If you were a fan of the Gaunlet Legends series, you’ll love Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes. D&D: Heroes is a fast-paced, button pounding, Action-Adventure RPG from Atari. It’s a compelling 3D adventure with an in-depth storyline and well-made quests.

Presentation

The Presentation of D&D: Heroes was well done. The opening movie contains exceptional graphics combined with a pretty awesome action scene, it describes the beginning of the story and hooks the player(s) to the game almost instantly. D&D: Heroes is about an evil wizard named Kaedin who destroyed the once glorious kingdom of Baele. The four best heroes were sent to destroy Kaedin 150 years ago, and they did.. but just as he took is last breath Kaedin unleashed a spell that killed the four heroes. Baele’s castle was rebuilt over Kaedin’s once mighty fortress.

Now at present day some foolish clan decides to revive Kaedin and attempt to harness his mighty power. They dwell deep into his old dungeon below Castle Baele and unlock his tomb, they couldn’t control his power. Kaedin has been set free and is set on revenge. Now is where the four heroes come in, they are revived from their crypts and are informed of Kaedin’s unfortunate return, so they willingly set out to destroy the evil wizard once again. However they soon realize they aren’t as powerful as they once were.. which just adds to the list of things to do while in-game.

My only upset was that Castle Baele isn’t what I thought it would be. I pictured a giant castle full of people and shops, thriving with possible quests and tasks to take part in.. it turns out since Kaedin has returned the castle has been swamped with monsters, so virtually everyone has left.

Gameplay

Whether alone or with up to three friends, you become one of the four heroes brought back to fight the evil wizard Kaedin. You have a choice between a Rogue, Wizard, Fighter & Cleric. Let’s start with the Rogue, the Rogue is a female Halfling, she uses two daggers for her melee attacks and has a bow for her ranged, she’s fast and can pick locks easy.. which makes looting chests easier. The Fighter is a male Human, and looks the coolest when equipped with the plate armor in my opinion, he uses swords for melee attacks.. and doesn’t have a ranged attack other than throwing items that you can buy and/or pick up. The Cleric is a male Dwarf, but here’s the thing.. he’s almost as tall as the fighter. Now I know a thing or two about D&D and Dwarves are NOT 6 feet tall, and it’s not just the Cleric.. all the Dwarves you encounter are this way, it’s very odd. The Cleric is armed with hammers / axes throughout the game and believe me, he packs a punch! The Wizard is the final addition to the four heroes, she’s a female Elf who uses Spears / Staffs / Tridents as her melee weapons, the Wizard has tons of awesome spells.. Magic Missle being my favourite. Each character is unique, so you’ll find you may have to adapt to the characters strengths & weaknesses.

One thing I noticed early on was there was no auto-target system, this made the Ranged Attacks a little harder.. but I quickly learned how to use the Rogue’s bow well. Each hero has their normal melee attack and three customizable attack/spell/item slots, you hold down the R button to slow down time and sort through a miniature menu using the D-Pad to setup the tons of items, spells, melee attacks, ranged attacks & finishers. One bad thing about the mini menu is that it also slows down everyone else if you’re playing with more than one player, which does get annoying.. but I believe it still beats pausing the game.

D&D: Heroes stays freshing by assaulting you with all sorts of monsters as you enter different realms/levels. Each type of monster has their strengths & weaknesses. I found that the inventory system in D&D: Heroes was very easy to navigate through and well-made. However I don’t like how the shops were thought-up, there’s only one place to get items other than in the beginning Crypts where you start the game, and that’s in Castle Baele. There’s the Castle Baele shop and a Merchant who comes into Castle Baele eventually.. so there’s only two places to buy stuff, I figured every realm would have a village with a shop. When you start out in D&D: Heroes you have merely nothing besides your Ancestral Weapon. This weapon cannot be dropped, traded or sold for a good reason.. you can power it up with soul shards (20 in total throughout the game) which just adds another addition to your list of Things to Do while questing in the game.. but the end result is some wicked looking weapons that can be extremely powerful.

Graphics

The graphics of D&D: Heroes are amazing in certain areas.. and average in others. My favourite effect of the game is how the water does a ripple-trail effect as your pass through it. Every one of the spells and attacks were excellently designed and look great while being used. One bad thing I’ve noticed is that when too many spells are cast or too many monsters are around, the games framerate slows untill it’s less-crowded.. but it didn’t happen to often for me. Some of the cool graphical effects D&D: Heroes offered were how the blood splurted as you sliced into monsters or pumped them full of arrows, and how arrows would stick into the walls if you didn’t hit a monster, I found the heat-trail effect off of torches & flames really well-made and they added a feel of realism to the game. I was a little upset on the animation of the characters, especially on their movement.. it was extremely repetitive and didn’t look very good. I loved killing the spiders because they’d slice in half and squeal.

Sound

I found that there wasn’t really anything to listen to during gameplay except for the occasional tune & the screaming and wailing of dying foes. The music played however goes very well with the D&D theme of the game. I seemed to notic that the sounds in the cutscenes were better than in game.

Final Thoughts

D&D: Heroes was an improved Gaunlet Legends in my opinion, it captured the action and adventure of the Gaunlet series and enhanced it. The control system was well-made and I hope it will be used for future games like D&D: Heroes to come in the future. If a sequel of D&D: Heroes is to be made my only suggestion would be to give the four main characters voices to make them seem more alive. Whether you’re looking for an adventure with up to four people or just a solo quest, D&D: Heroes would make a good addition to your collection.