The Dwarves

The Dwarves was a surprising game for me. I had absolutely no knowledge of the game. I didn't even look at much gameplay before I purchased it. Did you know it was a Kickstarter game? Neither did I. With so many unknowns, how did the game ending up faring for me? It was surprisingly pleasant! I didn't think I was going to enjoy it simply because I knew so little about the game, and knowing little about videogames tends to mean they aren't very good (sometimes). The Dwarves manages to avoid most of those problems luckily and entertain me to the end. Find out below what I thought.

First and foremost I didn't expect this game to have any voice acting. It didn't seem like it was budgeted for it. To my pleasantly giddy surprise The Dwarves is fully voiced. All of the major (and minor) characters have talented, great voice actors that fit all of their characters so well. Grunts, groans, and growls were all well done by each voice actor. There was emotion in every line delivered and I found it made the game even more engrossing. There is also a narrator who helps you along your journey that I also thoroughly enjoyed having along.

The gameplay in The Dwarves is hit-or-miss for me to be honest. Battles are in arenas with a "variety" of enemies. They are usually Orcs, with the occasional evil elf or evil horse. I'm not kidding, there are evil horses. The enemies aren't vastly enough among the Orc hordes. They all have the same attacks and generally look the same which kind of makes combat dull. Fighting the evil elves is a bit more interesting because they use range, melee, and can disappear and reappear in different locations. The combat is generally a giant OK from me. You select 4 characters and either control them all by pausing and giving commands (very basic commands) or playing with one any babysitting the rest because some victory conditions demand no character falls in combat.

The game would slow down when the combat became too hectic and most of the characters you control move so slowly and attack so sluggishly that combat would become tiresome if you failed. As I mentioned above, certain fights demand no one die but the game never explicitly tells you when that is required so you will fail until you figure it out. All your characters have their own abilities, but to be honest, most of the Dwarves all have the same sorts special abilities. You can obviously outfit the characters with 1 special ability when they level up but you will have probably seen it in action from a different character so it won't be unique.

Another major problem for me was the load times. If you play the game on Medium or above you will certainly die at some point and that's fine. Sometimes trial and error isn't a bad thing. What is a bad thing is when it takes almost a minute plus for you to jump back in combat only to die again shortly after entering and having to wait. The game let's you decide what 4 characters you want to take into combat with each retry but it becomes so annoying sometimes you will just mash your way to the encounter because of the loading time frustration.

You will find some fun with The Dwarves I strongly believe. When the combat goes well, the fighting gets fun. Moving through the world with your set of characters is neat because they are all unique in their own beliefs and ideals. Their worldviews certainly differ from one another and it makes for fun exchanges. When the combat bogs down and you're forced to sit through load screens over and over, you'll wonder why you're still playing through the game. The Dwarves is certainly rough, but it also has some charms that offer the game it's own flavor.