Dwarves are a fascinating race in most fantasy genres, but one that is usually featured mostly in secondary or support roles (aside from Dwarf Fortress, which this game bears no resemblance to, whatsoever). So, to have a series of books and now a game that places the stocky, stubborn, mountain-dwelling warriors at center stage is a welcome change in the overall fantasy genre.
The first thing that I noticed when playing The Dwarves was that the controls were a little non-intuitive and there wasn’t all that much in the way of a tutorial to explain those differences. The first mission puts you in control of some very powerful dwarves where you are tasked with fending off a massive horde of orcs as they attempt to storm the dwarven fortress. Without spoiling anything, this only serves as an introduction into the combat mechanics and as a bit of direct background into the eventual story that you take part in.
You play the rest of the game as Tungdil Goldhand and any others that you may recruit into your party. The top-down view of the game is very well-done with a fully rotatable 3d environment. The characters, though they are not huge on the screen, are full of detail and each one of the dwarves feels very unique.
Your character is placed into a situation where he is given a task by the human magi that raised him, but along the way you learn of a larger, more dire situation at hand. Part of the game is spent traversing the land on a large map where you are given the option of which direction you wish to take, whether you go through towns or stay on less populated routes. You can also try and find the most direct routes in order to save provisions, which are consumed each turn and which will cause you trouble if you run out of them. Sometimes, along your travels you will be faced with situations that have multiple various solutions to choose from in order to proceed. Some of these choices may result in you being rewarded. Others may result in your untimely death. Luckily the game has a very forgiving auto-saving function that allowed me to go back to right before I died a few times and make a more wise decision the second time around.
Combat is also somewhat unforgiving. As long as you are using your small group of dwarves to their full capabilities and not allowing them to get too separated or surrounded by the armies of orcs that you face, you shouldn’t have too much trouble. But, things can quickly turn against you if you aren’t paying attention to the tide of battle or if you take your eyes off of certain members of your party for too long. They will automatically fight without your direction, but they will only do regular attacks, which are relatively weak compared to their special attacks that take action points to complete. These power attacks will often have an area of effect, or knockback or stun effects that enable you to finish off large quantities of enemies at once. You can also use your environment to your advantage by pushing enemies off of cliffs, or into fire, etc. But, you must be cautious because the same fate can befall you if you’re not too careful. I found myself having to repeat certain battles a few times until I figured out the “right” way to do it, whereupon it became surprisingly easy.
As far as the RPG elements go, I was very glad that it gave me, as the player, the choice to traverse the land in the way that I chose, rather than jumping from one location to the next in order to deliver the narrative. It really felt like the fate of my character and also the fate of the land was in my hands and that my decisions really mattered, which when it comes to RPG games, is extremely important and somewhat rare.
The thing that, for me, stood out as perhaps the most impressive aspect of the game and it’s delivery was the voice acting. The cast of dwarves and other characters were all voiced by very skilled actors and I found myself really pleased with the delivery of the lines both during gameplay and during the more narrative-focused portions of the game. Where usually there will be somewhat cringe-worthy lines delivered by second rate actors that doesn’t help but to detract from the overall feel of the game, I felt like the voice acting in this game served to bolster an already interesting story into something really fantastic.
Anyone familiar with the novel that shares the same name (I have not read it) will find that the story is, as far as I could tell in my research, is the same (or similar) as the first book in the series, featuring the same core cast of characters.
Aside from just combat, I was pleased to find that there were sections of the game that relied on you trying to problem solve your way through situations rather than just always banging something with an axe. There are moments where diplomacy is required, or keen observation skills, or even challenges to your ethics and morality. Sometimes the “right” decision is obvious, but sometimes, it is hard, even for someone with a fair amount of experience with RPG’s in general, to determine if doing the honest thing will end up faring better for you in the long run, rather than trying to take advantage of a morally ambiguous situation.
These kinds of situations are what really sell an RPG for me. I mean, fighting orcs is fun and all, but if that’s all the game was, I would not have recommended it. That one-dimensional type of gameplay is just not enough for a game that bears the title of RPG. But this one does more. It offers you a chance to make choices and to feel like you’re an active participant in a series of events that may or may not lead to the salvation of the land.
