It’s Wednesday, and now that the Xbox live marketplace is back up and running and my intense feelings of deja-vu-induced paranoia have subsided, I finally got to download Dungeons and Dragons: Daggerdale, or as my friends and I have taken to calling it, DnD:DD (pronounced ”deeyandeedeedee”).

 DnD:DD promises “hack-and-slash” action in its description on xbox live, but after downloading and then replaying the trial three separate times (a bit redundant, given that two of the game’s four classes—the wizard and the cleric—aren’t actually playable in the demo) and eventually unlocking the full game, I’m still not quite sure what to think or even how I feel about it. When I read that players had to choose from four prefab character to descend the mines of Daggerdale, I have to admit that I was initially disappointed; rolling new characters is one of the most enjoyable parts of DnD for me, but Bedlam has taken the liberty of doing all the dirty work for me. That’s okay though, because I still got to name my character and pick a few feats and proficiencies—through this albeit shallow customization, I still managed to scape together some lore for my two characters, Lionel Eaglestorm and Llanowar Cat-Thief. I’m a nerd.

The opening cutscene appears to be hand-painted, with slight animation applied to suggest movement. With an art style strongly reminiscent of Magic: the Gathering and twitches similar to Marvel’s motion comics, I’m definitely a fan. Once I hit the tutorial, I was still feeling good; the in-game graphics aren’t as muddy as they initially looked in the sparse amount of screen shots that have been circulating the internet for the past few months.  The character designs are colorful and embellished with lots of tiny bits of panache to keep you thinking, “Snap, I look awesome!” I haven’t equipped any new armor besides helms yet, but those show up on the models—let’s hope everything else does, too.  Weapons imbued with magical properties like +1 lightning damage or +1 necropic damage spark and drool, respectively. Always fun!

The controls are laid out in typical hack-and-slash RPG fashion: three abilities mapped to the face buttons, with more accessible upon squeezing the left trigger. The Y button is used for interacting with NPCs and objects like switches or treasure chests, and for picking up the plethora of loot the game promises to have you pilfering. Each class has a unique skill mapped to the right bumper—in the demo, I was able to block as the warrior (but I was unable to rotate my character…I’ll allow it, but only under the assumption that it’s because there’s some strange by-law in DnD that prevents blocking warriors from shifting their orientation upon raising their shields) and perform an evasive roll as the rogue.  One of these was initially a lot more useful than the other. Since purchasing the game, I’ve given the cleric a shot too, and his unique ability is an AoE healing spell that actually grants you experience if you successfully mend an ally’s wounds. I have to applaud Bedlam for this, and as someone who loves support classes, I hope this catches on. 

Everything seemed pretty great with DNddDdddd until I starting fighting tiny hordes of goblins. Upon seeing me, the blood-crazed little buggers would all rush me and consistently get stuck on each other, making them easy prey for the rogue’s bow attacks. This “let’s all run atop each other goblin boulder” formation proved much scarier for the warrior. I felt like I was left swinging wildly into the pack, hoping not to whiff or critical miss or roll a one or whatever. When my sword connected (I didn’t have any problems with hit boxes or anything), it felt good, but I did notice that the warrior’s special abilities didn’t seem to do anything…special. Our fellow human has the potential to start with a hamstring-rending attack that slows opponents, a one-two shield bash and strike combo with a little bit of knockback attached, and a defensive stance that supposedly lowers damage; the only thing I noticed is that it makes a bunch of cool noises when I use the techniques, and sometimes some flashy lines appear. The rogue’s bow abilities and the cleric’s divine magic seemed to work much better, so I’m wondering if I just wasn’t paying enough attention. Still, in a game that promises “hack-and-slash action” and primarily relies on that draw to immerse players (with the loot keeping them coming back for more), that’s a potentially bad sign. 

Thankfully, the strange combat is the only thing keeping me from saying DnDdddDd is pretty fun thus far. The menus are very clear and concise, with nothing to distract you from what you go there to do, and I like that. One thing that felt very un-dungeons and dragonsly is the ability to quickly convert a piece of unwanted loot into gold, a la Torchlight’s pet running to town feature. I’m not going to argue though because that’s convenient and could potentially keep the focus on the promised hacking and slashing of the dragons in the dungeons, which I guess would make the game live up to it’s moniker a lot more than good ol’ authentic face-to-face vendor interaction. Oh, that’s in there too, don’t worry. And it works. Personally, I like how Bedlam kept the menus in the game fairly minimalistic. It feels like a $15 download game in that it’s fairly simple, but it has the functionality of something much better.

Here’s to hoping the local co-op and online multiplayer modes are just as functional as these menus. From what I’ve read, they’re proving to be this game’s biggest downfall, but I’m not afraid. If I can’t play online, that’s okay—with these kinds of games, it’s only a matter of time until some smacktard figures out how to dupe items or trade me infinite gold or something else that’s completely game-breaking (thanks, Two Worlds 2 and Phantasy Star Online and Diablo 2). I’ll stick to crawling these dungeons with my friends sitting next to me; maybe together we’ll find enjoyment in Bedlam’s take on the DnD realm. While it initially doesn’t really feel like a DnD title, Daggerdale does seem to be pretty fun, and after all, that’s what it’s all about, right? If you want to like this game, I think there’s a great time to be had here.

UPDATE: I spent about an hour today trying to get into an online multiplayer match and had no success. I couldn’t connect to a single game either chosen from a refreshed list or by the game’s quick match function. What’s more, when you fail to connect to a game, you are booted all the way back to the title menu, and have to select multiplayer, online multiplayer, load character, and then what kind of match you want. Needless to say, this became incredibly tedious and so not worth it. Thankfully, I’ve played a bit with the lovely Marnistar and it’s been a blast; if only the game supported four-player local co-op. If anyone out there bought Daggerdale and wants to give private matches a shot, I’d be interested to see if it works.