Dark Sun: Shattered Lands is fucking great

[JarlFrank]

I haven't seriously attempted to play this for a long time due to all the people saying it's bugged and you might not be able to trigger the endgame, but I finally decided to go for it anyway and created a party of four deadly battlegirls with glorious 2nd edition D&D cheesing. Human fighter dual classed to preserver (wizard) at level 5, half giant gladiator, dwarf fighter/cleric, half-elf fighter/druid. And damn, am I having fun.

Combat is great. Oldschool turn based D&D fun. Lots of spells to choose from, some nice equipment to find too. The perspective is a little weird but you'll get used to it after a while and learn how to properly position your characters. I love how in the wilderness, you can just walk past most random encounters because you see the mobs on the map and can just avoid them if you don't wanna get into filler grind. The set piece combat encounters are, for the most part, pretty good. Resting is limited to resting places, many of which appear only after solving a combat-heavy quest in a certain area (which is pretty genius, you have to go into the big combat encounter while potentially already damaged and out of a few spells due to random encounters, and when you win that encounter you get a well-deserved rest but not before).

Most situations can be solved in multiple ways. You can intimidate NPCs so they won't initiate combat with you. You can find out a password to get past guards. On the other hand, you can easily provoke an NPC into becoming hostile, this game isn't going soft on you. There's dialogue trees, in an RPG from 1993! And in many cases, the dialogue options you pick actually make a difference!

From the very first major quest - escape from slavery - you have multiple ways to solve it. You can convince the best arena fighter to join you... or you can kill him during an arena duel, your choice. You can go for a frontal assault on the guards, or you can use a backdoor.

This game is so damn great and I have no idea why it didn't spawn any imitators at its time.

 

[Crispy]

Your puppy love affair with the game might start to diminish once you escape out into the desert but I agree that this game deserves a special place in any serious RPG aficionado's heart.

I'd love to see a 1:1 faithful remake done in Unity, like with Tyranny's engine or something.

Edit: Obviously not in RTwP, though. Thanks, Mustard.

 

[Brancaleone]

This game is so damn great and I have no idea why it didn't spawn any imitators at its time.

Because it offers quite a lot of very solid content, and executed pretty well for most part, and that's quite difficult to imitate. Which is why the perfect-system-which-turns-any-kind-of-shitty-content-into-great-content is still by many pursued as some sort of rpg Holy Grail.

 

[Viata]

This game is so damn great and I have no idea why it didn't spawn any imitators at its time

Because devs don't copy good games.

 

[Dorateen]

SSI doing top-down/isometric and branching dialogues long before bioware hit the scene. True pioneers of computer role-playing games.

 

[MRY]

This game is so damn great and I have no idea why it didn't spawn any imitators at its time

Because devs don't copy good games.

It invented the modern cRPG. It just took a while for people to copy it.

I agree that it's amazing, but I also agree that it goes downhill after you escape, and continues to go downhill, though even the bottom point is still great.

 

[Roguey]

Wake of the Ravager is the one that's bugged. It wasn't imitated because it didn't sell all that well; they ran the Gold Box engine into the ground, but they only reused this expensive-to-make-for-its-time engine for its lousy rushed sequel and a failed MMO.

 

[Dorateen]

it goes downhill after you escape, and continues to go downhill.

No it doesn't.

 

[MRY]

De gustibus, but in my opinion, the tightly interlinked, multi-pathed quests give way toward more dungeon-crawling oriented stuff, the novelty wears off, and the quality control is generally lower. But this is based on very old recollections, might be wrong.

 

[Scroo]

I started playing Dark Sun a few months ago and had a blast but unfortunately got burned out midway...

I will give it another try tho bc in general I really liked it. I just wish there was a visible combat grid or smth.

 

[abnaxus]

just lol at any Dark Sun party without based Thri-Kreen

 

[MRY]

Also, it never ceases to amuse me what a munchkin game Darksun is -- higher stats, super-duper races with super-duper abilities; I swear that was part of what made it so immediately appealing as a kid.

 

[Saduj]

Escaping slavery is one of the highlights but I remember liking several other areas just as much. In general, the best areas involved evil wizards.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

This game is so damn great and I have no idea why it didn't spawn any imitators at its time.

I always thought you could draw a pretty straight line between Dark Sun and a lot of what makes Fallout or Baldur’s Gate so good, no? Have Tim Cain or the MDs said anything on the subject?

 

[Mustawd]

This game is so damn great and I have no idea why it didn't spawn any imitators at its time.

I always thought you could draw a pretty straight line between Dark Sun and a lot of what makes Fallout or Baldur’s Gate so good, no? Have Tim Cain or the MDs said anything on the subject?

He might be referring to the setting of Dark Sun and what not. Going from that point of view, Dark Sun is quite unique.

I just wish there was a visible combat grid or smth.

Yah that bothered me when I was playing it as well.

 

[Goblino]

Just played this for the first time through back in December. Blows my mind how often you can incite or prevent a fight through dialogue. Games these days still barely give you the chance to dictate how an encounter plays out. Combat gets a bit tedious. By about the halfway point every encounter just about is gonna be like wading through trash, but it ends at just the right time. I might go back through and try to do the side stuff.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

I tried playing it and couln't understand how to play it. You all make me want to give it another go... Will have to find a tutorial on how to play it maybe. Don't rate "retarded" pls thx.

 

[DemonKing]

I used to love playing Dark Sun pen and paper back in the day so I have to admit this game was a bit disappointing to me in comparison to some of the things we got up to when we were playing. I also didn't like how the characters equipment didn't show up on the avatars meaning it looked like you were bashing stuff with your fists all the time. A lot of the bestiary were also made up for the game rather than ripped from the Dark Sun Monstrous Manual which was an error IMO.

I did like some of the epic fights though. I seem to remember the last one was pretty huge.

Sadly I never got to finish the sequel due to bugs.

 

[mondblut]

This game is so damn great and I have no idea why it didn't spawn any imitators at its time.

I always thought you could draw a pretty straight line between Dark Sun and a lot of what makes Fallout or Baldur’s Gate so good, no? Have Tim Cain or the MDs said anything on the subject?

What makes Fallout or Baldur's Gate good was lifted from Dark Sun pretty much verbatim.

 

[octavius]

SSI doing top-down/isometric and branching dialogues long before bioware hit the scene. True pioneers of computer role-playing games.

Both Fallouts also came out before Baldur's Gate.

That said I didn't enjoy DS quite as much as the above mentioned games or the Gold Box games.
The game is rather unbalanced, with combat being too easy with the final battle being the only really hard one.
No combat grid is a minus.
Too little was made gameplaywise of the desert setting, like no need to find water, so you can move about the desert at will. Even old MM1 did that aspect better.
And personally I'm not a fan of ESP or psi powers.

For me as a GB fanboi it was a disappointment back in the days and I didn't play it very long, but I enjoyed it when I gave it a second chance some years ago. Definitely worth playing.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

For me it is the best example of isometric, party based TB combat prior to ToEE. That might be Gold box blasphemy but I think its combat and general design had innovations over the excellent GB combat system.

Highlight for me was the area beyond the portal in the sewers... An entirely optional and hidden bit of brilliant content that best captured the promise of the combat.

 

[bylam]

Still my favourite SSI game. What I really liked about the design was that you pretty much always get to choose who you side with and there are usually 2-3 factions.
And it had great reactivity - not quite Deus Ex levels, but still pretty damned good.

Spoiler

I remember being blown away by the fact that one of my characters had Dagolar's Dagger equipped, and another powerful psionist I met later recognized the dagger and became certain I was an assassin sent by Dagolar.

I could be wrong, but I also don't remember the genre plot of "evil army is coming, gather allies for final battle" being done before Shattered Lands. Obviously parroted by a lot of games later on.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Also, it never ceases to amuse me what a munchkin game Darksun is -- higher stats, super-duper races with super-duper abilities; I swear that was part of what made it so immediately appealing as a kid.

Having player-characters start at level 3 along with having higher attribute scores and psionic abilities, as well as the addition of a "character tree" where each player had three PCs in reserve, was intended to compensate for the brutal and deadly nature of the campaign setting. Of course, if Dark Sun were instead played like a typical D&D campaign setting, then the player-characters would appear to be overpowered.

"The six ability scores are determined randomly by rolling dice to obtain a score from 5 to 20. These numbers are, on the average, higher than those for characters in other campaign worlds. There is a very good reason for this: the world of Athas is brutal and unforgiving. It is a savage world with frightful challenges beyond every dune. Athas is not a world for the weak or the simple-minded—those who cannot adapt, who cannot meet every challenge with confidence in their skills and abilities simply won'’t survive. The world of Athas has produced races of beings that are generally superior— of greater strength and endurance, capable of greater intellect and vision-to those who inhabit other campaign worlds."

"In Dark Sun, all single-classed player characters start the campaign at 3rd level. A player character thus begins his adventuring career with the minimum number of experience points to attain 3rd level. He gets the THAC0 and saving throws of a 3rd level character, plus any class or race benefits that apply. This rule reflects the fact that daily life on Athas is much harsher than it is in other AD&D® realms, forcing characters to mature more quickly if they are to survive."

"I live in a world of fire and sand. The crimson sun scorches the life from anything that crawls or flies, and storms of sand scour the foliage from the barren ground. Lightning strikes from the cloudless sky, and peals of thunder roll unexplained across the vast tablelands. Even the wind, dry and searing as a kiln, can kill a man with thirst.

This is a land of blood and dust, where tribes of feral elves sweep out of the salt plains to plunder lonely caravans, mysterious singing winds call men to slow suffocation in a Sea of Silt, and legions of slaves clash over a few bushels of moldering grain. The dragon despoils entire cities, while selfish kings squander their armies raising gaudy palaces and garish tombs.

This is my home, Athas. It is an arid and bleak place, a wasteland with a handful of austere cities clinging precariously to a few scattered oases. It is a brutal and savage land, beset by political strife and monstrous abominations, where life is grim and short."

 

[Makabb]

If there is one developer that can do it..... it is BEAMDOG !

Go Trent Go, Dark Sun Enhanced EditioN!

 

[Stainless Veteran]

I like both Shattered Lands and Wake of Ravager this much.
The former was objectively better, but the later was my first PC RPG, so it holds a special place in my heart, bugs, warts and all.
Also Dark Sun setting is great if DM'd properly, and not just as a munchkin-fest.