Review – Dungeon Siege III

Over the years, I’ve spent a good thousand hours crawling dungeons and pushing through missions in games like Diablo, Phantasy Star Online, Torchlight, and Borderlands. While by no means a connoisseur, I know my way around the genre. Dungeon Siege III, developed by Obsidian “sure, we’ll continue your franchise” Entertainment, is your run of the mill dungeon crawler with an emphasis on friendly gameplay mechanics and overall simplicity, but the game delivers an overall experience much more rich and entertaining than which it really has any right.

The story of Dungeon Siege III is forgettable. Not to say a deeply engrossing story is required for a dungeon crawler, but this one really is a snoozer. Basically your job is to restore the Legion to power in order to protect the people of Ehb, who have risen up and destroyed the Legion at the behest and leadership of Jeyne Kassynder, whom you must capture and render judgement for her disloyalty. As the story progressed, I just felt like I was fighting for an overthrown regime who is desperate to regain power and resume their widespread oppression. Perhaps it’s not that cut and dry, but the muddied story did more to distract from than enrich the experience.

Dungeon Siege III gives you four main characters to choose from, each with contrasted yet similar play styles. Not every major archetype is covered here, but the way combat varies by allowing you to switch from two very different offensive movesets creates enough diversity to maintain a fun pace to the combat. I played through as Anjali, who has swift, close-combat spear fighting but can switch to an elemental form where she can decimate areas of foes with powerful ranged attacks. Lucas has basic sword and shield combat but can also wildly swing around a giant two-handed sword to level enemy groups. Reinhart is purely a mage with short and long ranged magic attacks, and rounding out the roster is Katarina who toggles between long-range rifles and dual shotguns — for that personal touch.

You of course come across a variety of NPCs who occasionally join you on your quest to morbidly scavenge the belongings from dead bodies. I’d recommend choosing a character with good ranged attacks because the game suffers from a fairly common shortcoming in that the enemies don’t leave their starting positions until you get within a certain distance or cross a specific line. If you stay far enough back, you can pick apart everything you see from a safe distance while never drawing the enemy’s ire.

The system controlled companions you take with you on your quests actually do more than just fight, as they seem to keep you from ever dying by constantly bringing you back from the brink. They also seemed to do much more damage when controlled by the system than when controlled by a human player, but of course they don’t bring that rush-to-the-loot feel you get in local or online co-op. You choose one companion at a time on mission runs but can switch out your partner any time. The game offers drop-in/drop-out multiplayer with parties up to four players, but does not allow you to take your character into another player’s game. You also don’t seem to be able to retain your loot when playing outside your own game, which completely defeats the point in my opinion of playing multiplayer in the first place.

The game never seemed all that difficult after you manage to get decent equipment. As long as you maintain quality gear, you plow through hordes of enemies with little issue. I got through my first single-player run in about 14 hours, including completing all side-quests. In that time, however, I found myself constantly waiting to find even a single piece of killer, rare equipment. The stuff I found that was rare was mediocre and barely better than what I found in shops. Maybe Borderlands spoiled me, but I would think finding rare items would be a given in a game that encourages you to bust barrels and hunt rare baddies for loot.

If you like Gauntlet, Diablo, and Torchlight, you don’t mind a simple approach to combat and character creation, and you have a couple of friends to play with, you will enjoy Dungeon Siege III. Those looking for a Dragon Age alternative should look elsewhere.

Pros

+ Basic hack and slash loot-a-thon done right

+ Multiplayer is simple and fun

+ Dual shotguns!

Cons

- Character customization is basically non-existent

- Loot is definitely lacking any sense of value

- Graphics are clean but bland

- Length might deter those looking for a deeper experience

Dungeon Siege III is greater than the sum of its parts, and through streamlining some of the more mundane aspects of the dungeon crawler genre, Obsidian Entertainment managed to create a solid experience if you have a few friends to share it with.