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+ Character Customization:
This is the most intriguing part of this game in my opinion. Creating four fully-customizable characters with complete sets of options is a fun way to allure players into role-playing mood, which is rarely found in recent games especially for single-player campaign. Character's 3D modeling is a little on the ragged side, but I don't hate it either.
+ Graphics:
It is not one of those games that have the most astounding visual, but I do like the organic feel in many town/village scenes, which looks quite refreshing against the cartoony style often employed by games with similar system requirements and genre. The graphic is a fine reminiscent of classic titles around 00s but is tastefully nuanced, finishing with amazing illumination in both open and occluded spaces. The smooth camera definitely adds to a pleasant visual experience in more intricate levels e.g. involving vertical spaces.
+ Fully(-ish) Voiced:
Surprisingly, not so many games are fully voiced, so it deserves some applauds. If you have played those big titles but are searching for more, you can also check out "King's Bounty II". Back to Solasta, I found several lines with no audio, don't know whether those are bugged or not, still no big issue. I am not the biggest fan of its voice-acting though, but that's just my opinion.
- In-Game Role-Playing:
After spending hours customizing my fantasy team exhausting all the options provided by the game's in-depth character creation system, I am quite disappointed in how diminished they actually affect the gameplay itself. This may be the downside of not having pre-defined companions to interact with, but it is also the problem of the game's narrative structure that the interactions with NPCs concern so little of my characters' orgins/backgrounds/personalities.
Further, as a DnD game, it is so choice-NOT-matter, the meter of faction relationship being the only real consequence of player's actions, which does not affect most dialogue or story if not all. Sometimes the player can choose to refuse a quest or kill some unimportant NPCs, but those are often negligible in terms of narrative contexts. The multi-ending arcs in DLCs also simply come down to whose quest the player completes first, as there are no intertwined storylines between individual factions that the player can influence. Basically the player follows a linear progression with very little freedom, which results in low replayability even with its scalable character customization capability.
- Story:
To say the story is boring might be an understatement. It is packed with very blend figures whom are not captivating enough to know on first-name basis (at lease I can't remember any). The lack of complexity and refinement in both character design and narratives makes it even harder for roleplaying. Those who are looking for a story-rich game will need to check community contents or look elsewhere.
- Combat:
Being faithful to the tabletop mechanics might be its selling point to some, but without human intervention, AI is just too exploitable for the sake of ruleset, making some spells extremely powerful and easy to spam. Player need to add challenges themselves to keep the combat experience refreshing. I do enjoy most boss fights though, especially that they can counter powerful effects and thus motivating players to explore strategies. Thinking about the combat in DOS2, an evolved or innovative set of mechanics might be implemented to improve combat experiences on digital platforms, in balance with the authentic experience on tabletop.
*Summary*:
As the first game of Tactical Adventures, Solasta provides beautiful graphics and a promising customization system. Their passion is also manifested in remarkable features like full voice casting. A rework on narrative structure and in-game roleplaying components in future titles could greatly contribute to the immersion and replayability, as well as refinements in combat mechanics to migrate tabletop experience to PC.