Author: Logan Pendragon
“Champions of norrath, a very good game”
Champions of Norrath Review
Overview
This game is a pretty good game. It has a lot of nice ideas behind it, a good concept, decent story, and it was all brought together in a good way.
Game Play
The game play resembles that of a Diablo style “hack and slash” game. It has a good control structure, good camera angles (to an extent), and the way it was overall brought together, the general concept. It is fun to play; it is long enough to reach the point where you do not really have a need for it to last any long. It has a few weak points however, since it was the first of the series, it obviously had a decent amount of glitches and problem’s, and some of this affected game plays itself negatively. Those will be mentioned in engine.
Storyline
The storyline (as with most dungeon games), there is a story, it is subject to opinion, and in my opinion it is a basic story. It does not suck, but it is now what you would find in a hardcore RPG. I have even seen some shooting games with better stories, but again that is subject to opinion. I guess what part of it might be is, once you play it 5-6 times the story gets boring, maybe that’s the case with this game. The game itself is good, you will want to play it through multiple times, but the story never really seemed to be what got me, it was the game play.
Graphics
Graphics in general are along the same lines as the Diablo series. They are all right but nothing extra special. The attention to detail was rather nice, for example when someone is hit they bleed. The fall to the ground and the effects of the battles are rather advanced, the character models themselves are not bad when up close. It is just the overall area can be a little basic looking but that could be because I was expecting more.
Engine
* Very powerful battle system, well rounded combat structure
* advanced skill structure, very good attention to skills, 20 levels per skill, and overall a lot of skills
* Great system for character advanced, one of the best of it’s time. You can level up by stats or skills.
Sound and Music
The sound and music itself are decent. The sound effects at times sound realistic, plus they talk aloud through most of the talking and cut scenes, which is always nice. It does not have bad music either, especially the general battle music that was chosen.
Replay Value
Well obviously above average, seeing that I beat (or played it), quite a few times. There are multiple characters so you can always start over and play a different character if you decide too.
Overall Positives
* Good length for the game
* Good, and larger number of characters to choose from
* Good voice over work throughout the game
* The backgrounds on some of the areas are nice to look at. better than some games
* The game has well-structured character models, and decent monster designs. Especially later in the game some of the more advanced, higher-level monsters.
Overall Negatives
* After beating it or playing it 6-7 times you will get bored of it, if that is even a flaw
* One minor glitch in the game is that sometimes item’s disappear for different reasons. They can either fall off the side of something, are stuck on a wall, be stuck in a wall, or just disappear when you teleport back to base.
Closing Remarks
The game is very good, and definitely worth getting. It can keep you busy the first and second time you play it, for a very long time. You will start playing, and still be on your first play through (there are multiple difficulty settings), in 3 weeks.
* Everything in this review is from the perspective of a programmer; I do a lot of programming, so some of it comes from a technical point of view. I have been playing game’s as well for a very, very long time, so when I do a review I do it with a lot of comparison’s in between other game’s and based on the game’s engine (and comprised systems).