My 100 Most Favorite Video Games of All Time #90: Dungeons and Dragons Tactics

‘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…

Cleaving Skulls in Two Part Two

I few posts ago I wrote about my latest session with Dungeons and Dragons Tactics.  You can read about it here if you are so inclined.  Part of what I wrote dealt with my creation of a character based on Robert E. Howard's Conan.

Conan is dead.

It was bound to happen.  I got over zealous fighting some trolls.  Before I could get healed, I bled out all over the ground.  It happens to the best of us.  It happened to Conan. 

I'm strange when it comes to these types of role playing games.  If my character dies, I don't usually bring him back.  I won't go to the last saved game and start anew.  And while Conan was only at fifth level, I had grown quite fond of him, but I still wasn't bringing him back.  So the game has ended ... for now.

I'll go back to it at some point.  I'll make a new character and start all over again.  Maybe I'll make it past the fifth level.  Maybe I won't make it past the first.  Either way, I will never be playing Conan again.  I won't remake him.  I will be deleting the saved file.  He is, like my assassin character in the original paper and pencil game, gone to the Happy Hunting Grounds never to see the windswept plains again. 

As I watched the Game Over screen come up, only one thing really came to mind.  A troll?  Really?  Yeah.  Definitely not an ending fit for the greatest barbarian of all time.

Cleaving Skulls in Two

Back in the day I played Dungeons and Dragons.  Yep, I admit it.  Played it a lot.  Eventually I stopped.  This was before the new rules came out.  Back when it used about 800 different die.  Then, one day while shopping for PSP games, I came across Dungeons and Dragons Tactics.  I bought it.

I was hesitant to buy it, as I thought it was a bit expensive, and then when I saw the manual was quite a few pages, I really wondered what the hell I had gotten into.  After playing it a few times I put it away for about a year.  Just recently I've picked it up again, however, and I have to say that I'm taking the game much more seriously and having a really good time with it.

Usually I enjoy making up my own characters.  This time was no exception, though I made Conan.  I just thought it would be fun to do.  A barbarian based off Robert E. Howard's mastermind creation.  What could go wrong?  Absolutely nothing.  I'm enjoying the hell out of this critically panned game this time around.

Granted, the game has issues.  The camera is annoying, there are a lot of steps one must take to do simple things.  That's okay, though.  This is not meant for people whose attention spans are non-existent.  It's more zen-like, and while you may be carving zombies limb from limb, it is actually quite peaceful.

I'm not sure why the game is called Dungeons and Dragons Tactics as it could have been called just about anything else with a Dungeons and Dragons name and made more sense.  This is not some real-time strategy game, though there is that.  It is a role-playing video game through and through and those looking for something different probably felt a bit ripped off.  It does, however, remind me quite a bit of the old D&D games ... minus pizza and a lot of cursing.
Mandatory FTC Disclaimer: I paid for this game, and if you click on a link, I may earn a commission.