Champions of Norrath

"A solid action/RPG with great gameplay"

Introduction-

Champions of Norrath is a solid hack-and-slash RPG made by Snowblind Studios, the same company that made Baulder's Gate: Dark alliance. I own and love BG: DA, and personally I think it's a great game. Now, with Champions of Norrath, Snowblind Studios made some good advances, but they also made some mistakes which were not present in BG: DA. I don't want to compare the two too much, however. I'd rather just judge the game of its own virtue, so on with the review.

Gameplay- 9/10

Gameplay is the biggest factor of most games, and Champions of Norrath does indeed have wonderful gameplay, albeit a bit glitchy. It's your standard Hack and Slash RPG - Select a character, get thrown into a world that's in peril, fight some monsters, get some items and treasure, level up, rinse and repeat.
(One thing I would like to point out, however, is that the game plays very much like BG:DA. The interface is practically the same, and a lot of the same effects are used, and the controls are very similar, so if you have played BG:DA and liked it, you will probably like the gameplay of this game.)

To start, the combat in CoN is very smooth and very well done. Basically, you're going to be fighting melee, using a bow, or slinging spells all over the place, and sometimes mix of 2 or all three. The controls fit very well, and are simple enough. Run up to an enemy using the control stick, mash the X button until it's dead. Repeat. Sounds repetitive, and it is, but it's still fun. The in-game map is simple and helpful, and you even get 3 camera angles to choose from (in single player mode). The game supports up to four players, so you can have quite the quest going, provided you have friends, a multitap, and some extra controllers.

The characters in CoN are pretty standard. One can choose from a Barbarian, a Ranger, a Cleric, a Mage, and a Shadow Knight. Obviously, the Shadow Knight is the only character that stands out. The Barbarian plays as the tank, the ranger as an archer with unique arrows, the cleric as a frontline healer, the mage as a spell specialist, and the Shadow Knight somewhere in the middle, with frontline capabilities and some decent spells to support him. One good thing that this game presents to you is some character customization. First, one can pick the gender of one's character, and then customize hair, hair color, facial hair, etc, and finally name one's character. This way, not all one's characters are so blatantly the same.

One thing that brings this game down a bit is the amount of glitches it has. Most of the glitches are minor, such as parts of the map not loading before one arrives to it, so it's displayed as a black square until the texture loads up; nothing too major. However, once when I was playing the game actually just froze, completely randomly. My ps2 was not bumped or disturbed or anything. But, things like that are rare, and overall the glitches are ignorable, and do not detract from the enjoyment of the game.

Story- 2/10

The story is the main thing that made me dislike this game, to tell the truth. The game is set in the Realms of Everquest, though there isn't much to show for it. On the outside, it just seems like your run of the mill action RPG. When the game starts one has to fight off a goblin/orc horde, and as the game progresses one visits different parts of the world to fight off more threats, supposedly. There is a final-evil-enemy-type-of-guy that one is trying to defeat, but he doesn't really present himself until half way through the game, and even when he does, one just n't really feel there is much reason for what you are doing, or at least I didn't. There is no strong motivating reason for your fighting at many points. To add to all of this, the ending is very anticlimactic and it seems like the developers tried too hard to make the story work, and it didn't. Another thing that was very irritating was that when someone is talking to you, the text of what they are about to say slowly displays in from of you, and then, after 5-10 seconds, it finishes, and then 3-5 seconds later, the person starts talking. It would have been much better if the character you were talking to would start to speak as the text was coming onto the screen, rather than later when you've read half of what they were going to say. I can't say too much more without giving away some spoilers, but just know that the story is nothing to look forward too. Luckily, hack and slash games don't really need much of a story to hold them together, but this game has problems even providing that.

Graphics- 8/10

Another thing this game does get right is its graphics. While not revolutionary, they are quite detailed and of good quality. There is little slowdown in the game, and all the spell effects are rendered well. There is blood in CoN, if you turn the option on, but it's not an overwhelming amount, just enough to fit the game. Water effects are recycled from BG:DA, as are a few of the spell effects, but since the game plays so much like BG:DA, they fit well. There are little to no pixilated objects, and most of them are smooth rather than polygonal. Almost every item looks unique when equipped to your character, which is a major plus. You probably won't dislike the graphics, unless you are extremely picky, so you don't really have to worry about them if you're considering picking this game up.

Sound- 7/10

The sound effects in CoN are great. You hear the sound of your sword swinging, your shield clanging, and your enemy's blood splattering. You can usually identify what you're walking on by the sound effects that accompany it, from splashing puddles to cold tiled dungeons. Arrows whiz realistically through the air, ending with solid thumps in orcs' and goblins' armor. Flames crackle, skeletons' bones creak, and orcs raise rallying cries.

The music is half good...half not so good. Let me say this: Some of the songs are really awesome. But...some are rather bland and repetitive. There also aren't too many tracks, or at least it doesn't seem like it, because they repeat rather often, sometimes despite the environment you're in at the time. Another thing I noticed was that sometimes a song will randomly stop, for no apparent reason, and then it may continue playing, or a different song may start, which was rather annoying.

The character voices were rather nice. However, as mentioned in the story section, you have to wait for 15 seconds before a character will start talking before you actually get to hear the voice acting. Sometimes it gets so frustrating to wait for the voice to start that you just want to skip through the conversation and then just check your quests to see what a given character wants you to do. But, from the sound standpoint, the voice acting was of rather good quality. No complaints there.

Play Time/ Replay Value-

While I didn't time my game time, I would estimate that this game takes from 15-20 hours to complete, depending on your skill (how many times you may die) and on what type of player you are. If you're the type of person who goes through every nook and cranny of an area and goes to every bonus area you can find (like me, usually...) it may take you a while, rather than if you're a more average player who may just do what's required. But, despite that, there aren't many bonus areas, so either way you'll probably be around 20 hours.

The game does have very good replay value, however. There are three difficulties, and once you beat one, you unlock the next difficulty, and you can import the character you just beat the game with to the next difficulty and play the game over again with all your gold and items from the previous game. So, assuming 20 hours each time through, that's at least 60 hours, and that's just with one character. Keeping that same 20 hours/ 1 play through, there are 6 characters, so roughly 300 hours. Well, most people wouldn't go that far, but you can get as much replay out of this game as you want.

Buy or Rent?

It's probably worth it to buy this game just because it's so cheap now. If you go to any store at random, it's probably going to be around 20 bucks, but I've seen it for cheaper, and actually got mine brand new for 13 dollars.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 12/01/04