T w e n t y S i d e d
Before I get started with the gameplay: Someone asked about the DRM in this game. Let’s answer that question first…
For everyone else, the game uses a name / key combination for registration, which is handled locally. (No server involved.) This is pretty much what I was hoping RSPOD would use, as it means the game still functions without regard to the health of its progenitor.
Everyone has different tolerances for this sort of stuff, but the info is there so you can make an informed choice.
Fenix suggested this genre of game ought to be called a “third person looter”, which is pretty catchy. Grinding is usually looked down on in RPG’s, but in a third person looter the game begins and ends with grinding. That’s pretty much the whole game. In the most primitive hack-n-slash knockoffs, you have only two goals:
- Go up in level.
- Get better equipment.
That’s not a bad start. Fate built an entire game around those two concepts. But most games will add at least one more:
- Advance the story. (Dialog, cutscenes, new characters, etc.)
That’s where Diablo II stops, with the added complexity that “get better equipment” means not just finding stuff, but also gambling and combining items.
The story in Depths of Peril is not a rich tale told through cutscenes as with Diablo. It mostly consists of a chain of specific quests, which I assume leads to a big battle at the end. (I haven’t completed the game yet.) I would have enjoyed a deeper story, although I’m not even sure that’s possible without cutscenes and voice acting. What’s here is serviceable enough, and a step up from the randomly-generated pseudo-plot of Fate.
But the more things you can add to the list of activities, the more you can mitigate the tedium and create a richer experience. To this end, Depths of Peril offers:
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Depths of Peril:
Gameplay”
