Alaloth is a sandbox souls-like isometric dungeon crawler—a combination you don't see every day. It runs on Unity in pseudo-2D to emulate Infinity Engine–era games, but since it is Unity, expect FPS drops, stutters, and memory leaks. I personally suffer from time to time severe FPS drops when some fountain effect, snow, lighting, and vegetation are in sight—things that a game like this has no right to have. The 3D models, albeit not needing to be highly detailed in an isometric environment, are atrocious. On the character creation screen, you are greeted with such monstrosities that you can put them in the same row as Solasta and Oblivion. But the 2D backgrounds are all gorgeously drawn, just like the ability effects—firestorms, holy strikes, and arcane lightnings. While some could use a bit of work in the visual department and some balancing in terms of particles—yes, you, Meteor Swarm, spewing all of this blue dust over my screen—they are a joy to look at. And you will be looking at them constantly, because they are not restricted by casts per dungeon. I will play casters here just for the special effects, even if it means disengaging from the melee combat system completely.
After starting "New Game," you are greeted by a three-and-a-half-minute lore introduction. And, judging by the list of DLC—which is actually just a PDF with lore—the developers are in fanatical, obsessive LOVE with their worldbuilding. Every damn city, dungeon, nook, and cranny has its own lore commentary. You have specific NPCs that drop lore on you. Hell, even on the character creation screen where you must choose a noble house or clan for your character, the faction descriptions is so long that it doesn't fit in the text box and you must scroll through it. I pity the poor soul who wrote all of this, though it could with no difference be AI-generated walls of text, because it is so generic, boring, and uninspiring. I get it—you are writers, you want to show me your pseudo-D&D setting that you run with your friends, but please don't shovel this down my throat with such ferocity. I just bought your game and am still contemplating a refund if the gameplay isn't to my liking. So one day indie developers will learn not to introduce me to their world with poorly narrated—the guy could use a speech therapist here—awkwardly phrased text that an editor hasn't seen even in his dreams. But that day will not be today.
After these trials, we come to the gameplay that I precisely described at the start of this review. The whole system with the math underneath—heavily inspired by D&D progression, with different levels giving you stats, traits, and skill points—is quite solid. Could it be better in terms of quality upgrades rather than incremental number boosts? Could traits be something more than numerical bonuses? Sure. But otherwise it works great—your main breakpoints will be skill points for acquiring new abilities or upgrading old ones. All points are pretty tight early, but you can buy respecs with easily farmable gold that has little meaning outside of the early game if you screw yourself over.
The battle system heavily favors melee combat. Ranged attacks have a cooldown and deal no damage outside of skills, so if you are not playing as a skill spammer, you must engage close and personal. Could auto-attacks via bows, slings, and magic staves be implemented? Sure, especially with such fluid movement via WASD controls or gamepad stick. But I guess the developers have a specific vision about this, and I respect that. Your actions—attacking, blocking, parrying, dodging, running, and other action jazz—are restricted by a stamina pool, while enemies have a posture bar that you are incentivized to break. Stunned enemies not only lose their action but also suffer more damage. Crowd control is a major part of combat because you will be heavily outnumbered more times than not. One solution to this is your combat skills, which you use on cooldown with some stamina cost. The other is companions—you can take 4 from 12 depending on your alignment and bring 2 into combat.
Companions have quests, some banter, and are serviceably written, even though you couldn't tell the difference between them just from the text if you had to guess—just like you couldn't tell the difference between, say, an orc and an elf who lived in one of the cities. Otherwise, they serve a solid function and have their place in the world. They aren't romanceable, which is perfect for a plot-light game like this. You shouldn't add romances just because lonely gamers want some computer girl; you should only add them if you're ready to fully commit to writing them.
The gameplay loop is quite simple but engaging: you are dropped into the capital of your race, where you pick up some fetch, kill, and carry quests before heading out for free-roam dungeon clearing. From the former, you get gold and equipment; from the latter, you also get experience. Dungeon crawling is the main activity—you brew potions, cook food that provides buffs for the full duration of a run, equip consumables, and then delve into the unknown. The dungeons themselves are hand-crafted, mostly linear corridors filled with enemies, occasional traps, and door-opening levers. They are scaled by difficulty, and you can definitely complete later dungeons with the right amount of skill and patience, but the enemies inside will be massive HP sponges. The bosses that are usually at the end of these gauntlets are also typically massive health sponges, so be prepared.
After clearing a dungeon, you get a level-up upon claiming it and can rerun it an infinite number of times for loot, but not for EXP. Because of this, character progression is tied to completing new, different dungeons, which forces you to travel the world. New regions provide new quests, new enemies, new rewards, etc. There will always be something on the horizon, so you'll be running around the world clearing out the next tier of dungeons.
Alaloth is a sandbox, souls-like, isometric, plot-light dungeon crawler with rich—albeit unimaginative—lore and not much depth outside of combat. It shares that same "combat-first, open-world" vibe as Mount & Blade, Crimson Desert, and Baldur's Gate 1. If this is your cup of tea, then you will definitely enjoy your stay.
