Dungeon Siege III (2011)

I am on a journey to beat 360 random Xbox 360 games. This is my next adventure.

Game number 6 is Dungeon Siege 3. This is an action RPG that was developed by Square Enix. This review is coming out after 7, 8, and 9 because my disc just stopped working about 80% of the way through the game and I had to order another copy. This game has a main story and beating that was my completion criteria.

This game saw me running around a bunch of different levels, beating up enemies, and collecting loot. It feels a lot like a diablo game in that the camera is aimed from the top-down and you collect colored loot. One of my favorite aspects of this game is that the areas truly did feel diverse and I could instantly tell when I had reached a new chapter of the story because of my surroundings. The combat is also pretty simple, but was pretty fun throughout the story.

The combat is all about switching between 2 different stances: an AOE stance and a single target stance. You then get multiple moves to pull off in each stance to beat down enemies. When you start the game, you get to choose a character to play as. This is effectively your character class. I chose the standard knight guy and had a pretty good time with him. About an hour or so into the story, one of the other characters will join you and the rest of the game is played with a party of 2 characters.

The voice acting is okay, but can be a little cringe sometimes. There are multiple compilations about how often the name of the main enemy, Jane Kassynder, is said. Its pretty funny!

Character customization is really bad in Dungeon Siege 3. I don't think I have ever played a game where I dreaded leveling up as much as I did here. I just didn't want to have to traverse the menus and give stupid stat boosts to my attacks. Nothing really felt like it changed anything and the main method for gaining heath is through equipping different armors, not by leveling up. Furthermore, you have no control over how your character plays. The skills you get are already pre-determined and you only get slight choices about which skills you get when. I cannot stress how bad the leveling up in this game is.

Another complaint I have about this game is enemy damage. There are times in Dungeon Siege 3 where you will have no idea how you took damage or how you could have prevented such damage. In good games, you are able to see that you did something wrong, but here, I felt like the game just decides when it wants you to take damage or not. Also, bosses in this game have auras surrounding them that do different things. I have no idea what most of the boss auras did, but a couple of them do direct damage to the player. As the knight, I only had special moves that could hit an enemy at range (and these moves would deplete my mana). I was forced to sit back and wait for my companion to beat the boss for me. That was a miserable gaming experience.

Overall, Dungeon Siege 3 isn't an awful experience, but it isn't great either. The combat can be fun for a few hours, but it isn't that deep and involved minimal thought or strategy. Pick the game up if you are a big Square Enix fan but don't go out of your way to play this. (3/5)

This game took me 11 hrs, 35 min, and 50 sec to beat.

I have spent 113 hrs and 58 min on the Road To 360 challenge so far.

Next Game: Vanquish

I am a fan of DS III. If you haven't played the franchise, I recommend that you start here, but there are a few things that you may want to know:

1. This game is limited in how you customize your avatar. If it is important to you that you have numerous character classes with unlimited choices for hair color and skin tones, this isn't going to work for you. There are, however, both male and female classes.

2. Unless you have never even seen an RPG-style game before, I would avoid the easiest level. Since it avoids a lot of combat, there is almost no one to fight, which is poor skill preparation for the game itself.

3. The camera--oh, god, the camera. The spinning is so obnoxious for anyone with video game motion sickness. Every move changes the camera perspective. Caveat emptor, if this affects you.

Beyond those inconveniences, I recommend this one. There is a LOT of deep lore and backstory here, if that is your thing. Everything has an on-screen text that accompanies the narration (so I can play this at night with the sound off and not disturb my spouse). I played it with the DLC, "Treasures of the Sun."

Finished Dungeon Siege 3. But, it wasn't Dungeon Siege 3. So, I don't know what I finished. It wasn't a Dungeon Siege game. It was an action RPG game with some RPG portions which was incorrectly named Dungeon Siege 3. Where were the huge parties? Where was the intricate character customization? Where was the huge variety of loot? Where was the exhausting click fest? Where were potions? Fuck! I need potions. Why the fuck was a game of the series which originated because of the PC ported to PC from the console version with shitty controls and stripped-down role-playing elements? Actually, once you accept the fact that there is a certain misnomer involved and that the game is actually more of a sequel to Fable, the game is a lot of fun. It brought a level of freshness to the 'click till you die or get carpal tunnel syndrome' genre. Unfortunately, it did so while making skill choices and skill uses limited and reducing the thrill of item looting which comes packed with these kinds of games. Moreover, the inability to change or customize the characters at the start of the game was frustrating to say the very least. Every item seemed to look the same with slight modifications in stats till there was a design change at the next tier. I found the game to be relatively easy. I played the game on hardcore; and even then, most mobs were blown away as soon as they appeared on screen. The exception to this was a boss fight near the very end involving two very angry ogres and some annoying bitch named 'Chakti'. The difficulty jumped illogically at that point; and after dying several times, finally defeating her gave me an eerie kind of satisfaction. I haven't had that much satisfaction after beating a boss in a long time (mainly due to the advent of 'casual gaming'). The companion AI seemed surprisingly capable till it focused on reviving your character (at which point, its only quest was to revive you regardless of the endless hordes of enemies beating down on it). By the way, it took only 12 and a half hours with all side quest. Fuck! I remember spending close to a hundred hours each on Dungeon Siege 1 and 2 (finished it in elite mode). Regardless of the problems, the game was fun enough to warrant another playthrough, which I will get to as soon as I return home. Here's to hoping that they release the actual Dungeon Siege 3 game, not this console game which kidnapped the Dungeon Siege brand, killed it sadistically, and became its incompetent doppelganger.

Actual Score: 2.5/5