Yesterday, the RPG Sword Coast Legends launched and aims to impress with an exciting campaign in the style of Baldur’s Gate, cooperative adventures, and the ability to create your own quests. We have played it.
Sword Coast Legends is aimed at RPG fans who loved the classic Baldur’s Gate on one hand, but also created their own adventures with the Neverwinter Nights editor and played them with friends. Since October 20, the RPG has been available and is receiving rather mixed reviews. We also took a look at the game and would like to share our first impressions with you.
Shallow content
The campaign starts with the creation of your own hero, who is created according to the – adapted – D&D rules of the 5th edition. Not all races and classes are included, which the developers will likely address via DLC or add-on. With your own character, you begin the adventure and quickly notice a few things.
On one hand: There is only one save slot per character! An absolute no-go in a single-player RPG where you’d want to try different solutions. The next noticeable thing is the animations. They sometimes appear unintentionally funny when a hero runs around without a weapon in hand as if they are holding one.
The complexity of the quests also leaves something to be desired – at least so far. So far, you kill monsters or look for people or objects. Another criticism is the heavily simplified rule system, which makes real tactics hardly necessary anymore. While in older D&D games you had to tactically choose which spells the heroes could learn and cast how many times a day, there are now cooldowns allowing you to complete a dungeon in one go. After all, each spell is available infinitely. The battles also feel very action-oriented and remind more of Diablo – and that’s despite the adventure party and pause function.
The conversations within the adventure group currently represent the highlight of the game. The personalities of the NPCs come across well and it is just fun to listen to the characters during their arguments and discussions. Only sometimes do they not match the situation. When a hero suddenly says that it looks like a battlefield in the dungeon, but not a single corpse is visible, it raises some questions. The story around a conspiracy is developing slowly so far, yet you want to know what is really behind it, which motivates you to continue playing the story mode.
Not what one might have hoped for
The multiplayer part leans even more towards Diablo, as the action cannot be paused and you only play one hero. The creation of a dungeon or game area is somewhat disappointing, as there are simply too few options to create individual places. Everything is basically randomly generated. You can only place individual objects. The quests you can generate also lack variety. Because at the moment, it’s all about either defeating a monster or finding something. However, a session with a game master and several players is still always fun.
All this may sound rather negative, but Sword Coast Legends is not a bad game. However, it does not reach the significantly more complex predecessors Baldur’s Gate and Neverwinter Nights.
The RPG fare is noticeably shallower, which is not necessarily a bad thing. It is therefore well-suited for beginners or when you just want to complete a quest in between. The characters you encounter are very well and interestingly developed. But those expecting a truly complex and deep RPG or hoping to create long, individual adventure campaigns with complex stories and play them in multiplayer will likely be disappointed.
