REVIEW - Solasta: Crown Of The Magister Has Depth Without Being Overwhelming
What is the difference between a sorcerer and a wizard? Class.
By Byron Woodland
17/06/21
Reviewed on PC.
Review copy provided by Tactical Adventures.
Solasta is a squad based tactical RPG with turn based combat that recently levelled up from early access to full 1.0 release. I think it’s fair to say that this game is aimed solidly at lovers of Dungeons & Dragons and other tabletop pen and paper RPG’s, but us mere mortals will find a lot to love too. I want to make clear that whilst I have always been interested in tabletop RPG’s, it’s a rabbit hole that I have not yet ventured down, so please forgive any errors or oversimplifications of a craft that I know can take some time to master.
Solasta uses the Dungeons & Dragons SRD 5.1 ruleset, and from reading other reviews it is a very faithful reproduction of the system. If like me, the previous sentence means very little to you, I will try to break down what it means in the simplest form. Tabletop games rely heavily on the roll of various dice to calculate the likelihood that something will or won’t happen, and Solasta is no different. The dice are built into the game and auto rolled, with the end result (alongside other factors like your characters various skills) dictating the outcome of what you are attempting.
I was immediately concerned that my enjoyment of Solasta was going to be dependant on my understanding of these various factors and how they interact with each other, but it does a solid job of allowing you to control the complexity and involvement you have with this system. There are several difficulty levels that allow you to focus more on the story or to get really into the tabletop rules should you choose. If you want to play this like any other similar RPG you can, without any more understanding of the dice system than higher usually equals better. If you already have a good knowledge of the D&D system then your enjoyment of this game is only likely to go up from here.
Combat is turn based and includes variables such as lighting, distance, verticality, cover and the strengths and weaknesses of the characters. This allows a great level of planning and tactics to go into encounters if you so wish, but is also forgiving for button mashing simpletons like myself. Like any RPG there is a great deal of customisation up for grabs with various races, classes and sub classes for your characters, all with different skills and all selectable by you depending on your play style. You can also just go with the default 4 characters if you just want to get into the game and not micro manage each character build.
Gameplay itself is a bit of a mixed bag for me. The environments and combat animations look great, and the artwork is really nice and fits the style of the game very well indeed. The cut scenes are OK, but the character animation and dialogue could do with a bit more polish in my opinion. It is not bad by any means, but could definitely do with a bit more work to aid in the immersion of the game.
I have spent about 12 hours with Solasta and the average play through seems to be in the region of ~35 hours. Given this I have not seen all the game has to offer, but there seems to be a distinct lack of content beyond the main story arc/missions. Whilst interesting and engaging, I would’ve liked some more side missions to aid in levelling up characters, collection of loot and generally fleshing out the world. This is certainly not one of those RPG’s where the side missions can take as much time to complete as the main game and personally I missed that aspect.
The Dungeon Maker feature goes some way towards adding re-playability to the game as it allows you to create and share your own custom built dungeons where you select the layout, loot and even the soundtrack and share it with your friends. There is also Steam Workshop Integration so I expect the community will do what the community does best and create some epic dungeons to crawl.
As with a lot of the games I cover this has been made by a small team using backing gathered from Kickstarter. Given this, the level of complexity and polish is to be applauded, but this isn’t a Triple-A RPG epic packed with side quests and lore. It is however a pretty solid RPG that does a great job of introducing the rules of tabletop gaming to those who may not be familiar with them, and has certainly increased my interest in dabbling in the dark and complicated world of D&D.
The devs are working on a new character class (The Sorcerer) which will be a free DLC add-on to the game. This will be available in the coming weeks whilst work continues on the dungeon maker feature as well. This also suggests that there may be more paid content further down the line, but I was unable to find any roadmaps to indicate when or what this will be.
If you are a fan of games like Baldur’s Gate and Pillars Of Eternity, and are into tabletop RPG’s then this game is well worth a look. If you want a very immersive RPG with tons of lore and world/character building with side missions aplenty, then perhaps this isn’t the game for you at the moment.
Roll the dice. Stabby stab to victory.
WORTH IT?
At the bottom of every game review, we ask the question: Worth it? And the answer is either “Yeah!” or “Nah”, followed by a comment that sums up how we feel. In order to provide more information, we also have “And” or “But”, which follows up our rating with further clarification, additional context for a game we love, or perhaps a redeeming quality for a game we didn’t like.
YEAH!
Solasta: Crown of the Magister is an approachable RPG that won't see you losing 100's of hours of your life to complete.
BUT
If you want an epic saga with a lot of play time then there are other games that will better cater to your needs.
TARPS?
At the bottom of some of our articles, you’ll see a series of absurd looking images (with equally stupid, in joke laden names). These are the TARP badges, which represent our ‘Totally Accurate Rating Platform’. They allow us to identify specific things, recognise positive or negative aspects of a games design, and generally indulge our consistent silliness with some visual tomfoolery.
