People who complain that they don’t make party based role playing games like they used to should obviously try Jeff Vogel’s games. Spiderweb Software has never stopped making games like they used to. Not that the past is always a pleasant place. Vogel has found a system that works for him and his fans, so there’s no pressing need for him to update the cumbersome interface or make things look better than a 1992 Gold Box game. He makes no apologies for the look and feel, and hopes that the adventure and pacing will make up for the endless clicking.
Nethergate: Resurrection is set in Roman England against the distant backdrop of Boudicca’s revolt against Nero’s rule. So you have Celts hating Romans and Romans oppressing Celts and both of them taking on goblins, fairies and giant rats. (You expected an authentic historical setting in a role playing game?) And like most RPGs, the setting is mostly window dressing for slaying, puzzle solving and stat building. But it’s much more accessible than the “genetic engineering gone awry” world of Spiderweb’s Geneforge games. And if you are going to sit and map every dungeon you enter, the more familiar the better.
That’s right – no automap. The game’s “Book of Answers” is certainly helpful in places, but in some circumstances you will be left to figure your own way out of the maze. And the cheat book’s maps are just one more step toward helping you, well, cheat. But that’s part of the buy in – you know going in that Spiderweb cuts corners on things that gamers take for granted in modern role playing games. At least there’s no 1-800 hint number.
It’s a stretch to say that if you’ve played one Spiderweb game you’ve played them all, but there is a lingering sense that each new game is a module on an existing engine more than a new experience. Vogel has set himself up as a story teller, and this story is pretty good. It’s got the usual ancient evils and ethnic misunderstandings, but it makes effective use of literary devices beyond the usual fantasy clichés. There’s dramatic irony (Romans love to talk about how awesome Nero is); legendary tropes (three magic hags) and a little humor (a battle of the sexes within a spider colony.) And the Celtic side of the story is parallel to the Roman. You have two separate adventures here with one side fighting for freedom and the other keeping the empire together.
It’s a shame that so much of the story is told through expository accounts of what your party sees. Sure, the low res images wouldn’t exactly work for setting the mood, but there isn’t much economy of language in the dialog or area descriptions. If it was all as good as the still overly talky Planescape: Torment that would be one thing – much of it isn’t.
Leveling your characters is done through allocation of skill points. You only get five per level, and basic attributes like strength and dexterity cost more than that, so you may find yourself hoarding points until you have enough to make the changes you want. In some situations the game will make decisions for you – your best lock picker is automatically selected to pick locks. This doesn’t work so well when the game insists on using your strongest guy to break down doors even if he only has eight hit points, but it’s a reminder to keep those healing spells coming.
Like any party based RPG, you’ll want your soldiers to specialize – a couple of tanks, a missile guy and at least one person who can use magic and herbology to keep the group in fighting shape. You find new spells and potion recipes by exploration, with none of that “you are now powerful enough to know fireball” stuff you find in Dungeons and Dragons. Money is never much of an issue since you can pick up and sell almost anything you find, but you’ll bump into the encumbrance limit a lot unless you invest in the very skill point heavy strength upgrades.
