Dungeon Siege: Legends of Aranna

Moby ID: 10990

Description official descriptions

Legends of Aranna is an expanded release of Dungeon Siege, and includes a new single player campaign with new content (monsters, weapons, armor, spells, etc.), as well as multiplayer and user interface improvements.

The game comes packaged with the content of the original Dungeon Siege, and does not require owning the original version of the game to run.

Spellings

  • Dungeon Siege: Легенды Аранны - Russian spelling
  • 地牢围攻:阿拉那传说 - Simplified Chinese spelling
  • 末日危城:亞蘭納傳奇 - Traditional Chinese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

135 People (119 developers, 16 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 75% (based on 24 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.6 out of 5 (based on 25 ratings with 2 reviews)

What looked on the surface to be creative in reality was just a bad copy-cat

The Good
This review also kinda applies to the original Dungeon Siege.

If you haven't played the original Dungeon Siege, might as well get this one as the original is included in this version.

Well, I bought this freakin game because I liked the demo...still trying comprehend why games in the United States are so dang expensive. Anyways, it looked like a brilliant idea, an RPG where the character development was based on the increasing levels on individual skill, such as Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Nature Magic, Melee, etc. (or something like that)

The game was really addictive the first time around where you were excited in increasing your skills in order to gain more powerful spells and better weapons/ items.

3D graphics were stable, haven't found any instability yet...a long way has come from those crappy days of 3D bugs. Detailed animation, snowing effects, not bad, not top of the line, but "sufficient" to say. The game has a powerful "real-time" map option, where you can go adventuring with the map point-of-view. In addition to that, you can zoom in and zoom out very well.

Some musical compositions were quite good actually, had a "Lord of the Rings" kinda feel to it (or was it the original Dungeon Siege?)...can't seem to remember.

Oooh, you don't die! Well, not true, you just get "unconscience" the first time around, giving time for your buddy companions to heal'em up.

Time for my favorite part...

The Bad
Lights, camera, action!

Bad stuff about the game. This will take awhile I'm betting. Where to start is very difficult, so I'll try to sequence it in accordance to my playing the game.

  • Disappointing Character Development This really isn't their fault, but I was really expecting something major when I played the demo. I really was expecting skills were developed per "item", such as skills for different kinds of swords, different kinds of spells. Unfortunately, the demo wasn't long enough to "show" its limitations, as there wasn't many weapons or spells to show that (either that or I wasn't paying attention). Eventually you figure out that all melee weapons only effect strength and melee, all bows effect a little of everything, etc. Like before, I really was expecting more detailed and spesific development. With only 7 stats to develop doesn't quite cut it anymore for veteran RPG gamers. But again, this isn't their fault...I just expected too much, too soon.
  • The Copycats - Part I: Gameplay After several hours of play, you get the feeling you've played this game somewhere before. Though after many days later, I still couldn't figure out what this game reminded me of. Curse my brains for not noticing it earlier! It's a TOTAL RIP-OFF of Neverwinter Nights...(my lawyer point of view wonders if there were any Intellectual Property Rights stolen from the game engine design). Yep, it was a total copycat, the idea, the feel, the mostly everything they got from Neverwinter Nights. There goes creativity down the drain. Even the so-called "quick buttons" were ideas from Neverwinter Nights.
  • The Copycats - Part II: Inventory/Item system There's still something missing...I know I've played this game before but something not from Neverwinter Nights. Eureka! The inventory system now was a total rip-off from Diablo 2. See the screenshots and see for yourself. The character sheet/inventory is "almost" identical to Diablo 2. More noticable, the various "magical items" ideas are copied from Diablo 2. Have these people no pride?
  • Party Chaos The game was quite nice when you had 1, 2 even 3 characters roaming the land. But when you reach 5 or more characters in your team, it suddenly just becomes a hack and slash game where you just mow through your enemies. Strategy becomes basically a minimum, it's almost impossible to click on individual characters in the midst of combat so they can "flee". You also end up trying to get that stupid donkey to run "away" from the enemies.
  • Graphical scam and visual boredom The screenshots on the back of the box looked great, although in reality you really never get to see them as it's the "zoom-in" version. While playing, you have to zoom out, as after having 5 or more team mates in the game, you can't hope to see them up close at the same time. After awhile, you stop adventuring on the main screen and start using the "map perspective" as travelling become more diffucult since you can't seem to know where the hell your walking to. Suddenly have the game is just looking at green circles (you) bumping into red circles (the enemy). Ooh, back to arcade games! Sometime you go change back for combat, but eventually you'll mow them down easily enough and stick to the map version.
  • Worse Magical Spells in the history of Magic! Euy. This game is an insult to Magic-Users everywhere! The game has the most B O R I N G set of spells ever created...most are pratically useless since you can only use 2 slots available for magic slots (technically more) but you rarely can change in the midst of combat.
  • Storyline...snore...wha? No cutscenes? Storyline...this game has the most STUPID arch enemy name I've ever heard of: Shadow Jumper. Boing! Shadow Jumper...like that's something you should be afraid of? Hahahaha. Give me a break! Give me something corny like Darklord or Death King or something, but Shadow Jumper? You've got to be kidding. Who came up with that brilliant idea? Better yet, who has drunk enough to actually support it? Storyline....snore. Linear, straight line. Nuff said. Wonder if they've ever played Final Fantasy? Nope. Cutscenes...not. Was expective some graphical genius....but did they give me a movie? Noooooo. Just the same 3D graphics in "story mode". Without that...there wasn't much anticipation in playing the dang game anymore. Got to remember to un-install the game...

    **The Bottom Line**
    Uh...after several serious considerations, I would advise not to get this game. Neverwinter Nights had it better...hope the later versions of Neverwinter Nights fixed the boring dialogs though. The game isn't horrible...it's just...boring. Shadow Jumper? (Sigh)
  • Windows · by Indra was here (20756) · 2004

    You have been Swallowed by a Giant Troll...

    The Good
    "Oh, nice graphics!" might be your first reaction. Then "ah, a poor relative of Morrowind." Later again "Neverwinter Nights, but somehow lacking". Still nice. You get to choose your sex, the colour of your hair, of your skin and of your clothes, and that's it. At least, this way you will never regret having started as a Bard when later in the game it becomes evident that a Fighter would have done much better. And the game has never crashed once on me in the twenty hours or so that I have played it.

    The Bad
    The interactions with your environment are limited to smash (a box), open (a chest), talk (to a friendly NPC), kill (everything that moves--friendly NPCs just stand there). The puzzles are limited to opening doors by operating a switch, and working lifts by operating a lever. The switch is always right next to the door, the lever right next to the lift. Your mouse pointer (normally a sword, even for moving) obligingly turns into a grabbing hand when hovered over the switch or the lever, just in case you had not made the connection between switch and door, lever and lift (sorry for all these repetitions, they are here to help you, just in case you hadn't made the connections yet). And your mouse pointer turns into a hammer when you come across a box you have to smash, and into a grabbing hand when you have to open it. No, no choice. You cannot try to open a box you must smash, and you cannot try to smash one you must open. Quite a few are trapped, but you cannot tell, and you cannot disarm traps. You soon learn to shoot every smashable box from as far as possible, with an arrow, a bolt or a spell. Smash! Pick up the loot. But openable things, well, tough for you if they are trapped, for you cannot open them from a distance. There are no locks to pick, no keys to find, because nothing is locked.

    You will often come across the corpses of unlucky adventurers. You cannot search them. You will come across strange sculptures. You cannot examine them. You can do nothing with them, unless your mouse pointer turns into... have you guessed? yes! unless it turns into a hammer (smash them!) or a grabbing hand (open them!)

    Combat? Oh yes, combat. Lots of it. Every few yards you walk outside towns, you are pretty sure to come across some nasties. Usually you can spot them before they spot you. In that case, order the stronger members of your party to move back and to hold ground. Send the weakest one as a scout, and have him run back as soon as the closest enemy notices him. With a bit of luck, you can kill them all in an ambush, taking them one by one. Sometimes YOU get ambushed. Just learn your lesson, reload, and set up YOUR ambush.

    After a while it gets tedious of course, so you switch into God mode. Just hit "Enter", type "+zool", hit "Enter" again, and you're done. Now you don't have to worry setting up those carefully planned ambushes every other minute. Rip into a fight, go make yourself a cup of coffee, have a smoke, have a beer, come back. After a while it gets dangerous. Caffeine, nicotine and alcohol are fine, when used in moderation. But here you are soon courting death. So you hit "Enter" again, type "+drdeath", hit "Enter", and every blow you deal kills its target. Your characters won't grow in abilities anymore, and you cannot revert to normal damage, but, hey, it's a small price to pay for making this game almost playable.

    Yes "almost playable". To make it playable, you would need to draw your own map of every "dungeon". Oh, there is a map facility (hit TAB), but even zoomed out to a max, you'll see only a tiny, tiny fraction of the "dungeon". So you never know precisely where you are, unless you have memorized every nook and cranny you have visited so far (no, you cannot scroll the map). There is a "world map" too (hit Shift-TAB) but it is completely useless. Worse: the local maps tell you nothing. Even when in a town, you just have to remember that this building is the Blacksmith, that one the Inn. You cannot annotate the map, like Neverwinter Nights lets you. There is no co-ordinate system telling you that you are at 62.26N, 23.51W. You don't remember where the Town Hall is? Tough. You'll just have to comb the place until you find it... and since the map displays only a small part of the town, and, remember, it is not scrollable... good luck and a lot of patience to you.

    You will need a lot more patience in the "dungeons". They are huge, much, much larger than the towns, and you are soon hopelessly lost in a maze. Fortunately most of those mazes are of the kind you solve by hugging the right-hand wall, or cliff, or any other impassable terrain, at all times. No, of course not, there are no teleport spells or scrolls or anything that would allow you to mark a place and warp back to it. So that if, half-way through a dungeon, you want to sell your loot in the last town visited, or if you just yearn for fresh air, it will typically take you half an hour of retracing your steps (hugging the left-hand wall this time) and you will find your way back out. Then count on ten minutes hoofing it to town (the road is another maze, only smaller, with lots of dead ends), and then, once in town, up to five minutes going round in circles looking for a shop. Then it will be back to the dungeon, because this is a linear plot: "Do this, because you can't do that until you've done this".

    Oh there are side quests all right. Thus, right at the beginning, a trapper asks you to kill a bear for him. No clues whatsoever as where to look for the bear. You go through the gates and, provided you have mastered the "hug the right wall/cliff/map-edge" trick, you go looking for it without getting too hopelessly lost. After a while you figure that the bear is nowhere near the wall you are hugging, you trace back your steps, and, at the town's entrance, walk along the left wall instead. With much patience, and after much wall-hugging, you might find it, and kill it. Then you have to return to town to tell the trapper the good news. Of course, after an hour or so of hugging walls, cliffs, map edges, all sorts of impassable terrain, you have forgotten where you met the fellow in the first place. So now you have to go around in circles until you find him. Thankfully (this should go into "The Good" section) the side quests are far and few between.

    It is all as thrilling as travelling through a tangled garden hose or a monster's bowels, looking for the exit.

    The Bottom Line
    You have been swallowed by a giant troll. Your mission is to find your way out (hint: it is at the other end). This game is an insult to any gamer with more intelligence than a tapeworm.

    Windows · by Jacques Guy (52) · 2004

    Trivia

    Online servers

    The game's online servers (which were hosted on MSN Gaming Zone) were shut down on 19 June 2006 in the wake of MSN Games' shift from "CD-ROM matchmaking service" to casual online games.

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    Contributors to this Entry

    Game added by JoD.

    Additional contributors: Unicorn Lynx, Indra was here, Apogee IV, Stratege, Dave Mednick, Paulus18950, Plok.

    Game added November 13, 2003. Last modified March 6, 2024.