Dungeon Siege III

At some point Square Enix decided to acquire the Dungeon Siege franchise from Gas Powered Games, apparently to fill up a gap of dungeon crawler genre in their portfolio. And thanks to that, we now have Dungeon Siege III, which was released in 2011.

I was surprised to see how much the third game is tied to the first. The second game had very little to do with the first, and I kind of expected it to be the case with this one as well. Instead, DS3 takes place 150 years after the first and there's a clear story leading to the third game. The places you visit are familiar (in names, not in looks) from the first game and there's even a crypt of heroes where the party members are buried.

In the canon, the first game's player character is evidently female -- a fact I did not expect. Though I guess it makes sense considering the game cover art had the red-haired woman on them. She was raised to nobility as she ("the farmer") is now referred to as Lady Montbarron. One of the playable characters, Lucas Montbarron, is her descendant.

I think instead of Dungeon Siege III, they should've called the game "Kingdom of Ehb: Reckoning". Because apart from the setting, DS3 has nothing in common with the first two games. I mean, yeah, DS2 had quite a different atmosphere to DS1, too, but at least it had the same four-classes system as a base from the first game. DS3 has none of that. It has completely new mechanics. And of course it also plays totally different, being a console game while DS1 and DS2 were pure, mouse-driven PC action RPGs.

I hear the PC port was horrible at launch due to its controls. The Treasures of the Sun DLC addresses this by adding strafe keys and the ability to rebind the controls to one's liking. It definitely shows in many ways that the game was designed for a controller, but I think (at least with the DLC) it was quite playable. As long as one doesn't expect it to play like Diablo 2. And it certainly is more entertaining than Sacred 2 -- two-handed attacks hit multiple enemies, fuck yeah.

The game has an elegant way of trading one button for three with its stance system. Hardly a new feature in games but still a handy way of having more usable abilities with a limited set of keys. Regardless of that, there are only nine abilities for each of the four playable characters (plus an ultimate ability from the DLC) and you will get all of them; you can merely decide on which order to unlock them. And even though you can upgrade the abilities to some degree and put points in passive talents, Dungeon Siege III sure hasn't too much depth in the customization department.

I also feel that many of the ability upgrades are uninspired. Quite a few of them have identical effects, like adding a chance for a vague fire damage over time effect, and at least on the character I played, Anjali, the abilities between the two stances didn't synergy very well.

The game's plot has small changes depending on which of the characters you play. Anjali, for instance, has some special dialogue with the antagonist and her cohorts for being an archon like them. The rest of the lot join your company along the way. You can only have one of them with you, however, but you can change your sidekick at any point (provided that you're not in combat).

Dungeon Siege III has quite a bit more story in it than its predecessors, or rather, the story has a bigger role. That's probably the result of having Obsidian Entertainment develop the game. The ending sequence is even compiled from segments based on your choices similarly to what they did in Neverwinter Nights 2 and its expansions.

DS3 was fairly challenging on the normal difficulty. Some spider boss -- Palefang, I think -- was rather annoying to kill as it kept ignoring my sidekick and only chased me with its big attacks that always took half my health. I managed to beat the spider on my first try, though, as I discovered that instead of running I should stay in melee range and just dodge its attacks.

A much harder fight was the first encounter in the Spire against Jeyne Kassynder. After having wiped a few times I decided to try Lucas as my sidekick instead of Katarina, whom I had had with me most of the game. I don't know if it was Lucas or just me not getting hit by as many Jeyne's ranged attacks, what made me survive the fight in the end, though.

I probably should've done the DLC quest line before the Spire to get the ultimate ability, more levels, and loot. Even though the ultimates use all of your power, clearing all boss minions at once with Xeria's Wrath is pretty damn useful.

The third Spire boss battle was also a bit tricky. The healing/damage absorb ultimate would've likely helped. I think Jeyne prefers to target enemy farthest away from her, whom she then relentlessly assaults with her powerful teleport and leap attacks. Neither of which can be avoided unless you are dodging the moment she disappears. DS3 has an active block as well, but I seem to avoid blocking/parrying in every game. The dodge also gives you complete invulnerability. And even though there's a window where enemies can damage you between dodges, it still seems a better option.

I managed to beat Jeyne after I switched my sidekick to Reinhart and his high dps, and then stayed dodging in melee range myself. In my opinion, all the boss fights in the game, while maybe not hugely original, were quite good and properly done.

I wish games with a dodge move had it cancel your current attack. I don't know if it would be too good but numerous times I got hit by a painful ranged attack that I couldn't avoid because I happened to be in the middle of an attack animation, and you can't even queue actions like in Torchlight 2.

Dungeon Siege III is a decent console action RPG experience but not really worth ever returning to. It is also apparently the first Obsidian game to use an engine of their own. While the environments are hardly impressing, spell effects and character models are pretty, especially during dialogue when the camera gets really close. The bloom effect seems similar to NWN2.

I bought the game on Steam as a part of the Dungeon Siege Complete package that was on sale. I have to say that the package is hardly a complete one, however. Steam doesn't have the expansions for the first two games, and especially Dungeon Siege II really needs its expansion, Broken World, for a full experience. Thus for someone seeking to play them, Steam isn't the place to buy them. (Apparently you can get the expansions for the steam versions. There's a guide how to do it.)

Also, a goblin called Baron Barrenbaron? Seriously? So bad but I couldn't help but laugh out loud when he said his name. Good grief.

Edited 2021-04-10: Whos to whoms.