Solasta: Crown of the Magister

Fun, streamlined and pared down version of D&D/BG3 type play.

i had never heard of solasta before seeing advertisements for solasta II being in early access, and decided to check the first one out! overall, it was fun and scratched the rpg itch, but it was nothing to write home about. a very lukewarm recommend an immediate pro for me was that you can customize your entire party of heroes. the character creator is very very minimal though and certain backgrounds lock you in to specific appearance factors. my overwhelming impression of solasta was that it is the perfect introduction to how d&d works for beginners or players craving a very faithful rule-adhering experience; everything is explained quite thoroughly and there are simple but effective visuals. moving into cons - it is absurdly easy to abuse the long rest system, and while i tried not to, i fell victim to temptation many times lol. i will say though a few areas at the end of the game were making me sweat with the lack of LR points/realizing i didn't bring enough food for my journey. speaking of food, that whole mechanic was just okay...it really wasn't a worry whatsoever until the end of the game when you have to practically cross the entire map and back again. i did think the possibility for random encounters while traveling was cool at first but it did quickly become me tapping my foot waiting for the travel to be over. there are also very minimal quests that seem to actually matter save for helping you grind, and there were certain things i came across that felt forgotten about/abandoned (the mayor, perpetually standing in the middle of the town square for eternity ...?). i think the main campaign took me about 40 hours? typically in games like these i put in twice that and it was kind of nice to have a shorter experience this time around. but again, it is a very simple rpg. not a bad thing - but the world is just very, very, very sparse. minimal merchants, practically no one to speak to, super linear etc. i also thought the faction system was interesting, but this did not end up mattering whatsoever other than for gear, which was kind of a let down. i actually made a choice to prioritize a certain merchant who ended up not being so nice and friendly after all and it would have been great to see the consequences of that! i did end up buying the edition with all dlc as it was super on sale, but i do think it it is a bit questionable of a choice that several classes are inaccessible unless you buy the dlc(that is a huge drive to play these sorts of games!). the voice acting was decent, but a lot of the subtitles do not match what is being said and the dialogue could be quite cheesy/out of place. as of now i have only completed the lost valley dlc, it was very meh and involved a ton of backtracking and the ending was VERY underwhelming haha. i am not feeling super motivated to complete the other one i think the most abysmal offender of the main campaign for me was the story. in the beginning i actually really liked it; everything was explained well, with reminders brought into circulation so i always felt aware of what was happening. but around the middle of the game it really started to go downhill, there were heaping helpings of "this is happening this way...just because!" and such a dire lack of explanation for things. there were many reveals and big moments where i was left giving bombastic side eye to my screen because that was just...it, the game then immediately moved on to something else. so...yeah. it was fun! but it does not whatsoever stand up to other rpgs in its class. there's nothing like playing a game for the first time, and to avoid replaying divinity/bg i have been looking for new games and experiences. it was kind of nice to play something simple, frankly effective in what it set out to accomplish, and i would recommend it as an appetizer to other rpgs like it - but at the end of the day, i'm always going to choose feeling overwhelmed with an rpg that feeling underwhelmed :/

good game, alot of fun .

7/10 A solid attempt, though for my preference there is too much emphasis on focusing on dice rolls for every single action. Game would benefit a lot from a smoother mode where the rolls are done in the background, can be checked in the msg box, but animations play faster. Makes me interested in seeing how Solasta 2 will improve on this formula.

Esta bastante buena la exp, vine directo para aca al probar el "demo" de solasta 2 y se siente muy bien, muy apegado al dnd 5.1 que cualquier jugador de rol disfrutara, y también para no jugadores. Es como Divinity 2, añejan bien con el tiempo

打折時購入太值得了

Feels like playing a more DnD-styled baldurs gate 3 but with way less commitment involved in starting/doing a playthrough, feels much more co-op friendly too. If you wanted a DnD campaign experience game but without the hefty commitment in starting baldurs gate, go for this, throw yourself in a campaign and just have some fun. Much easier to jump in and out of. Its not some super high quality in depth game like the obvious game its being compared to, but it is a great quick experience to play some digital DnD and feel extremely satisfied with it. Obvious downsides is all the classes/races being dlc locked but you can get it cheap on a sale so just keep an eye for one.