Siege of Dragonspear - my review
FredSRichardson
Member Posts: 465
EDIT: I upgraded my score by +5 (it's hard to get over +3 heh). After finishing SoD I was really impressed. Major cudos to the dev team!
My grade for SoD is ... wait for it ... 92 / 100
As with anything how much you appreciate Sod depends on your expectations.
SoD faces many challenges: appealing to new players who are not as nostalgic for the old games while not disappointing old players who are very nostalgic for the old game.
How do you make something that is both new and old? It's kind of like writing a sequel to classic literature. It has to be new - but it has to work with what's old.
BG1 and BG2 are not new games and do not play at all like recent games from the past 3 or 4 years.
I was a late adopter of BG1 and it wasn't as enjoyable for me as it might be for some people who played it back in the year 1998.
I started with IWD and then BG2 ToB around 2002 so I cut those later games a lot more slack - they carry much more nostalgia for me.
So SoD I like. It's different and in some ways a lot more challenging than the un-modded version of the other games.
Beamdog did not need to be as cautious about content as they did with enhanced BG1 and BG2. I felt like there was some real risk taking in there and some very original encounters and scenarios. Magic items are added but not with the huge amount of restraint Beamdog had to use for BG1 and BG2 EE. I actually found new items that are quite useful and powerful. It was also really pleasant to deal with scenarios not yet covered in detail in online walkthroughs. There are online walkthroughs available, but I ran into situations not covered by them - at least not yet. This was kind of a thrill.
Okay, there are a few odd things. Like why does Duke Belt sound like a speech synthesizer? That is the flattest sounding voice acting I have ever heard. I guess the voice acting budget ran out...
But other than a few relatively minor blemishes, I have so far really enjoyed SoD. But perhaps I am the target audience.
My grade for SoD is ... wait for it ... 92 / 100
As with anything how much you appreciate Sod depends on your expectations.
SoD faces many challenges: appealing to new players who are not as nostalgic for the old games while not disappointing old players who are very nostalgic for the old game.
How do you make something that is both new and old? It's kind of like writing a sequel to classic literature. It has to be new - but it has to work with what's old.
BG1 and BG2 are not new games and do not play at all like recent games from the past 3 or 4 years.
I was a late adopter of BG1 and it wasn't as enjoyable for me as it might be for some people who played it back in the year 1998.
I started with IWD and then BG2 ToB around 2002 so I cut those later games a lot more slack - they carry much more nostalgia for me.
So SoD I like. It's different and in some ways a lot more challenging than the un-modded version of the other games.
Beamdog did not need to be as cautious about content as they did with enhanced BG1 and BG2. I felt like there was some real risk taking in there and some very original encounters and scenarios. Magic items are added but not with the huge amount of restraint Beamdog had to use for BG1 and BG2 EE. I actually found new items that are quite useful and powerful. It was also really pleasant to deal with scenarios not yet covered in detail in online walkthroughs. There are online walkthroughs available, but I ran into situations not covered by them - at least not yet. This was kind of a thrill.
Okay, there are a few odd things. Like why does Duke Belt sound like a speech synthesizer? That is the flattest sounding voice acting I have ever heard. I guess the voice acting budget ran out...
But other than a few relatively minor blemishes, I have so far really enjoyed SoD. But perhaps I am the target audience.
Post edited by FredSRichardson on
7
Comments
It is certainly refreshing to see what the dev team can do when they are not severely bound by licensing agreements (i.e. as with BGEE and BG2EE). I wouldn't mind seeing an alternative to the ToB finale from the same team!