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If you liked Dungeon SIege, you are going to enjoy LOA

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 27 / 27
Date: November 20, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I thourghly enjoyed Dungeon Siege. So when the expansion was announced, I as close to first in line to buy it as I could be. I was not disappointed with the game. There are two more character types that you can pick up in journey. The Backpack is a great addition to the inventory system. It allows you to expand the ability of your characters to carry more. There are a range of new and instersting monsters to fight. Mad Doc (the company that wrote the expansion) has obviously played a little bit of Diablo II as they have included the Set Items in for magical items. And they did so that the single player can actually complete a set (are you listening Blizzard ?) .All and all if you liked Dungeon Siege, you are going to like Legends of Aranna. And for the first timers, the full version of Dungeon Siege is included.

The biggest complaint that has been leveled at LOA is that it is more of the same. The point is that yes it is more of the same only improved. If you disliked Dungeon Siege, do not buy it. But if you beat Dungeon Siege and want more or are thinking about picking up Dungeon Siege to see what all the fuss is about, this is the product for you.

Now when is Dungeon Siege 2 coming out....

One step forward and two back

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 34 / 45
Date: February 01, 2004
Author: Amazon User

It's real obvious that this is an 'expansion' and not a sequel. The gameplay is EXACTLY the same. While more of Dungeon Siege isn't a bad thing, THIS much more does get kind of repetitive, especially when you kill the 4 billionth skag/skitter/
skitterskag. It's fun to begin with but it soon becomes infuriating.

There's pretty much no reason to use anything but melee weapons during the whole game. Magic is totally useless and up until the last level, range weapons are pathetic too. And just after the halfway mark you can just forget about collecting gold. It's pointless. I finished the game with about 500, 000 in gold. But there's nothing to use it on. Why even have gold to collect if you can't use it? And the weapons and armour you can buy with it are just rubbish. They don't give you much of an upgrade or boost. They just look different from each other. There's nothing of any great use.

The controls desperately need rethought. You click in one direction and sometimes the characters will run away in the other. What's the deal with that? And it's far too, way too easy to get lost. You spend hours wandering around the labyrinthine levels without a clue where you should go. There's a megamap button on the screen but when you click on it you are presented with a black rectangle. Wow! That's useful.

There's not much of a pay-off when you finish the game either. Once you kill the bad guy you just switch the game off as there is nothing left to do. Boy, am I glad I stuck it out to the end.

The good parts are just the re-used elements of the first game. The music is great (why is there no score CD?). The plot developments are interesting (tho they go nowhere) and there is a great atmosphere to many of the exotic levels.

My best hint in regards to playing the game is to NOT allow Nardulo to join your team. He's weak, dies easily and will use up all your health potions.

Is this worth getting if you already have the first game? Definitely not! But the original Dungeon Siege is included in the 3-disc pack (no switching the CDs is necessary, the whole game is loaded all at once-quite impressive!!!) so if you really love bashing in goblins and love it just as much after bashing the 50 zillionth, gillionth, thrillionth, trillionth, billionth, millionth goblin then go right ahead and play both games in a row. I can't imagine it would be healthy tho.

More of the same is a good thing...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 18 / 19
Date: November 30, 2003
Author: Amazon User

If you liked the regular Dungeon Siege game, you will also like this expansion. (Note that the regular gamer is included here, which makes this a great purchase).

So why didn't I give it 5 starts? Well, there are a few things that could be done better. I found the story to be less involving than it was in the original (and it wasn't all that fascinating there either). In fact, I can't seem to grow attached to the characters. There just isn't much story and charm there. Also, the level design is good, but not quite as good as it was in the original game, it seems.

But overall, this is a very good game. Just like the original, it is very hard to stop playing as you move through a world that never stops or even pauses to load. Technically, this is one great game!

Some of the game mechanics are still much better than they are in competitor's games. I like being able to shoot a bow without worrying about the number of arrows I have (here, if you have a bow, you can shoot it). I also like the ability to keep reusing the same spell without having to rest. This game simply removes a number of frustrating gameplay elements, resulting in a lot more fun.

Overall, this is a great game. Not quite as awesome as the original when it came out (and that's a while ago... so maybe that's where the problem is). I can't wait for Dungeon Siege 2!

Not just an expansion pack

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 13 / 13
Date: September 10, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Dungeon Siege: Legends of Aranna is not just an expansion pack. It also offers the original title Dungeon Siege, so those of you that plan on purchasing it, don't. Save yourself the money and just buy this game, you will get both at a great price.
Legends of Aranna is everything Dungeon Siege should have been from the beginning. There's more character dialogue and the story is a lot richer. The game does, however, retain it's linear characteristic and the excessive point-and-click style of combat.
New characters, new plot, new items, new spells and weapons and a whole lot more.
This rpg is well worth the money.

3-D copy of Diablo II but not as much fun

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 12 / 13
Date: January 07, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I got this expansion pack for xmas and have played it a total of about ten hours thus far. It's a pretty good game, heavily derivative of Diablo II, but it has some fairly significant flaws.

Pros:

1. Big expansive world;
2. Lots of different types of weapons, spells and armor;
3. Large inventory plus ability to expand it significantly with a pack animal;
4. When character's health drops to zero, he/she becomes unconscious rather than dead and can be revived;
5. Pretty decent graphics;
6. Can customize looks of your character, including gender, hair colors/styles and clothes.

Cons:

1. Combat is automated, so once you get within either your missile range or the myopic monsters' sight range, the computer takes over, fights to the death and the player has very little impact on the fight. In fact, the only real task given to the player during all combat scenes is to monitor the health and mana levels of the party and drink health and mana potions before falling unconscious. Combat is thus really boring.

2. The automap function sucks. It only gives you a limited top down map that does not show much area. In contrast, the automapping function in Diablo II shows the map of the full area, making backtracking easier. It's easy to get lost in the game and waste a lot of time hunting around for that passage back to the nearest town.

3. It's too easy to click on one of the other party members by accident during combat when trying to reposition a character, which makes that other character the leader.

4. The program has bugs. I had one character who had stopped near a bridge with the rest of the party and it got stuck at the bridge - I couldn't get him to continue following the party or move him anywhere. I had to backtrack at least half an hour to an earlier saved game to get around this problem. Very aggravating.

Summary: Copies many aspects of Diablo II, improves some of them, but by and large, this game lacks much involvement and is considerably less fun to play.

If You Still Enjoy the Game After the 5,856th Goblin Death..

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 10 / 10
Date: January 14, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I was never a big fan of the popular Diablo series. I was even offended when the game referred to itself as an RPG when I thought it was nothing more than hack and slash repetitiveness. So when Dungeon Siege was released with the promises of being a beautifully rendered 3-D Diablo clone, I didn't order this baby as soon as it was released even though it did have some impressive screenshots. Well, I finally gave in after the expansion game was released because unlike other expansions, Dungeon Siege: Legends of Aranna actually comes with the original game as well. Hey, I have no problem with a braindead game that acts as temporary mind candy. I've been through my fair share of boring shoot 'em ups, and I did have some fun for a few days with Dungeon Siege. I enjoyed upgrading my party and their skill levels. There were some great looking dungeons and plains to roam but some of them started getting boring. I have no problem with a mindless dungeon romp but after the 18,000th goblin, the game starts to get old. It also gets old when I realize that all of my equipment is the same, it just goes up in damage and armor levels. The graphics, music, audio effects and stability of this game are top notch. One of the best production values of current games, but somehow during the production of this game, the designers forgot the most important element of any video game - fun! . Another unfortunate feature of this game is while it has a BEAUTIFUL engine, nothing really ever became of the toolset and custom mod community. There are people that enjoy this game but I have no idea how close I came to completing the original game because I was bored to tears halfway through. Dungeon Siege is one of those titles that is worth it when the price drops but a game that might leave you feeling ripped off if you buy it at a current release price.

A great game on many levels

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 14 / 18
Date: July 07, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Ok, first off, let me defuse a few misconceptions about DS: Many people find it boring because you just gather stuff and party members and walk up to creatures and let the computer take over. This is true, but only with the default settings. There is a control panel that lets you adjust this behavior in many ways. You can play it the default way or all-manual (very hard to do) or any number of ways in-between.

Now then, on to the bad: The UI can be hard to control. Whenever you are in a tight area, the camera wants to move into a safe position, so as soon as you move the mouse away from the edge of the screen, the camera "bobs up" to look down at your character(s). This can really throw off your ability to manage the character(s). Also, the excitement of doing something new is often tainted by the fact that it's a thin modification of the previous steps. I like the cut-scenes and the puzzles, I just wish there were more of them.

Ok, so the good: The AI players make life a lot easier, and once you get the hang of managing the AI's settings this game can be a joy. Also, there are tons of ways to play and strategies that you can use. The magic system alone lets you play the game in dozens of different ways. The weapons and armor are just complex enough (just a bit more than Diablo) to make you think about how you want to equip your characters. It's often a hard choice, and I like that in a video game.... your milage may vary. Creatures have various advantages and disadvantages over you, and you need to figure out each one to know how to attack. Overall, it's a very good game, but not one for people who just want to plow forward and finish in a few days (you could, but you would miss a lot and the game would not be as fun).

PS: This review is actually for the basic game, not the expansion, but I'm mostly responding to other points that people have made that are the same for either or both.

No need to hesitate, get the game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 9 / 10
Date: December 03, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Dungeon Siege: Legends of Arrana is similar to the original Dungeon Siege, you embark on a journey liberating the the land from the grip of evil bent on destroying the remnant of a once thrived civilization, except this time, you spent most of your time on the jungle island of Arrana. The gameplay is fairly linear, you hash and slash your way through tons of monsters and smash gazilion crates and vases looking for loots and treasures. In fact, this game seems to emphasize on smashing boxes cause you spend more time smashing boxes than killing monsters, so that portion of the gameplay can get very tedious. It wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that quite a few of the crates are empty or contain useless items, of course, except for a few time when you really do fine powerful armors and weapons. Unlike the original Dungeon Siege, this game presents you with more powerful weapons, spells, and armors which makes the gameplay more exciting but less of a challenge cause the monster don't stand a chance once your group is well equiped. Dungeon Siege is known for its impressive graphics, so Legend of Arrana is no exception. The graphics rendering of the jungle is beautiful and provides a scenic and breath-taking view of the land. If you like the original game, you will like this one cause it is an extension of the first. If you never played the game, you should give it a try, especially when it comes with the original game so that is a good incentive to go out and get one.

Just as good as before

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: November 26, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I've only played about 2% of this game, but I can already tell I like it a lot. Not much has changed in the graphics engine since the last go-round, but it's still visually stunning. The voice-acting is completely awful. The game has lots of new monsters, and they've fixed some of the gameplay issues since the last time.

I still have had a little trouble with the targetting during the battles... if you don't click directly on the (usually moving) offending foe, you'll sometimes run past them (and usually into the clutches of their buddies behind them, such that you're completely surrounded). A very minor complaint.

Like almost any other game of the hack-and-slash genre, there's really not much more than hacking and slashing, which can get a little tedious, but that's a flaw of the genre, and not this particular game.

Make sure you have an oomphy system to play, too, and you'll be rewarded. And if you never played the earlier version, now's your chance, as they bundle it in with this new game.

Too easy...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: April 24, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I'll have to agree with other reviewers. The game play is just too easy and after a while gets too monotonous. The graphics are great and the scenery/music is excellent. I enjoyed the original game much more. You had to work harder to kill the bosses and it required more strategy and interaction. In LoA, all you really need to focus on is pushing potions. The original game also includes a multiplayer map that is completely different than the single player game, which added to hours of extra enjoyment. Not so in LoA. They really skimped out on the expansion pack.
If you've never played DS before, go ahead and buy it since it includes the original. You'll love it! If you're buying this because you have DS, its probably not worth it. I'm much more excited about Dungeon Siege II after seeing the trailer. Hopefully, the game lives up to the trailer.

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