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The Dwarves comes from King Art Games, best known for their patented point-and-click adventures The Book of Unwritten Tales and Critter Chronicles, and The Raven are back, this time with something that literally fits into a few sub-genres.
It’s based upon a series of novels from writer Markus Heitz, and understandably just like movies that tie in with books and comics etc, a few liberties have to be taken to form the source material into something that works with the media to which it is being translated.
So what we have here is a bit of a Fighting Fantasy-type story book, with a few RPG elements and battles that similar to what you’d expect to see from the Total War games due to sheer numbers on-screen at times, plus a bit of RTS like Command and Conquer where you have only a few characters that must survive a scenario. It is a mix up that works surprisingly well and has captured the feel of the books nicely. I did buy The Dwarves Book 1 from the Kindle store a few days after getting the game for review to see how things fare up against the source material – granted a few things have changed but it is faithful enough.
So, the story goes that the titular Dwarves are the protectors of the realm (Girdlegard), who have been tasked with this by their god, Vraccas. As the story unfolds (book and game), the gate that has been built to keep the Perished Land from spreading and keeping the Alfar and their horde of Orcs out, but is attacked and then opened so the land can be overrun. On top of that, any foe that is touched by the corruption of the perished land gets resurrected as a mindless shell to do the bidding of the Alfar – this is how they got through the closed gate, by killing the Dwarves and waiting for them to spring back to undead life and open it for them.
Jump forward a few years and you take control of a Dwarven blacksmith named Tungdil. He was found by a mage and brought up in one of the mage teaching schools. There he does daily tasks such as putting shoes on horses, repairing any equipment that gets damaged and so on. He’s called upon by Lot Ionan (the mage who brought him up) to collect up a bag of items and take them to another mage elsewhere in the land. Hence, this is where you head out on a journey of adventure, discovery and Dwarves!
The gameplay sees you moving your player round an overworld map, where each town or location of interest has a marker. Between these areas there are lines drawn to join them up; longer distances do have additional small stopping points. Each point you will get a piece of narration as to what is going on, or some talk between you and any characters that have joined your party. The chat between party members usually has a few options you can go through to find out more about them and their history. The towns will either have a side quest attached to them where you hear more narration and may have to investigate something by talking to different townsfolk via dialog boxes on the world map, or the town may be getting attacked and you happen to be there at the right time to assist the defence. You’ll also get markers for your main quest points and a few additional markers with question marks. Investigate these markers to find additional items and get a bit more back story.
The battle system really stands out. You have to use Tungdil regardless, but can choose up to an additional 3 characters to support you during play. Each character has his/her own advantages over other characters, so you can put a group together depending on how you play. The Orcs swarm at you, leaving you surrounded quite a bit of the time. So using your skills tactically is a must: if on a bridge, then using a heavy swipe to one side can send a load of enemies falling off the other side; if a character is getting swamped and low on health, you can do a real-time pause and have someone else jump in near him, which will create a shockwave knocking Orcs back over away from the character which can give you a moments breathing space and so on.
The Orcs, when hit with sweeping attacks, can end up toppling much in the same way pins do when you go bowling. You do have to be careful, though, as a poorly timed – or placed – attack can hit a friendly and cause them to be dazed/knocked off an open ravine/bridge, or if low on health, end up killing them, resulting in having to start the battle again. On some of the tougher battles, like the Orc encampment near Ogres Death, I found myself using a faster Dwarf, or the female with similar skills and luring groups of enemies back to a safer area to gradually shrink enemy numbers – this takes a bit longer, but after a few failed attempts, I wanted to clear the area.
Go to page 2 for more thoughts on the game.
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.
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.
Important info:
- Developer: King Art Games
- Publisher: NORKC
- Players: Single player, multiplayer
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| OVERALL | 7.5 |
Retro at heart and lover of all things ’80s, especially the computers, the music and the awesome movies and TV shows! Crazy huge retro gaming collection spanning the ’80s and ’90s with hundreds of tapes, discs and carts for various machines on top of a 600+ strong Steam library that is ever-growing. No I am not a serial hoarder, just a dedicated retro gamer!
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