Thoughts/Review of Dark Dreams of Furiae
Dharius
Member Posts: 654
Just completed the game.
Pros: a very well written game in terms of text/dialogue - it isn't or needn't be combat driven which is a big plus. I definitely got the feel of being in the Outlands with the outsiders being as well represented as possible in terms of their speech and background. The investigation and sleep sequences progress well and each game allows for a different strand to pursue - which enhances replayability. The henchmen are a good range of classes which is helpful. I completed it using a human rogue/cleric who used his ingenuity (and UAI skills) to great effect - and I had to THINK about how to get past the harder combats/situations which was a refreshing change.
The soundtrack is also new and is excellent - a great change from the OC and major expansions. The additional graphics between scenes, while not perfect in quality are reasonably done.
The Sewers and Undercity are a good final dungeon to explore - some of the areas are well done (but I'd like to see a few more traps and secret doors to keep me on my toes) and contrast well with the first half of the game walking around the city itself.
The main Pro is the quality of storytelling which mixes the Planescape and FR (at least I think it's supposed to be FR, rather than , say, Greyhawk) settings well. The quests are quite engaging and contrast well with the ones you find in say SOU or HOTU in terms of pace.
Cons: there are many unfinished aspects of the game programming which are very evident and need to be fixed in future (any?) updates, notably:
* Henchmen dialogues do not change at all when they're in the party. This means that you can't change their tactics or make use of their skills or buffing spells. For instance you find a Bard early in the game whose Lore/Identify, Bard Song and Spells would be useful outside combat, but you never get the chance to ask him to use them.
* Henchmen Inventories are not accessible at all, as in the OC, and they do not progress in level as you do. These issues aren't game changers but considering this is possible in SOU and HOTU you'd hope they'd be included.
* Henchmen AIs could be better. For example the gnome wizard you find rarely casts offensive spells and prefers to use his crossbow, luckily he's quite good at it
* The final combat is VERY scrappily made - I encountered a bug where the main villain when beaten instead of giving their final rant spoke with a henchman and DISMISSED them so they disappeared, breaking the game because the dialogue couldn't progress further. Fortunately it didn't happen on a reload. There are no major bonuses for defeating the final bosses, just some minor loot and no extra XP - but I did get a nice +5 dagger on the boss's final major surviving acolyte (a female spellcaster I think), which was good I suppose, but I never got the chance to use or sell it!
* Once you decide the fate of Furiae at the end, you're just stuck in an empty room to export your character, no extra XP, nothing. AND the curse that the boss put on your character in the game which reduced Constitution is STILL ACTIVE. Not good. It would have been good if we could have been allowed to go back into Furiae City to meet the merchants again at least before we export, if only to sell the tons of loot we find in the Undercity (some of it is quite powerful and valuable).
* Some merchants/innkeepers sell a variety of items which is not obvious from their dialogues (you think you're buying a meal or drink from them and instead get access to a store inventory which looked like it was ripped directly from the NWN OC, which actually is quite useful in the circumstances) - the dialogue should be changed to show that they are selling useful items, not food. Worse still, the Appraise skill seemed to have no effect on some of these merchants, which indicates their scripts/AI are unfinished. Again, not a game changer, but noticeable. The merchants also seem to sell many items which are TOO EXPENSIVE to buy (and therefore inaccessible) during the course of the game given the amount of starting gold you have and the loot you find (unless you're lucky to find that +5 dagger I mentioned earlier in the game...which I think would have been possible if I'd chosen a different story arc...). This indicates a bit of an imbalance between gold available and items available in the stores, which should be fixed.
* A few areas, notably some of the inns in the City and some areas of the Undercity have large empty spaces and locked doors that can't be accessed in any way...not a major problem but it feels as though they are unfinished. Luckily this has no major impact on the overall game.
* Some containers are physically inaccessible and have to be destroyed to access the loot they contain, especially in the city. In the game's final room there's a barrel which has a DC of 100 to unlock, can't be unlocked with the Knock spell and can't be destroyed. No key opens it either. I suspect it's a bug or was put there for a laugh.
All in all despite the glaring errors and scrappy finish on the end scene and the henchmen AI, I really enjoyed it. I like the fact that the fate of the city rests in your hands and choices. It kept me occupied for about a day, which was fine for £1.99, and there is some replay-ability to try the different story arcs/areas. I'd give it 7/10 because of the Pros overall.
Pros: a very well written game in terms of text/dialogue - it isn't or needn't be combat driven which is a big plus. I definitely got the feel of being in the Outlands with the outsiders being as well represented as possible in terms of their speech and background. The investigation and sleep sequences progress well and each game allows for a different strand to pursue - which enhances replayability. The henchmen are a good range of classes which is helpful. I completed it using a human rogue/cleric who used his ingenuity (and UAI skills) to great effect - and I had to THINK about how to get past the harder combats/situations which was a refreshing change.
The soundtrack is also new and is excellent - a great change from the OC and major expansions. The additional graphics between scenes, while not perfect in quality are reasonably done.
The Sewers and Undercity are a good final dungeon to explore - some of the areas are well done (but I'd like to see a few more traps and secret doors to keep me on my toes) and contrast well with the first half of the game walking around the city itself.
The main Pro is the quality of storytelling which mixes the Planescape and FR (at least I think it's supposed to be FR, rather than , say, Greyhawk) settings well. The quests are quite engaging and contrast well with the ones you find in say SOU or HOTU in terms of pace.
Cons: there are many unfinished aspects of the game programming which are very evident and need to be fixed in future (any?) updates, notably:
* Henchmen dialogues do not change at all when they're in the party. This means that you can't change their tactics or make use of their skills or buffing spells. For instance you find a Bard early in the game whose Lore/Identify, Bard Song and Spells would be useful outside combat, but you never get the chance to ask him to use them.
* Henchmen Inventories are not accessible at all, as in the OC, and they do not progress in level as you do. These issues aren't game changers but considering this is possible in SOU and HOTU you'd hope they'd be included.
* Henchmen AIs could be better. For example the gnome wizard you find rarely casts offensive spells and prefers to use his crossbow, luckily he's quite good at it
* The final combat is VERY scrappily made - I encountered a bug where the main villain when beaten instead of giving their final rant spoke with a henchman and DISMISSED them so they disappeared, breaking the game because the dialogue couldn't progress further. Fortunately it didn't happen on a reload. There are no major bonuses for defeating the final bosses, just some minor loot and no extra XP - but I did get a nice +5 dagger on the boss's final major surviving acolyte (a female spellcaster I think), which was good I suppose, but I never got the chance to use or sell it!
* Once you decide the fate of Furiae at the end, you're just stuck in an empty room to export your character, no extra XP, nothing. AND the curse that the boss put on your character in the game which reduced Constitution is STILL ACTIVE. Not good. It would have been good if we could have been allowed to go back into Furiae City to meet the merchants again at least before we export, if only to sell the tons of loot we find in the Undercity (some of it is quite powerful and valuable).
* Some merchants/innkeepers sell a variety of items which is not obvious from their dialogues (you think you're buying a meal or drink from them and instead get access to a store inventory which looked like it was ripped directly from the NWN OC, which actually is quite useful in the circumstances) - the dialogue should be changed to show that they are selling useful items, not food. Worse still, the Appraise skill seemed to have no effect on some of these merchants, which indicates their scripts/AI are unfinished. Again, not a game changer, but noticeable. The merchants also seem to sell many items which are TOO EXPENSIVE to buy (and therefore inaccessible) during the course of the game given the amount of starting gold you have and the loot you find (unless you're lucky to find that +5 dagger I mentioned earlier in the game...which I think would have been possible if I'd chosen a different story arc...). This indicates a bit of an imbalance between gold available and items available in the stores, which should be fixed.
* A few areas, notably some of the inns in the City and some areas of the Undercity have large empty spaces and locked doors that can't be accessed in any way...not a major problem but it feels as though they are unfinished. Luckily this has no major impact on the overall game.
* Some containers are physically inaccessible and have to be destroyed to access the loot they contain, especially in the city. In the game's final room there's a barrel which has a DC of 100 to unlock, can't be unlocked with the Knock spell and can't be destroyed. No key opens it either. I suspect it's a bug or was put there for a laugh.
All in all despite the glaring errors and scrappy finish on the end scene and the henchmen AI, I really enjoyed it. I like the fact that the fate of the city rests in your hands and choices. It kept me occupied for about a day, which was fine for £1.99, and there is some replay-ability to try the different story arcs/areas. I'd give it 7/10 because of the Pros overall.
12
Comments
While this is all fairly irrelevant, it did make me look up Greyhawk on Wikipedia and read about its history in the REAL world, so that was nice.
So the writing starts out awful, but it has a good story premise, and there are characters who are a real pleasure to talk to. I like that you could go to them at different times or days and get a completely new conversation. They made Furiae feel as lifelike a town as any NWN game has ever accomplished, and that's a good thing all on its own.
You have multiple choices, but they all tend towards the same outcomes. There wasn't anything really creative or interesting they have you do over the course of the investigation.
The competing newspapers were a thinly veiled attempt to shoehorn in more modern politics into Furiae, rather than telling a story even remotely interesting.
I enjoyed actually having an apartment within the city, that I was expected to visit from time to time, rather than be perpetually running across the city 24/7 like many modules.
This module had real potential, squandered by poor execution and by limited ability to write for the forgotten realms.
I can say that the ending I played was really quite buggy (Mog's dialogue breaking up and/or repeating) and ultimately very unsatisfying, no matter what I decided to do with the Worldwine stash.
Instead of a bang, this seems just to peter out. Did I miss something?
Also unsatisfying was that there was no place to unload the loot that I picked up along the way before the game ended. Maybe one is just supposed to carry it over to another game or module?
I also found the side-quests jumbled, poorly organized often mutually exclusive.
Maybe that's the way they are supposed to be. After all, real life forces choices and career paths on us and there is no going back in time to change what has happened.
Still, one of my personal likes in gaming is to be able to do all of the side quests available to my character class. In the end, I just gave up on trying to organize and describe the substance of the quests for inclusion in the walkthrough that I did.
So, in summary, while it had its points, DDoF ended up profoundly disappointing compared, say, to the classic NWN campaign and its extra content modules or, indeed, any of the other modules I have played so far (HotU, SoU, AS, CToT, TotM, DOD).
My disappointment is mitigated by the thought that the game's cost, on sale at GOG, was negligible.
adjective
consisting of disorganized, untidy, or incomplete parts.
"scrappy lecture notes piled up unread"
I still quite liked the module, as I said, but the ending mechanically just isn't polished.