The Dwarves on PS4 – The DVDfever Review

When starting a battle, make sure you understand your objective. As an example, I was taking too long fighting Orcs that had trapped villagers in houses and set them alight. After a few attempts, I had 3 characters fighting and luring the Orcs while I used the 4th to free the people from the houses – it was only after the last barricade fell that I had won that particular scenario.

Visually, the overworld map is really impressive and looks hand-painted. There are small figures representing your band and other characters that move around in turns. You can bump into friendly merchants to buy supplies for your journey or end up fighting a band of Orcs that have been following you. The only time you actually enter a town of village is to do battle. There is no RPG element, as such, where you will head into a town, explore a bit and get quests and supplies. You may have to find something or other, like in the elven village when you find the mage you were sent to look for you have to look about and you find a painting and a few other points of interest before an Alfar arrives, resurrects the dead townfolk and leads to a battle. The battle areas, themselves, look nice, with each one bringing a different challenge. You may have to try and take out an Orc before it warns others, and then take out a few catapults before you can clear the main encampment, so clearing one path can make life a little easier. There are canyons, encampments, villages and plenty areas during these battles, there are always plenty enemies but I have had some bad stuttering and freezes when you get a large text pop up telling you what you must be doing.

The sound is absolutely stunning – there’s an orchestra with choir doing the music throughout, while the loading screens and title page music really draws you in. Travelling the world map, the narration is read like a book delivering emotion and felling. There are also loads of quirky humorous moments between the Dwarven brothers and Tungdil, which is quite tongue in cheek and will have you laughing along with them. All cutscenes are fully voiced, and even talking to characters while in the stronghold had a bit of spoken dialogue including some text-only bits. I cannot find any voice actors tied to this game at all after searching about the internet. Whoever they are, they need to be credited on IMDB and the game’s official page as their work is absolutely superb.

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The Dwarves Part 3 (The ruin of GreenGlade) – tokshen

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All in all, The Dwarves is a fun game, the battles are frantic and varied and can be fun to play through. I think, though, with the world the writer created, something more like a Neverwinter Nights-styled game would have suited the title better, more of an RPG than an interactive story. Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot of depth to this but the only time you are seeing the world is when in a battle.

There are also bugs: the freezing and stuttering occasionally is a bit irksome. One big thing that has caused me to turn it off at times is the loading – if you die while doing a scenario, it reloads it, so back out to the load screen and another long wait… Boy, oh boy! I have Commodore 64 games that load quicker from tape! (DVDfever Dom: “Even the 18-minute loading time of Arcadia?! 😉“)

Another gripe with the loading is that it just shows the controller with it’s inputs. You get a hint at the bottom of the screen and the awesome music, but there is no need to have the controller mappings there all the time. How about some artwork?! I have read on the official page that loading is being addressed in an update, which is due to come out soon, so fingers crossed.

Thanks to the Youtube channels featured for the gaming footage.

The Dwarves is out now on PS4, Xbox One and PC, and click on the packshot for the full-size version.

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The Dwarves Part 4 (Return to the Vaults) – tokshen

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Important info:

• Developer: King Art Games

• Publisher: NORKC
• Players: Single player, multiplayer

GRAPHICS SOUND GAMEPLAY ENJOYMENT	7.5 8 6.5 7
OVERALL	7.5