‘Tis true, warrior.
Back in the day I was an Advanced
Dungeons and Dragons player. With that in mind, it may come as a surprise
that I enjoy the PSP’s Dungeons andDragons Tactics. A surprise to those
who have played it, at least. It was, by
most accounts, not a popular video game.
The game has issues.
A cumbersome menu system and an irritating camera are just two of its
problems. My biggest gripe, however, is
that it takes everything that is fun in the role playing game and jettisons most
of it. No more random encounters. No multi-classes. In doing so, it turned the game into nothing
more than a tactical battle, which is truth in advertising, I guess. So why did I like it so much?
It’s simple. The game
came out worldwide in 2007, and I was no longer part of that crowd which
enjoyed the paper-based role playing game.
When I saw this game, though, I bought it hoping it would somewhat
measure up to what I grew up playing. I
knew it couldn’t replace it, but I had hopes.
It didn’t quite satisfy me, but I could recognize the skeleton of the
game I once enjoyed, even if it was using a rules system that had changed since
my days of being behind the DM screen.
The spells, character classes (for the most part) and monsters, however,
were intact and remained fairly true to the original game. What its manufacturer, Atari, presented was
good enough that I could overlook the flaws and enjoy the game for what it was,
memories be damned.
Nostalgia is a dangerous thing. It’s hard to return to the past, as you
journey there a changed person. I kept
that in mind when I made this purchase.
I knew it wouldn’t live up to those 27 hour marathon sessions with graph
paper, dice, soda, Pop Tarts, stacks of manuals and lots of cursing. I was hoping, however, that it could capture
just a bit of that magic … and it did.
It may be awkward and flawed, but it tries to be a good game, and in
many ways succeeds.
Note: Seven years later I still haven’t finished it…
