I’m glad we live in a time where there’s relatively no shortage of ARPGs. Dial the clock back 10 years and you had a lot fewer options. You’d be hard-pressed to find people talking about anything other than Diablo; maybe Sacred or Torchlight here and there. Nowadays, you have some really good alternatives such as Path of Exile, Grim Dawn and Torchlight 2 headlining the genre. One can also head over to steam to find a plethora of indie ventures guaranteeing ample amounts of hack, slash and loot. Din’s Legacy is one such indie ARPG that grabbed my attention last year while it was in early access. Fast forward to 2019 and I couldn’t pass up on the offer to review Din’s Legacy. With the prospect of acquiring loot, loot and more loot, I ventured into Din’s Legacy blind. Here’s me explaining if you should do the same.
Story & Setting
Like many of its peers, the story is basically an afterthought in Din’s Legacy. The gist of the story is that due to an event called the Orc Schism (yes, you read that right), a bunch of people underwent mutation in Aleria. You are one of them. Running in your veins is orc blood, black magic, zombie parasites and everything in between. As a member of this newfound mutated race, it’s up to you and other like-minded mutants to prove to the world that you aren’t baddies like the orcs. How do you accomplish that? By aligning with the trickster god Din and by doing good deeds that fit in fantasy tropes silly! In short, it’s best if you forget that there exists a story in the first place.
Gameplay & Mechanics
The soul of an ARPG is it’s gameplay mechanics and the soul of Din’s Legacy is chaos induced by randomness. It’s a more rogue-like take on the ARPG genre rather than following the traditional formula introduced 20+ years ago. Din’s Legacy overwhelms you with choices – including but not limited to – the usual class selection, five difficulty parameters (hardcore, semi-hardcore, softcore etc) and scenario options (map size, enemy behaviour, enemy level, area difficulty). How you play is entirely in your hands. As such, Din’s Legacy is not the most welcoming game and the learning curve is quite steep. Thankfully there’s a real old-school manual over at the official website and a lot of tooltips in-game as well.
Chaos is the name of the game
Din’s Legacy thrives in a truly dynamic and reactive world where anything can happen at any time. Procedural generation is the name of the game. Monsters can grow more powerful, quests may time out, quests may change, NPCs might die, clans attack you and each other; hell, there’s even a mini-Nemesis system in place for the monsters. Everything you do (or don’t) affects the world. Think of it as an offline MMO. The world must go on. So you can bet big bucks that each playthrough will be unique and its events can be called your own.
However, it’s a lot to take in and this level of randomness will not be appreciated by everyone. Depending on luck, you might get some really cool levels and scenarios or end up with equally bad ones. What starts out as something trivial might get the snowball effect treatment. The times my oversight caused the death of NPCs and even an entire town remains frustrating but it’s an experience I may call my own. Sometimes, there’s just too much going on and it really messes up your pace. If you’re someone who hates ongoing procedural mechanics in games, you’ll want to stay away from Din’s Legacy.
X-Men simulator
The other unique aspect of Din’s Legacy is its iconic mutation system. There are around 30 classes in Din’s Legacy. Regardless of which class you chose at the start, you can choose to mutate into any class if you manage to unlock them. As the game goes on, your basic skills will start to gather modifiers that make them behave differently. Later on, you grow new body parts that grant new skills or traits, mutating into another class entirely. There’s always that randomness rolling its dice in the background as these traits may be either be positive or negative. There are so many traits and modifiers you attain that it’s crazy. Enemies, weather, weapons- everything is taken into account. The mutation system allows you to mix and match passives and actives for seemingly endless possibilities.
A warrior today may be an assassin the next day or a necromancer the day after. However, there is always a price to be paid for such a degree of versatility. The price here is balancing. I know, ARPGs always have a hard time balancing the skills and items. If you’re in it for the long run, prepare to see a lot of outright pathetic as well as broken overpowered characters and skills. Then there is the issue of bugs. While Din’s Legacy is getting patches often, there is no shortage of bugs and glitches. Thankfully, I experienced nothing game-breaking other than a missing character. He was a low-level idiot caster anyway.
Misc
When you come to the basic ARPG mechanics, the game is quite decent. The animations are a bit unpolished and the controls feel stiff at first but you get used to it. Combat is a bit clunky but people who grew up with Titan Quest will not have any problems. The loot table is very fair and there are lots of sick gear to obtain. Oh and there’s even co-op multiplayer thrown in. There is a lot more to Din’s Legacy than meets the eye but for the sake of keeping this review on point, I shall not dabble in them. Even after over 50 hours of play, I’m certain I haven’t experienced all that Din’s Legacy has to offer.
Visuals, Performance & Sound
Din’s Legacy isn’t going to win anyone over with its presentation. The visuals are very dated and the animations are very crude but that’s quite all right. You wouldn’t be here otherwise. Performance-wise, the game runs at a locked 60 fps maxed out at 1080p with some odd stutters here and there.
Sound design, like the visuals, is very subpar. The music is exactly what you’d expect from a fantasy RPG. There’s obviously no voice acting but that is to be expected. Sadly weapons, spells and everything in between sound straight from the 90s.
If you aren’t bothered by these shortcomings, Din’s Legacy won’t turn you away. Then again, Soldak fans would be accustomed to this by now, similar to how people have been receiving Jeff Vogel’s RPGs for the past two decades.
VERDICT
Din’s Legacy is a very unique, deep and unforgiving experience. It’s hard to find an ARPG that offers the level of nuanced gameplay Din’s Legacy does. That being said, it’s hard to recommend Din’s Legacy to the average ARPG player. The level of randomness in the world and the clunkiness in the gameplay might be enough to turn players away from Din’s Legacy. It’s made with a particular niche in mind and thus can be hard to appreciate for people unfamiliar with Soldak games. But It’s never too late to join them, especially since there’s a free demo you can try to make up your mind (better than this review ever will). Everything said and done, I had a good time with Din’s Legacy. Then again, I’m a sucker for RPGs that are rough around the edges.
