They were limited because of WOTC licensing restrictions with more of the classes from D&D. Since they were a new developer, with a new IP, they were limited by what they could afford to pay for. That being said, it's a fantastic game, and I am looking forward to what they can build in this engine/world.
One of the best breakdowns of a game review that I have watched. Thank you for sharing and clarifying the game thoroughly, as Solasta is on my watchlist and very close to joining the list of next games to play. Bravo!
As a GM I plan on using the dungeon editor for my online game. I just recently picked up the game and I like what I see so far. I hope this game is developed over the years to cater to GM's and players alike.
Solasta is one of my favourite games of the last few years. I love its quirkiness and humour! Also, as well as the main campaign, there are two dungeon crawl type campaigns created by the devs using the dungeon maker. I've also played an incredible community-created campaign called 'Ruins of Ilthismar' which provided around 30 hours of gameplay, taking characters from levels 1-12, and including some very challenging set-piece battles.
@@junio- Yw. It's definitely worth checking out! Although obviously you won't get the cut scenes and voice acting that a main campaign or DLC would have, there is a story here, with lots of exploring and well-crafted encounters. Also, as @Slandered Gaming said, the combat is one of the high points of the game, and there's plenty of that here. I tried out a Druid and Barbarian in the party, and had a lot of fun with both of them.
@@SlanderedGaming I certainly recommend taking a look! Although it's the only community campaign I've tried, it was written by Silverquick and did seem to be one of the highest rated in the Steam Workshop. If I tell you that although I'm not that good at actually finishing games, I *did* feel compelled to see this through to the very end :)
I agree. So many fantasy games but very, very few allow you to play a race such as a minotaur or other such beastly species. When it comes to evil races, a gnoll would be my pick. That said, minotaur's my favorite and it really grinds my gears that there's barely any games that offer them as a playable species from the get-go
Solasta is on sale right now on Steam and I am not sure if I wanted to get it. I just wanted to tell you that I loved your video on it so much, this was so informative and easy to listen to and I really appreciate what you're doing here.
Thanks for the review. Unfortunately there are currently too many games so this one is still on my “sometimes” list. It was very enlightening to hear the pro’s and con’s!
the race limitations probably come from the point of having to write extra interactions with lets say a goblin character. so probably a matter of time and money. but i remember neverwinter nights 2 had a lot of races while all of them were accepted none monster races. i honestly miss genasi in current games, wotr had Oread but that is like a genasi quarter.
I agree with you when it comes to races. BG 3 has shown how funny (and actually likeable) goblins can be. I'll side with them over the boring tieflings any time. Would be interesting to play one of those "evil" races. It's nothing new either - Drow are considered evil as well.
Creating your whole party is what we did back when the first Final Fantasy came out for the NES. It's been around for a while, it's just not used much.
I got this game and played it because your first mini review a few months back, and I totally forgot! I was watching this video and it looked familiar, and then I was like, "oh yeah, I beat that game!" I guess that is my review, nothing really stood out for me.
Got here to check out what the game was all about (daily summer sales happening on GOG). 2mins in and I'm throwing my hands to the air in agreement with the lack of "species"/races portrayed in video-games. Some stuff might actually be quite harder in terms of resources (especially if the species require extra limbs, animation, effects, etc), but yeah, I agree, v-games and entertainment in general need to be more free in terms of depicting fantasy characters! :D
I dont know if this has already been said, but the race limitations are due to the this company only having the rights to DnD free rules, which dont include all the other races.
Yup a couple of commenters noted it and it's a great call out. Hopefully in the next game they can create a couple of unique races to provide a little more variety.
This is on my 'definitely get at some point' list, but given how much I enjoy characters and plot, I haven't got it yet. (Probably would have done if not for WotR.) But I am hopeful for the new campaign/expansion - not only might they focus more on the plot this time (as its weakness is a common complaint I've heard), but by adding the ability to have dialogue and quests in the user-created content, they're adding the potential for many more well-written quests in the future, which really excites me.
I also thought the Character creation was very well done also. The game is more of a Tactics game with a weak attempt at RPG, then a RPG game with Tactics. The game sells for 35 and I think that is abit to high and the "Druid/Babar" DLC for 10 is way to much for what one gets. I haven't heard how much the new DLC costs but if it is over 20 then I can say, the complete game is not worth 65 or more Bucks(Euro's in my case). Thanks for the review. Peace
I don't remember how much the Lost Valley update is but it's definitely massive and covering a lot of different areas in the game. Coupled with another full campaign I would expect it to probably be around $15.
So it looks like Lost Valley is a whole new story campaign. I wonder if the writing will be better or not. I won't hold my breath, but maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised. Still hoping they'll add the best 5e class to the game (bard).
Good review, just finished my second crown of the magister campaign in anticipation for the Lost Valley DLC, the game is fun but needs tremendous work for improvement
This game has been on my radar for a few years now, but Divinity 2 definitive edition took my attention away from it. In your opinion, how does Solasta compare to Divinity 2 DE?
In my opinion Divinity is a classic genre defining game while Solasta is just a good game. Solasta is definitely worth playing and the combat system is arguably better than Divinity but it's party members, story, and dialogue are not nearly as good in my opinion.
Combat is amazing but it doesn't have as many options as a game like pathfinder. The story is inferior to all of them in my opinion. You create your own party members so it doesn't have the same feel of those games as far as finding new party members out in the world. Overall I think it's definitely worth playing but I wouldn't put it above the games you listed.
+2 items are very much in the game and 5e has all the numbers and what not are scaled waaaaaay down due to bounded accuracy. +5 in 5e would be absolute madness when the average enemy has under 20 AC.
Strange you didn't get +2 items, most of my team was using +2 by the time i completed the game (there's also one specific +3 if i recall correctly), but it sure is a bit tedious to get powerful gear, some of which are locked behind crafting only. Don't underestimate crafting, manacallon rosary is your friend (and also the knowledge wizard)
I agree with you on the gear, particularly clothing. Though I have gotten +2 items... though that might be a mod. Most of your complaints except for the characters being ugly, have been taken care of at least somewhat in the new DLC.
So a quick point, Solasta is only able to use SRD content, basically the free rules so they don't have all the monsters, classes races and even spells available to them. This is why they are limited in scope and having to make new ones/variations of pre existing ones. I preferred Solasta over Larian's take on Baldurs Gate, mostly due to it having too much of a Divinity difficulty curve. Solasta feels more like a D&D tablestop to me and all it needs is some multiplayer to make that feel even more like it.
@@SlanderedGaming Yep! Based on 3.5, Pixel Graphics and a bit clunky... and hard. Still have to play it but I like the first game. Hope you can check it out and if you like it give us some tips to play the second game :)
You can play as mantis and Hlaf giants and other races, what I like is that even though the ui is difficult to navigate you can check almost evreything (stats buff in your party and enemies, in game "manual") and it tries to recreate mechanically the 3.5 experience. Ut seems that the writing is not great but there is a module editor for people to create their own adventures
Nice video. I loved the character creation. I thought the quests weren’t interesting and so I never finished. Graphics also not good. I also got annoyed with the elevation mechanics. Was cool at first, but annoying after a bit (for me anyway).
Baldur's Gate 3 devs are upset because they're finding out most players want to play as attractive humans, not monsters or inhuman freaks. Monsters are the things players want to bash!
The same list of races get picked every time because it's been proven time and time again that they are the most popular. A company has to allocate resources to what's actually going to be played and what's going to be popular with the fan base they are targeting
Proven in what capacity? I have never seen a game that let's me play Dragonborn so how can it be proven that race is not popular? Maybe it's been proven when playing Tabletop but video games are not the same.
@@SlanderedGaming divinity original sin 2 is a good example. The metrics show that lizard is the least played race, even less played than undead which is surprising. People, on average, tend to lean towards more human-like races and seem to generally prefer the "generic" fantasy races like elves and dwarves.
I simply don't understand how so many people acknowledge that the story is boring, roleplay nonexistent, the graphics are dull, the character models and animations awful but "it's an amazing game". How... ? You just listed the reason why the game is mediocre but somehow it's "incredible" just because the rules are relatively faithful to a DnD game... ?
Character creation and combat are done so well that for me I still had a fantastic time with Solasta despite the draw backs. The story is mediocre but it still feels like you are on an epic adventure due to the variety of enemies and fantastic fight sequences. It might be difficult to understand without playing it but I definitely stand by all the criticisms while also strongly feeling like it's an amazing game that should be experienced.
As this is being added to Gamepass I thoroughly enjoyed your review. It was extremely insightful and helped me decide to give this game a chance!
Glad to hear it! I hope you enjoy the game!
I enjoyed your BG3 videos. Now that I'm considering Solasta, glad to see you reviewed that as well.
Yup I also reviewed all the Solasta DLC. :)
They were limited because of WOTC licensing restrictions with more of the classes from D&D. Since they were a new developer, with a new IP, they were limited by what they could afford to pay for. That being said, it's a fantastic game, and I am looking forward to what they can build in this engine/world.
Yeah I am definitely looking forward to the sequel.
One of the best breakdowns of a game review that I have watched. Thank you for sharing and clarifying the game thoroughly, as Solasta is on my watchlist and very close to joining the list of next games to play. Bravo!
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed the review!
As a GM I plan on using the dungeon editor for my online game. I just recently picked up the game and I like what I see so far. I hope this game is developed over the years to cater to GM's and players alike.
One of the better quality game reviews I've seen recently... honest, to the point, well done.
Thank you!
Solasta is one of my favourite games of the last few years. I love its quirkiness and humour! Also, as well as the main campaign, there are two dungeon crawl type campaigns created by the devs using the dungeon maker. I've also played an incredible community-created campaign called 'Ruins of Ilthismar' which provided around 30 hours of gameplay, taking characters from levels 1-12, and including some very challenging set-piece battles.
Thank you John for the interesting hint about the community campaign
Nice that is awesome. I hadn't touched any of the community created content yet.
@@junio- Yw. It's definitely worth checking out! Although obviously you won't get the cut scenes and voice acting that a main campaign or DLC would have, there is a story here, with lots of exploring and well-crafted encounters. Also, as @Slandered Gaming said, the combat is one of the high points of the game, and there's plenty of that here. I tried out a Druid and Barbarian in the party, and had a lot of fun with both of them.
@@SlanderedGaming I certainly recommend taking a look! Although it's the only community campaign I've tried, it was written by Silverquick and did seem to be one of the highest rated in the Steam Workshop. If I tell you that although I'm not that good at actually finishing games, I *did* feel compelled to see this through to the very end :)
I agree. So many fantasy games but very, very few allow you to play a race such as a minotaur or other such beastly species. When it comes to evil races, a gnoll would be my pick. That said, minotaur's my favorite and it really grinds my gears that there's barely any games that offer them as a playable species from the get-go
Yeah I am hoping maybe in a sequel or expansion they add more races. Supposedly Baldur's Gate 3 will have Dragonborn so that will be nice.
Seriously good review. Well spoken, and concise. Thank you! Subbed
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it!
Solasta is on sale right now on Steam and I am not sure if I wanted to get it. I just wanted to tell you that I loved your video on it so much, this was so informative and easy to listen to and I really appreciate what you're doing here.
Awesome, thank you! Glad you have found the content valuable.
What a great review, and I just love your voice dude!
Thank you!
Really good, video, man! It's hard to find good, well-formulated reviews like this. Just bought the game. Thanks very much!
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it!
Thanks for the review. Unfortunately there are currently too many games so this one is still on my “sometimes” list. It was very enlightening to hear the pro’s and con’s!
My pleasure glad you enjoyed it.
the race limitations probably come from the point of having to write extra interactions with lets say a goblin character. so probably a matter of time and money. but i remember neverwinter nights 2 had a lot of races while all of them were accepted none monster races. i honestly miss genasi in current games, wotr had Oread but that is like a genasi quarter.
Yeah resources could definitely be a reason for the limitation.
I really enjoyed this game. A couple of Barbarians in the team worked really well for me. Just came across your channel, and its pretty good.
Thanks glad you are enjoying the content. Barbarians and Sorcerer's were definitely my favorite classes.
Excellent review. Clear, intelligent commentary without any fluff. Hard to come by these days.
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it.
Hitting that like button. The game is currently on sale and I'm really tempted to get it, warts and all.
I definitely recommend it!
I agree with you when it comes to races. BG 3 has shown how funny (and actually likeable) goblins can be. I'll side with them over the boring tieflings any time. Would be interesting to play one of those "evil" races. It's nothing new either - Drow are considered evil as well.
very fair review. I agree on all the positive and negative aspects that you mentioned.
Awesome glad you found the review to be objective.
you are way better than the other crpg specific channels on youtube.
I still have not gotten this game but it seems like it is worth it, if only from a mechanics perspective. Thanks for the video.
My pleasure!
Creating your whole party is what we did back when the first Final Fantasy came out for the NES. It's been around for a while, it's just not used much.
I wasn't allowed to play video games as a kid so I missed that whole era of gaming. LOL
I’ve always wanted to play a tabaxi in a dnd game either that or a kobold as well
Exactly I hope down the line games give us more options.
I got this game and played it because your first mini review a few months back, and I totally forgot! I was watching this video and it looked familiar, and then I was like, "oh yeah, I beat that game!" I guess that is my review, nothing really stood out for me.
Gotcha maybe the upcoming DLC will be more enticing for you.
Can't believe they are adding coop. It's going to be such a boon for a game (assuming it's done well and works).
Yeah I agree makes things really interesting.
This video was helpful as it felt like an extended in-depth tutorial 🎉.
Glad you enjoyed it!
This was a very in-depth review, thank you.
My pleasure!
Thank you so ,uch for this review it has helped tremendously.
My pleasure!
My favorite CRPG easily. Id like ice wind dale 2 and baldur gate 1 more if the gameplay wasnt so bad.
This game has a perfect UI.
Everything is clean and easy to understand. Definitely a fan of the presentation.
@@SlanderedGaming
I do not know why Baldur gate 3 wont copy the UI design of Solasta.
Got here to check out what the game was all about (daily summer sales happening on GOG). 2mins in and I'm throwing my hands to the air in agreement with the lack of "species"/races portrayed in video-games. Some stuff might actually be quite harder in terms of resources (especially if the species require extra limbs, animation, effects, etc), but yeah, I agree, v-games and entertainment in general need to be more free in terms of depicting fantasy characters! :D
Thanks, hopefully the sequel will give us more options.
Just finished last week after playing and stopping for Pathfinder 2. Fun game.
Yup I enjoyed them both.
I dont know if this has already been said, but the race limitations are due to the this company only having the rights to DnD free rules, which dont include all the other races.
Yup a couple of commenters noted it and it's a great call out. Hopefully in the next game they can create a couple of unique races to provide a little more variety.
Thanks enjiyed your review. How long did it take to complete as you played it?
Hmmm that was last year so I don't remember exactly. Probably around 30-40 hours.
This is on my 'definitely get at some point' list, but given how much I enjoy characters and plot, I haven't got it yet. (Probably would have done if not for WotR.) But I am hopeful for the new campaign/expansion - not only might they focus more on the plot this time (as its weakness is a common complaint I've heard), but by adding the ability to have dialogue and quests in the user-created content, they're adding the potential for many more well-written quests in the future, which really excites me.
Yeah I think the Lost Valley DLC is going to ignite more interest in the game for exactly those reasons.
I also thought the Character creation was very well done also. The game is more of a Tactics game with a weak attempt at RPG, then a RPG game with Tactics. The game sells for 35 and I think that is abit to high and the "Druid/Babar" DLC for 10 is way to much for what one gets. I haven't heard how much the new DLC costs but if it is over 20 then I can say, the complete game is not worth 65 or more Bucks(Euro's in my case). Thanks for the review. Peace
I don't remember how much the Lost Valley update is but it's definitely massive and covering a lot of different areas in the game. Coupled with another full campaign I would expect it to probably be around $15.
So it looks like Lost Valley is a whole new story campaign. I wonder if the writing will be better or not. I won't hold my breath, but maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised. Still hoping they'll add the best 5e class to the game (bard).
My understanding is no new classes are being released. Instead they are releasing new subclasses for all the existing classes.
Good review, just finished my second crown of the magister campaign in anticipation for the Lost Valley DLC, the game is fun but needs tremendous work for improvement
Yeah it will be interesting to see how much of that work is done by Lost Valley and it's updates.
This game has been on my radar for a few years now, but Divinity 2 definitive edition took my attention away from it. In your opinion, how does Solasta compare to Divinity 2 DE?
In my opinion Divinity is a classic genre defining game while Solasta is just a good game. Solasta is definitely worth playing and the combat system is arguably better than Divinity but it's party members, story, and dialogue are not nearly as good in my opinion.
Tabaxi and Triton are races always being slept on.
Yup I almost never see them.
How does it compare to AAA CRPGs like Pillars, Divinity or Pathfinder
Combat is amazing but it doesn't have as many options as a game like pathfinder. The story is inferior to all of them in my opinion. You create your own party members so it doesn't have the same feel of those games as far as finding new party members out in the world. Overall I think it's definitely worth playing but I wouldn't put it above the games you listed.
+2 items are very much in the game and 5e has all the numbers and what not are scaled waaaaaay down due to bounded accuracy. +5 in 5e would be absolute madness when the average enemy has under 20 AC.
Yeah weird not sure how I missed them but definitely picked it up in the new campaign.
have you tried playing knigts of chalice 2. its based on og. 3.5 dnd.
Nope somebody else mentioned it in the comments but I haven't seen any videos or reviews on it.
Does anyone else have a getting dropped problem playing with Xbox series s.
Because I get dropped a lot while playing it?
Strange you didn't get +2 items, most of my team was using +2 by the time i completed the game (there's also one specific +3 if i recall correctly), but it sure is a bit tedious to get powerful gear, some of which are locked behind crafting only. Don't underestimate crafting, manacallon rosary is your friend (and also the knowledge wizard)
Interesting all my team used crafted items but still never got +2 weapons. I'll be on the lookout for them in Lost Valley.
One day, i will wake up in rpg world as a minotaur.
Good review. Very clear.
Thank you!
Oh channel name change! Didn't recognise it at first.
Yeah I messed up the channel rebrand. LOL
I agree with you on the gear, particularly clothing. Though I have gotten +2 items... though that might be a mod.
Most of your complaints except for the characters being ugly, have been taken care of at least somewhat in the new DLC.
Nice review 👍
Thank you!
So a quick point, Solasta is only able to use SRD content, basically the free rules so they don't have all the monsters, classes races and even spells available to them. This is why they are limited in scope and having to make new ones/variations of pre existing ones.
I preferred Solasta over Larian's take on Baldurs Gate, mostly due to it having too much of a Divinity difficulty curve. Solasta feels more like a D&D tablestop to me and all it needs is some multiplayer to make that feel even more like it.
Ahhh that's a good call out. I'd like them to create some unique races then but that's probably a lot to ask for in the first game.
It DOES have multiplayer. I assume it took awhile for it to be added
Great game! Have you tried Knight of The Chalice 2?
Nope not yet. A D&D based game?
@@SlanderedGaming Yep! Based on 3.5, Pixel Graphics and a bit clunky... and hard. Still have to play it but I like the first game. Hope you can check it out and if you like it give us some tips to play the second game :)
You can play as mantis and Hlaf giants and other races, what I like is that even though the ui is difficult to navigate you can check almost evreything (stats buff in your party and enemies, in game "manual") and it tries to recreate mechanically the 3.5 experience. Ut seems that the writing is not great but there is a module editor for people to create their own adventures
Nice video. I loved the character creation. I thought the quests weren’t interesting and so I never finished. Graphics also not good. I also got annoyed with the elevation mechanics. Was cool at first, but annoying after a bit (for me anyway).
Yeah it will be interesting to see if the story and quests are better in the new campaign.
This is probably the best D&D game there is untill Baldurs Gate 3 gets release. And that may take a while..
Yeah who knows when Larian will be finished with it.
+3 armor and weapons by level 10 isn't unreasonable at all.
That's what I thought.
I wish they made it more than 4 .six would have been perfect for me.
Yeah I am not a fan of the smaller parties in D&D type games.
Baldur's Gate 3 devs are upset because they're finding out most players want to play as attractive humans, not monsters or inhuman freaks. Monsters are the things players want to bash!
LOL I love it all. It will be interesting to see what kind of options BG3 provides.
I love this game
Lovely review. You seem to enoy the game.
Thank you! I had a lot of fun with it.
👍🏾👍🏾🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
The character models are fugly and the writing is very mediocre, but the gameplay is fantastic
Agreed. Hopefully Lost Valley is more well rounded.
How is the story?
I cover that in the dislike section of my review. I don't think it's good but not to the point you shouldn't get the game..
The same list of races get picked every time because it's been proven time and time again that they are the most popular. A company has to allocate resources to what's actually going to be played and what's going to be popular with the fan base they are targeting
Proven in what capacity? I have never seen a game that let's me play Dragonborn so how can it be proven that race is not popular? Maybe it's been proven when playing Tabletop but video games are not the same.
@@SlanderedGaming divinity original sin 2 is a good example. The metrics show that lizard is the least played race, even less played than undead which is surprising. People, on average, tend to lean towards more human-like races and seem to generally prefer the "generic" fantasy races like elves and dwarves.
I simply don't understand how so many people acknowledge that the story is boring, roleplay nonexistent, the graphics are dull, the character models and animations awful but "it's an amazing game". How... ? You just listed the reason why the game is mediocre but somehow it's "incredible" just because the rules are relatively faithful to a DnD game... ?
Character creation and combat are done so well that for me I still had a fantastic time with Solasta despite the draw backs. The story is mediocre but it still feels like you are on an epic adventure due to the variety of enemies and fantastic fight sequences. It might be difficult to understand without playing it but I definitely stand by all the criticisms while also strongly feeling like it's an amazing game that should be experienced.
@@SlanderedGaming Playing through “Crown” now and it definitely has that, “My first game as DM” feel to it!
The combat was fine, but thw game itself was boring as hell, and linear..
I enjoyed it but definitely not everybody's cup of tea. Hopefully we will see more improvements in the sequel.
After I saw how awful the character models were and being asked my pronouns during character creation...I quit playing. Nah, I'm fine.
Hopefully the character models are improved in the sequel.