not much good I can say about 4e D&D, but I can say it is better than the Daggerdale game.


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## Dedekind (Jun 2, 2011)

While much of the review is true, I have to say it misses an important point. It is a $15 game.  For $15, I have been enjoying it enough in single player to not regret buying it. I certainly wouldn't gush over it, and I wouldn't recommend it to someone out of the blue (like I would recommend the Halo series). But for someone who likes Diablo-esque games, it is an enjoyable experience... for the money. 

I certainly agree it isn't a D&D experience, and they over-promise on that point. But it isn't a bad experience, either.


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## Anselyn (Jun 2, 2011)

kiting?


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## BlueBlackRed (Jun 2, 2011)

Anselyn said:


> kiting?




A term for running away, then stopping and shooting until the monster catches up to you, then run away some more.
Repeat until one of you is dead.


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## pawsplay (Jun 2, 2011)

Dedekind said:


> While much of the review is true, I have to say it misses an important point. It is a $15 game.




I have trouble visualizing spending $15 purposefully on a game in which I resort to door-shooting.


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## renau1g (Jun 2, 2011)

Dedekind said:


> While much of the review is true, I have to say it misses an important point. It is a $15 game.  For $15, I have been enjoying it enough in single player to not regret buying it. I certainly wouldn't gush over it, and I wouldn't recommend it to someone out of the blue (like I would recommend the Halo series). But for someone who likes Diablo-esque games, it is an enjoyable experience... for the money.
> 
> I certainly agree it isn't a D&D experience, and they over-promise on that point. But it isn't a bad experience, either.




So was Plants Vs. Zombies, cheaper shouldn't mean garbage.


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## sigfried (Jun 2, 2011)

Atari seems to regularly crap on their D&D license.  Almost every game they publish for D&D comes out half baked and full of loose. This one seems to be a new low for them however.

Its gotten so bad I nearly refuse to buy any game they publish. They are simply a horrible game publisher that doesn't give two shakes about the quality of their offerings.


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## Ampersand999 (Jun 2, 2011)

Moral of the review: Let Bioware, and only Bioware, handle all future D&D themed video game releases.


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## andargor (Jun 2, 2011)

Ampersand999 said:


> Moral of the review: Let Bioware, and only Bioware, handle all future D&D themed video game releases.




Indeed, Bioware or Black Isle-which-is-now-Obsidian.

Baldur's Gate to Icewind Dale were my favorites. Heck, I'd even play a remaster, even if it stayed 2e.


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## Stork1 (Jun 3, 2011)

Having read your review and played through the entire game as a Fighter on the Xbox 360 version, they obviously did a terrible job porting this game to PC, as far as the UI & controls go. I actually had no problem running into hordes of monsters and coming out alive using nothing but potions, as well as being able to making auto-target melee the target I intended it to.

While minions aren't one hit dead I do feel they did a good job of making them feel like minions in context to their game, as it is pretty rare to miss an attack as long as the monster is in range and with how quickly you can attack. So if they were absolutely true to D&D 4e in regards to them dieing in one hit it would make them completely worthless, especially later in the game.

Also, only fairly early magic items are 'damaged' to maintain balance while still giving you a choice on what you find most important at the time. Like a short sword that gives -1 dmg but +1 fire damage which will help out versus monsters weak against fire damage or still allow you to do some semblance of damage versus monsters that are strong vs slashing damage.


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## Neuroglyph (Jun 3, 2011)

Ampersand999 said:


> Moral of the review: Let Bioware, and only Bioware, handle all future D&D themed video game releases.




Can I hear an AMEN, brothers and sisters?!?!?!

Yea, Bioware was amazing at adapting Dungeons & Dragons to video games, and I still have fond memories of playing for hours and hours in *Baldur's Gate* and the *Neverwinter Nights Trilogy*.

This game almost feels like Atari had a Gauntlet knock-off rotting in their R&D department, but dusted it off when they got the 4E license, stuck a few "D&Disms" in it, and voila - *Daggerdale*!  The more I look at how old school the graphics are - which admittedly might have been due to translation from an XBox platform - the more it looks like a game from about 10-15 years ago.  

As Colmarr said, this is not what 4E fans want to see as a video game representation of their fav version of D&D.


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## renau1g (Jun 3, 2011)

I really wanted FF:Tactics style game... that to me would fit really well...too bad turn-based games are not in fashion


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## Jeffrey (Jun 3, 2011)

The video game resembles 4.0 as much as 4.0 resembles 3.5.

10-4.


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## Darkoverlord (Jun 3, 2011)

*Really now?........*

While playing the so called Daggerdale for 1 hour(oh god i am a hero) before unistalling it the word *disgusting *comes to my mind .

Truly this game is an insult to D&D how dare they even to think that this vile of black pudding is even worth playing , it is a *disgrace* to all veteran D&D players the fact that this abomination has been released to the gamers as an awesome D&D game from Atari is preposterous .

What simpleton *DARES* to make such game of *ZERO* role playing crappy scenario and Diablo cloning senseless slaughter am i living in a age of *IDIOCRACY *now seriously *Gygax* died and this is the crap that some retards are selling as D&D now (not to mention 4th edition as a genocide).


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## Truth Seeker (Jun 4, 2011)

Fair and truthful review...

But my gut said to ignore the game, cause there was nothing jumping out to say 'play me', nothing.

Guanlet feel, not D&D love, in it.


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## ChristianLindke (Jun 5, 2011)

The review is fair and thoughtful, but I have been very much enjoying the game on XBox.  I would have liked the dialogue to be "spoken" and for it to be a little more supportive of solo play -- it's better with multi-player -- but it is a fun game in the "D&D Heroes"/"Baldur's Gate Alliance" vein.


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## samursus (Jun 5, 2011)

The review was pretty much dead on.  I played the XBLA demo and the reviewer basically read my mind.  So sad... I know not everyone can be Bioware or Blizzard, but... come on!  Have some pride in what you do Atari!!


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## Neuroglyph (Jun 6, 2011)

I wanted to mention that my buddy Tizzbin, which I talked about in the review, managed to get through the game, and posted his own review - I've gone ahead and added on a link as an addendum to my review here on En World.


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## Doctor Futurity (Jun 7, 2011)

Regrettably I picked this up sight-unseen at Gamestop and loaded it up. It's not a horrible game by any stretch, and the price point was low enough that I didn't feel too badly ripped off, but I already have much better games like this on the PC (Torchlight, for example) and a few others that would have been more suited to what I thought Daggerdale might be about (Eschalon). Anyway, the problem is I mainly bought it for the "Dungeons & Dragons" label and this game has absolutely nothing to do with D&D, as the review indicates. That, plus a below average UI and overall game design leaves this game an annoying dud. Wish I had thought of waiting for a demo to become available on the PC...! Would have saved me $15.

EDIT: All this game has done is insured I will not be picking up Neverwinter Nights 3 until I read some glowing reviews. Shame on Atari for mis-using the D&D license like this!


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## Doctor Futurity (Jun 7, 2011)

Darkoverlord said:


> While playing the so called Daggerdale for 1 hour(oh god i am a hero) before unistalling it the word *disgusting *comes to my mind .
> 
> Truly this game is an insult to D&D how dare they even to think that this vile of black pudding is even worth playing , it is a *disgrace* to all veteran D&D players the fact that this abomination has been released to the gamers as an awesome D&D game from Atari is preposterous .
> 
> What simpleton *DARES* to make such game of *ZERO* role playing crappy scenario and Diablo cloning senseless slaughter am i living in a age of *IDIOCRACY *now seriously *Gygax* died and this is the crap that some retards are selling as D&D now (not to mention 4th edition as a genocide).




I think....I think this game was marketed specifically at the Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance crowd, that apparently Atari thinks is lurking out there, patiently waiting for some variation on the franchise to show up on the 360. As I recall they had both Dark Alliance and "D&D Heroes" on the Xbox. 

My guess....actual D&D gamers were not the target demographic for this game. But the fact that all the ad copy for this thing was aimed at us suggests that either Atari doesn't have a clue anymore or they really don't care if they misrepresent their product so badly, as long as it rakes in a few dollars.


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## dvvega (Jun 8, 2011)

I downloaded the demo on XBL just to see what it was like. Even at the low price I do not trust low prices (crazy I know).

Now I am someone who since my inception into the world of D&D in the 1970s has played every game that came out that was remotely D&D related. If it had a D&D official logo on it so much the better.

I have even played the console D&D games that came out on the Genesis.

So it was to my eagerness to play Daggerdale. I had not read any reviews, nor had I seen any gameplay videos except for the trailer.

To my great disappointment I can only state that THE GAME SUCKS!

Although it reminded me of the XBOX D&D Games, those games came out a while ago and had more customisation and feeling than Daggerdale.

So anyone reading the review - BELIEVE IT - download the demo first if you can.

D


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## MrMyth (Jun 8, 2011)

I felt the game was worth the $15 - playing it with a friend was actually quite a bit of fun. But that was on the XBox, and being able to play on the same screen. It sounds like the PC version has quite a few more errors and problems, and was a bad port in general. The down arrow = selling item thing? On the Xbox controller, that is the 'right button' tab, with the game using the 'right trigger' for actually scrolling. Here, it sounds like they mapped it to the down button, resulting in a completely unintuitive way to sell items. 

As for the complaints about D&D realism, that honestly didn't bother me too much. Numbers were inflated due to the combat system, no healing surges, etc... not a big deal. D&D isn't defined by specific mechanics, but by the archetypes and tropes and such - and those elements remained. Clerics heal, and can either punch people in the face or blast with light. Rogues shoot people in the back. Fighters get in your face. Wizards blow everyone up and teleport away from danger. 

The other concern, about cursed items... that's just a level based things. Low level items are flawed in various ways. Which is silly, when some items end up worse than no items at all (thus resembling cursed items), but goes away once you are past 1st level or so. 

The real weaknesses of the game are the presentation - the still images, lack of voice acting (using the dwarven groaning instead), and those are the signs of a low budget game. The bugs are problematic, though I didn't run into any major ones myself. 

The biggest disappointment was the lack of customization, honestly. 

Overall, definitely not a great game. But I got plenty of hours of fun out of it with friends, so feel like I got my $15 worth. As a gauntlet style hack-and-slash, it worked, as long as I didn't walk into it with false expectations.


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## Desh-Rae-Halra (Jun 8, 2011)

I played it on XBLA....didnt have all the problems of loading it, but it was disappointing. I am not even a huge 4E fan, but expected more, even though it was only $15. 
Since they are pregen chars essentially, it also sucks that you cant join someone elses game at their same level. All my chars are now level 10, so if anyone plays a lower level game, I have to start as a level 1. 

 If you lik a tactics style D&D Game, thre is D&D Tactics for PSP...very true to 3.0/3.5 license, except that moving your party (i.e. just walking to get to an encounter) can take forever because everyone has to have their turn, even when not in combat.


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## Desh-Rae-Halra (Jun 8, 2011)

Darkoverlord said:


> While playing the so called Daggerdale for 1 hour(oh god i am a hero) before unistalling it the word *disgusting *comes to my mind .
> 
> Truly this game is an insult to D&D how dare they even to think that this vile of black pudding is even worth playing , it is a *disgrace* to all veteran D&D players the fact that this abomination has been released to the gamers as an awesome D&D game from Atari is preposterous .
> 
> What simpleton *DARES* to make such game of *ZERO* role playing crappy scenario and Diablo cloning senseless slaughter am i living in a age of *IDIOCRACY *now seriously *Gygax* died and this is the crap that some retards are selling as D&D now (not to mention 4th edition as a genocide).




Hey, dont disrespect the Black Pudding!


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