Solasta Review | A D&D player's wet dream..

solasta crown of the magister is an original turn-based crpg developed by a small indie studio by the name of tactical adventures tactical adventures hals from paris france and this is their first game as a studio with just 15 to 20 employees they set out on an ambitious mission to create a video game that would hopefully make table top role players spend some more time looking at their damn screens for cripe's sake it's 20 21 we don't do irl get together activities anymore jokes aside solasta is heavily based on 5th edition dungeons and dragons rules and mechanics and despite tactical adventures not having a full license to 5e material they still did something really special here so in today's video well one of today's videos i'm going to give you guys my first impressions spoiler free of this brand new crpg that rhymed i played a good amount of early access and thanks to tactical adventures i was also given access to the full version of the game before its official launch if you guys end up enjoying this video please subscribe much more selastic content to come including guides and live streams right here on this very channel links to my twitter and my discord server will be below let's talk about solasta [Music] first and foremost how close of an adaptation of 5th edition d and d is this game and my answer to that is that it's very different but also the closest video game experience you're going to get in terms of the game's setting and lore it has almost nothing to do with dungeons and dragons this game is set in the brand new world of solasta and you're going to hear about new gods new monsters new factions new villains new cities and much much more in terms of classes and races here is where we start really dipping into 5th edition d and d in solasta players will choose one of five parent races dwarves half elves humans elves and halflings three of these races will split into two sub-races giving us hill dwarves snow dwarfs high elves sylvan elves marsh halflings and island halflings a d d player will be very familiar with choosing a race as some of them come right out of the player's handbook such as the hill dwarf but then you got sub-races such as the snow dwarves which are nowhere to be seen in 5th edition and this particular sub-race of dwarfs offers the dwarven race a way to acquire a dexterity ability score increase so some things are exactly the same as 5th edition while others are new but still heavily retain the 5th edition feel in terms of classes if you play the cleric fighter paladin ranger rogue or wizard in dnd you can basically play this same class in solasta the general class features and the features you gain as you level up are almost exactly the same it's quite impressive where it starts to differ is in some of the subclass choices for example you can play a life cleric in selasta a very very close interpretation of the 5th edition cleric but you can also play as an oblivion cleric which is like a cleric with some warlocky type features or even play as a green mage which is a mage subclass which turns your mage into a bow wielding druid ranger both of these subclasses offer new experiences but once again still pull from 5th edition in total there are 24 different subclasses to choose from and now that i think of it i didn't actually count them so i'm not sure if that's the exact number but it's too late let's press on so now we went from being different to d and d to being mostly similar so now it only makes sense to talk about where celasta really hones in on that tabletop experience and that's the gameplay mechanics in solasta you're not going to get a free pass to push enemies all over the map as a bonus action like in baldur's gate 3. you're not going to be able to jump away from an opportunity attack as a bonus action and then still attack after that you're not going to even be able to switch your weapon to a different weapon and then switch it back in the same turn selasta does not play around with the 5th edition rules in mechanics and they also don't play around with a very important resting system and for those of you who don't know what that is resting is a way to regain hit points and in simple non-dnd terms it allows you to recharge your ability to use certain spells and abilities if you're in the habit of spamming that long rest every time you use up a couple spell slots in balder's gate 3's early access we'll get out of that habit because in selasta you can't do that resting has true meaning in terms of gameplay mechanics and it does require some thought to go behind it you can only rest in certain spots and it even requires some resources i recommend having a ranger with the goodberry spell in your group to make the food that you'll need much easier to acquire you'll thank me later short rests also require some thought many actions that you take in combat and even out of combat will carry a lot of weight to them in this game and really add to the strategy elements of solasta now it might sound like i'm kind of bashing baldur's gate 3 here but you guys on my channel know that i'm beyond hyped for baldur's gate 3 and it will probably end up as one of my favorite games of all time but the great thing about solasta is that it's not baldur's gate 3. we already have baldur's gate 3. celasta is a game that's not afraid to be a bit more hardcore in its mechanics and this will ultimately drive some players away from the game making it a bit more niche and fairly so though because not all players want to spend their free time learning rules and mechanics in an rpg you can't even cast a spell in this game if the spell's components are not met for example if a spell requires a somatic component you're not going to be able to cast it if you don't have a free hand if it requires a spell focus you better have an item on your character that gives you spell focus so the game is not going to be for everyone in this regard it can be challenging it has depth and it will require many players to learn things and sometimes this can be through the process of trial and error or just by simply learning from your fatal mistakes i do find myself getting frustrated at times but those of you who have been following the channel for a while now know that it's the games that don't have any frustration in them that are the ones that collect dust the fastest so this is a big praise on my end to this game and thank you tactical adventures for giving me an experience that i can actually feel some accomplishment from and that i'm motivated to push on and to conquer so to wrap up the gameplay mechanics basically those of you who enjoy depth and some complexity and rpg experiences or those of you who are already familiar with dnd well like the title says this might be your wet dream celasta does an excellent job with turning 5th edition table top rules and mechanics into video game form and surprisingly i haven't even come across combat encounters that were way too easy or ones that were just flat out impossible it seems fairly well balanced every time i thought that all hope was lost there was always a solution somewhere whether it was a spell i forgot i had an item that i needed to use or maybe i needed a completely new strategy in terms of my character's positioning all of what we just talked about is what makes selasta a truly great and unique experience that i would absolutely recommend to most crpg lovers but i have to be honest here without them doing such a great job on the rules and mechanics this game would likely struggle as you've probably already noticed the graphics are not exactly 2021 and along with that comes the rather horrible animations for the most part graphics have never been an end-all be-all for myself and games and i know many of you guys feel this way as well but there's some areas in this game that just look crappy for example the random encounters that you'll get into during fast travel are some of the ugliest fantasy areas i think i've seen in the past 10 years of gaming but it's important to keep in mind that this project does not have millions of dollars backing it in fact they raised around 300 000 on their kickstarter which isn't much for a complex game with 15 to 20 employees working on it it's important for me to say though that the whole game doesn't just look horrible some dungeons are actually quite eye-catching but if graphics and animations are forefront on your mind for modern day games solasa is not going to provide that experience for you i do want to mention that some of the spells and their animations and particle effects i actually really enjoyed watching and probably wouldn't even want tactical adventures to change or improve them it's almost like they knew they didn't have a huge budget so instead of trying to do more than they're capable of tactical adventures said screw it let's go with a more nostalgic look and sound for some of these spells so for what the company was working with i think they did a good job and the gameplay and mechanics make the visuals not nearly as important as they might be in terms of success for other games so how about the story well i haven't finished the game and i don't want to give any spoilers so i'll keep it simple don't expect a story like the developing complex plot in baldur's gate 3 and also don't expect a lot of player agency in that regards in selasta there's only one overarching story that you cannot alter by making different decisions in character creation where you get to create four custom characters you do have the option to make your characters personalities lean towards the evil or good side but this ultimately won't affect how the story plays out what it will affect though is the responses that your characters give in dialogue but these responses don't really change the outcome it would obviously be awesome if we could have a truly evil playthrough or a heroic good playthrough but once again we have to keep in mind that that's a ton of extra work and money for a smaller studio the crazy thing here though is that even with this limited style of allowing character personalities some of the responses that your characters will give are quite witty and humorous and i do find myself excited to keep going into more dialogue maybe even if it's only simply for the good entertainment and oftentimes a good laugh without this element the story would likely be a little harder to get into now the story itself is not bad by any means so don't interpret it like that i am enjoying most of the lore and i do like how they set up a story that has us players acting as adventurers but also forcing us to be involved in some political drama it can get a little cheesy at times and i don't think it's going to be the forefront of praise for the game but it's kind of what i would expect from a smaller indie studio they don't have writers working for 80k a year pulling from established dnd lore it was probably just a couple employees working with the time that they have and i think they did a good job there's no real complaints here selasta will offer some crafting which includes making potions poisons spell scrolls enchanting weapons and making ammunition doing these activities will require certain tool and skill proficiencies and crafting for the most part will take place when your characters are fast traveling and setting up a camp where they will then passively devote some of their time to attempting to pass some of the behind the scenes dc ability checks the quicker a character succeeds in their ability checks related to what they're crafting the faster the crafting will be completed so even with crafting in this game celasta is adding some depth and complexity to it crafty materials can be found on enemies in chests bought at vendors gathered in the wild and more and it definitely does add a nice element to the world the last thing i'll briefly mention are the factions in the capital city you're going to come across various factions many of which will be competing for your attention the more you work with a faction the higher your reputation becomes and the more you're ultimately able to buy from them and sometimes at discounted rates some factions will offer some really good armor while others will offer great crafting recipes this is another element of the game that does add some extra depth outside of just completing the story so final thoughts solasta is a gem and i'm very excited for what the future may hold for tactical adventures is the game for everyone no but is it for most crpg players and d d players i would say absolutely yes i also encourage those of you who are new to this genre of game to give it a try if it sounds even somewhat interesting i think it's important that we keep supporting these smaller studios this game could also be a great way for some of you to introduce non-dnd friends of yours to dungeons and dragons mechanics and ultimately get them to start coming to the table thanks so much for watching and let me know your thoughts below in the comments i will be doing and have already done many videos on this game and i'll also be live streaming it quite a bit right here on this channel my streaming schedule is posted on my about section of the wolfheart fps youtube page see you on the next one

Channel: WolfheartFPS

Views: 84,478

Rating: 4.9340119 out of 5

Keywords: solasta review, solasta review 2021, solasta gameplay, solasta crown of the magister, solasta classes, races, gameplay, solasta game review, initial impressions, classes, tips, character creation, solasta d&d, dnd 5e, dungeons and dragons video game, solasta trailer, review, worth it, is it good, crpg, new rpg 2021, wolfheartfps, tactical adventures

Id: CtVM4-gr8Os

Length: 13min 46sec (826 seconds)

Published: Wed May 26 2021