Have you ever wanted to get that classic D&D fix from a video game but just don’t have the time to learn the complex mechanics of titles like Pillars of Eternity well then you’re in luck!
When first entering Gordian Quest, you pick your starting character and suddenly you are thrust into the middle of trying to save a town and that’s about it, don’t get me wrong there are more story elements for different sections later on but the story is very simple and depends on you doing little quests rather than having an actual storyline, the story for the game is probably its weakest point, that’s not to say the story is terrible just that compared to the rest of the game the story is relatively basic and it becomes very repetitive with all the dungeon diving, personally I quickly found myself not paying much attention to the story because I found it a bit predictable and obvious.
The gameplay is where Gordian Quest shines and it’s an incredibly fun deckbuilder, you start with choosing your first character and very quickly end up recruiting more to fill out your party, each character depends on three stats— strength, dexterity and intelligence just like in D&D, these stats also determine how good the characters are in their particular class— spell users depend on intelligence, warriors on strength, archers and rogues on dexterity as you advance through the story you have to investigate all the locations around the town center whether they’d be dungeons or enemies, however that’s not all there is; you can also find markers that get you to perform actions that depend on your character’s abilities and modifiers as well as little maps you can explore to find some lovely goodies it’s also a good idea to pay attention to all the elements in town, out in the world if you find that you’re running out of health you can always build a camp and perform duties or use special skills or you can return to the town and heal yourself up with some prayer or a good night’s sleep at the inn not to mention you can also better your equipment at the blacksmiths or buy runes to add buffs, you have to take all of this into account; a lot of equipment ends up giving you extra action cards, however they don’t always have the correct rune slot for your character so this means that you have to amend that equipment.
As you probably already know the main part of the game is deckbuilding, even though it has a very simple premise it is also a lot of fun, each character starts with a certain number of cards with different functions whether it be guarding yourself, dealing damage or even adding a buff as you go through the fights you use these cards to destroy all who come before you but be careful as when you use these cards to help get a better modifier on an action roll you will gain a point of exhaustion the best part is that you can improve not only your characters through their skill tree but also improve their cards and apply special perks as well, there is just so much to consider when leveling up your characters.
The world designed for Gordian Quest is on par with its gameplay firstly the design of the game looks amazing, I just absolutely love the animation style the character’s animations and the way the map, town and dungeons look. It is also not overly complicated apart from the crafting system but mostly it’s a simple game to play but not as simple to master. While games like Pathfinder may promote some very D&D-like elements, they do tend to be more complicated and take a while to understand the mechanics, Gordian Quest on the other hand achieves that D&D feel without a lot of complexity.
Overall, Gordian Quest has fun gameplay, an interesting world, awesome animation style and immense D&D vibes the story is a little basic but it does just enough to move you on, this is an easy recommendation especially for fans of the genre!
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