Tales Of Maj'Eyal

[mjkittredge]

It's funny, somebody else mentioned this game on these forums so I decided to check it out, and wow is it awesome. Taking a break from ADOM as I wait for the glorious steam version to come out.

Despite it being another turn based strategic RPG roguelike, with a world map, race/class character selection random items and dungeons and monsters, it is very very different from what we're used to.

There are the basic fantasy class types, warrior, archer, mage, summoner, but there are also many exotic classes and hybrids such as Oozemancers, Wyrmic (dragon warriors), Shadowblades, Temporal Wardens, Sun Paladins, Doombringrs, ect ect (26 in all) , and cool races like undead to whom special rules apply such as immunity to disease and poison. Each race has a separate starting location on the map.

You don't start with all classes and races available, you unlock them by adventuring. When you complete certain quests you gain achievements and unlocks. Sometimes you have to choose between several or more options. Do you save a merchant from an evil criminal overlord or pledge yourself in service to that overlord in exchange for his rewards? There are escort quests where the NPC ai is stupid as hell running towards monsters, but if you manage to get them to safety the rewards are significant. Others involve chopping off monsters body parts to bring to alchemists so they can make nice potions for you.

The items are more Diablo 2 style. There aren't a lot of white text plain vanilla items, most are magical with a prefix and suffix and color text denoting their rarity, and some are loaded with extra effects. Also unique and set items. Certain items grant skills you can use. For instance I found some gloves that allow me to cast an AOE darkness spell that stuns monsters in it's radius. Others cast spells when you are hit or hit an enemy like a magical shield. I'm playing a Halfling archer that just found a new unique ammo for his sling that casts an ice storm when it hits.

The monsters are varied and most have some special abilities they use. Rare monsters have a random set of skills much like the ones player characters do and can be especially deadly. There are boss monsters in each area.

One of my favorite innovations in this game is the system of runes and infusions which are magical abilities you graft onto/into your body. To start off you can have 3 and eventually up to 5. They can do all sorts of nifty things, like healing, removing negative status affects, lighting up darkness, aoe elemental damage, teleportation, super speed, and so on. As you find better ones you can overwrite the ones you're currently using.

Skills are very interesting, again it's sort of a Diablo 2 system but not quite the skill tree. Each skill category has 4 core skills you can improve from levels 1 through 5 with points you get as you level up. At level multiples of 10 you get new category point to learn a new set of skills. And very rarely completing a quest event will give you a new skill or category as reward, potentially one your class could not learn on it's own.

It's overall not as punishing as ADOM. There isn't cursing or dooming or item status or item destruction or praying to gods. Traps are rare and not too dangerous. Items are identified as soon as you get them. There isn't monster spawn in 99% of the game. Once you clear an area it's safe. There isn't a huge pile of scrolls or potions or herbs for you to figure out, or a thousand separate arrows/rocks cluttering the inventory. But you can select various difficulty levels where the monsters get scarily powerful.

It's free to play, with downloadable content and if you donate 10 bucks or so you get access to a shared stash to transfer items you find to another character. Catch is they have to fight their way through a low/mid game dungeon to get to it to unlock it in the first place and then new characters have to survive all the way there to access it.

Anyway, I could go on and on, but long story short, it's very well done, a really unique take on the roguelike genre and definitely worth checking out.

[Dlightfull]

I've played that, i think i still have it installed in my comp. I've finished it once on normal roguelike.

What can i say, i don't like the way it's skill system works, too much buttons to press, usually before a battle. There are too many active skills for my taste.

It's also not as deep as ADOM in terms of world interaction, story etc. etc.

It's still a very solid game, yes, but for me ADOM is simply the best.

[grobblewobble]

It's an interesting game. They tried hard to avoid grinding, and managed that fairly well. The infusions are a nice alternative to potions.

The main drawback is that the enemies have very random sets of abilities. You will be killing hordes of monsters without any trouble, until you run into a boss that happened to get an absurdly overpowered set of skills and you suddenly die.

[mjkittredge]

It's an interesting game. They tried hard to avoid grinding, and managed that fairly well. The infusions are a nice alternative to potions.

The main drawback is that the enemies have very random sets of abilities. You will be killing hordes of monsters without any trouble, until you run into a boss that happened to get an absurdly overpowered set of skills and you suddenly die.

I agree. To me that's what makes it exciting, never knowing when the next deadly foe will come around a corner. But also feeling like, with the right setup I always have a way to win! Or at least escape!

Great soundtrack to the game too! Lots of unique and well made songs.