The game universe remains there, but everything else is new
We therefore once again find Artefact Studio on another adaptation, but this one has something more unique. First, because it adapts a board game which is not necessarily very well known to the general public, even if those in the know have been familiar with the license for quite a few years. But also because this adaptation is not intended to spit out the base game system.
The studio rather prefers to borrow this universe to develop its own ideas.with its own mechanics, and above all its own story with new characters. In other words, you don’t need to know what Descent – even if the game is technically intended to be a prequel to Legends of the Dark (which had also been adapted into a game) –, you can directly dive into Terrinoth: Heroes of Descent without having an ounce of knowledge about the base materialwhere it was perhaps more difficult for a game like The Dungeon of Naheulbeuk: The Amulet of Disorder.
The two games still share one thing in common, namely that of presenting themselves as Tactical RPG with an isometric view. Terrinoth: Heroes of Descent however, wants to keep a few elements that make the board game salty, that is to say the possibility of playing with several people, up to 4, unless you prefer solo.
We also keep the dungeon crawling aspect since the game is structured around around twenty missions (with a lifespan of approximately 1 hour) which we can redo to advance our characters, and recover the treasures that you were unable to unearth on the first pass. Even if you can also complete all the missions in one go to enjoy the scenario, without ever returning.
An accessible tactical RPG
We were able to test a demo of the game in advance in order to form an initial opinion on this adaptation, which shows that the studio’s ambitions have gone up a notch. If only by the graphic aspect of the title, which, without being eye-catching, is very clean with a nice artistic direction. At first glance, we remain in things similar to the studio’s previous game, but with much better managed lighting here.
Speaking of elements that recall the Naheulbeuk Dungeonit’s impossible not to mention the title’s combat system. Who says tactical RPG says turn-based confrontations, and on this subject, Terrinoth: Heroes of Descent is intended to be very accessible, which also makes it a very good entry point for the genre. No overly complicated rules, a simple to understand tutorial… in short, what you need to get started, without losing all the substance of the genre, since the challenge can be very present (you will have 4 difficulty levels anyway).
Here again we find a lot of familiarity with the studio’s previous title, with an interface which has evolved a little to be more readable and closer to what we find in modern hack’n slash. But you will quickly find your bearings. We remain on movements on a checkerboard, with similar mechanics, except that everything seems much more lively.
Each character (among the 8 playable) has three action units here during their turn, which they can use to move more or less far or to launch certain of their skills. These characters obviously correspond to fairly classic archetypes for the genre, even if here we have the promise of being able to personalize their skills with different abilities to assign and modify.
You must familiarize yourself with the terrain to help yourself with the various traps that may be present, while trying to gain height to gain an advantage, especially for an archer for example. Understand that each character remains unique here, both in gameplay and in personality, which is helped by a fairly solid English-speaking voice cast, including among others Samantha Béart (Karlach in Baldur’s Gate III).
Terrinoth: Heroes of Descent will be released later this summer on PC via Steam and GOG, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series. You can now form your own opinion on the game by testing the demo, which is released today on Steam.