Lionheart Demo Thoughts

V

Volourn

First time out of the vault
For those who don't frequent other boards I do, I will share my thoughts on the Lionheart demo, my way.


Getting Starting: Downloading this thing was a chore and a half. I was only able to do so today due to a cool site. Previously, it would take hours, and it would just self terminate during the prcoess. Today, I took one last chance, and it was up and ready to go in about ten minutes.


Character Creation: This is great. It is basically SPECIAL in Fantasy Land. Lots of hocies of how to make your character. From stats to skills to spells (which counts as skills...) to perks to traits to races. I really loved this aspect of the game. 5/5

Graphics/Sound: Graphics are old school. To me, they aren't as wonderful scenary as the IE games except for the beaches which were magnificant. Character/monster figures were same old, same old. The limited music was good; but the sound effects for the most part were bland. 2/5

Story/Quests: The introductury scene was intriguing; and I look forward to wat occurs later on. My little helper was cool though I'm dissapointed that she vanished after the first part; not to mention the fact that she decided to babysit you through things. *yawn* The main quest was nothing special as it was just to reach Barcelona. The three other quests were the bandits (good; an option to intimidate them to flee or get them to surrender completely would have ben nice); goblins (intimidate to flee would be nice option), and mosqitues (expected hack n slash). The best quest/character had to be the undead pirate captain. It's too bad you couldn't actually finish the quest at this time. It really has me thinking about the possibilities there. 2/5

Gameplay/Combat: Game play is pretty smooth. Major suggestions I'd have are quick weapon slots, mutliple spell slots for quick use, and for the screen to move quicker when you scroll. The mapsare good; but like to be able to super impose them when you are actually playing. All the mana, and spirit stuff lyinga round was a little overboard. The one shop was pretty nice. Dough was pretty balanced as well. No bugs what-so-ever.
Combat in its current former is bad, for sure. Not being able to give orders while pause really annoys me to say the elast. It's hard to do things when you got things barreling down on you fast, and furiously. Gah. Disgusting. Most battles weren't too dificult; bit some like the OGRES were outrageously silly hard to say the least - hit for a bit; run to escape then combat shows a failure to balance properly, I think. The other challenging battles were just that - challenging. Combat is the biggest dissapointment by far in the demo since I wast't really expecting much in the way of quest/story/character development. 4.5/10

Overview: Postives - Great character creation, possibility for a ncie story, memorable characters, and fun quests.
Negatives - Gameplay, and espically combat are severly lacking; possibility for a poor story, boring characters, and awful quests.

Final Thoughts: The game has potential; but the potential is very risky at this time. At best, I'll wait for a week or so after its released to gage the reaction of those who buy it. If they like it; I'll scoop it. If not; I'll wait. At worst, if it is blown to smitherins; I'll wait to the bargain bin. The demo was "kinda" fun; but nearly enough to be as gung ho over the game as I was several weeks ago.

Overall Score: 13.5/25 = 54%

Of Note: A good portion of that score is a testiment to the character creation system.
 
I agree with your review, with one exception. Character creation was really in depth, with a lot of options for different character types. It really got me excited about the game, but it went downhill from there. I thought the music and voice-overs were well done, and I kind of like the graphics as well. Wasn't really expecting a lot from the quests in a demo, so that part of it didn't really phase me.

The main thing that got me, and the reason I'll have to think twice about buying it even when it hits the bargain bin, is the combat. Everything was moving so fast that it was near impossible for me to target any enemy, and by the time I did target them they had already gotten 2 or 3 hits on me. I couldn't find much use for ranged weapons or spells, and any physically weak character I made would die really quickly. On top of all that, they don't even let you do anything while paused, and the "paused" text obscures everything so you can't even get your bearings. I liked BGII a lot, but if I had to play that game without being able to pause and assign actions I would've stop playing in the first dungeon and never played it again. Add in the extremely short dialogues, and I'd have to give this game a lower score in that category than you did.

I was really looking forward to this game, but combat just pissed me off more than any other game I've ever played. It wasn't fun, and the game didn't have enough in it beyond that to justify me suffering through it. Unless they at least add in the ability to assign actions while paused there's no way I'll ever buy this game.
 
I'm gonna play this demo as well, as soon as my download finishes, but just keep in mind that this is a demo. For reference, try playing the Fallout 1 demo, and think about what you would've thought of Fallout if it was like that.
 
Ratty said:
Uhhh... for me, Fallout 1 demo was great. I must have finished it ten times.
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agreed, fallout 1's demo was awsome. mmmm miniguns. as for lionheart or whatever its called, i thought it was kinda lame, i got broed pretty fast.
 
I just barely got to playing the demo. Not bad, character creation brigns back some memories.... I think TB combat would improve the fighting in this game tremendously.
 
I really didn't like what I saw in the demo. It felt really uncomfortable to play and the combat was awful. I don't think I will be picking up a copy of the game when it's out, although I was previously fairly interested.
 
I wonder how the game will do on the market. I predict it will be fairly low grade game but i bet it will make some bucks just of the SPECIAL system.

P.S. goddamn the combat sucks
 
My thoughts:

Character creation: Pretty good, but it could have been handled smoother with more things on the same page. Appearance could be one a separate page, but it would have helped to have attributes, traits, spirit and skills on the same page.

Graphics/Sound: Nothing stellar on either front, but some of the backgrounds were nice. I liked the appearance of the Mongol goblins, but the ogre looked pretty much like any other ogre, which isn't really a good thing in this case. The voice acting was OK, but not the best I've heard in a BIS game.

Story/Quests: Too little presented in the demo to make a fair judgement. It seemed like pretty much any player could persuade the bandits to leave the woods, but it might just be that some skill checks weren't properly implemented for the demo. The main story seems a bit cliché from the go, but might turn out better as the game progresses. Having the spirit talk about game mechanics is a big immersion killer for me, it would have been better to just have it show up in the text.

Gameplay/Combat: Well, there's really not much else to the gameplay except combat. Combat could have been better, it seems like ranged characters will have some serious problems in the game since all the enemies close up on you fast and the screen is so small. Magic seems alright, although I didn't try it out too much. My Feralkin melee specialist had a pretty easy time in combat, while my diplomatic conniving Demokin had substantial problems. Hopefully, the complete game will have less combat intensive characters or the latter character build will have a very hard time.

Final thoughts: The game still has some promise, but combat wasn't all that fun. I'll aproach this game with a more cautious attitude after the demo, almost feeling that the game has lost in appeal.
 
i was greatly turned off by the graphics, i mean, this game isn't even out yet(right?) and its graphics are not significantly better than fallouts, granted its alittle better but still... with games like Halo 2 and Doom 3 coming out.... i mean CMON Lionheart's devolopers could put ALITTLE more time into making it look good. the spirit helper thing... that really pissed me off too.
 
i was greatly turned off by the graphics, i mean, this game isn't even out yet(right?) and its graphics are not significantly better than fallouts, granted its alittle better but still... with games like Halo 2 and Doom 3 coming out.... i mean CMON Lionheart's devolopers could put ALITTLE more time into making it look good. the spirit helper thing... that really pissed me off too.
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You shouldnt judge a game by its graphics. RPGS do not really have to be good looking. I like good graphics in my 3d shooters. Anyway I think Lionheart is going to suck. The combat is horrible, its like Diablo 2 but worse. The character creation wasnt anything special. Thats because I have been spoiled by games like Fallout and BG 2. :) I only played the demo for 15 minutes though.
 
Huh? LH's character creation system is pretty much a copy of FO's except it has magic. Hmm..
 
I am level 3 and it says that i have like 24 skill points to spend but i cant figure out how to put them into different things? is this part of the demo?
 
There are small + signs to click on the skills, click those and it goes up..
 
I dont judge RPGs on graphics generally, but they did seem exceptionally bad, and this was on top of hating the gameplay experience already.
 
Well I got it. Wow this is absolute crap. Character creation is the only good part to it. So far all I've seen is endless combat, and the combat sucks. I'll pass on this one, thanks.

Fallout 3 better not be this sucky.
 
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