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We Are the Dwarves
PC (Steam)
No, We Aren’t
1/5 stars
I’m always on the lookout for new RPG-like experiences, and new spins on the traditional Fantasy setting. When I first came across “We Are the Dwarves” (“WAD”) – by Ukrainian Indie developer, Whale Rock Games – it looked like an interesting new take on the squad-based TRPG, but with the novel twist of taking a traditionally Fantasy race – dwarves – and putting them in a sci-fi space opera environment. The fact that the game promised a 3-player local cooperative campaign – a rarity these days, especially on PC – was just a bonus.
Unfortunately, in actually trying it out, “WAD” revealed itself to be a wholly unpolished, barely-playable mess. The MJ Crew weren’t able to finish the first boss stage, let alone the entire game, simply because it’s almost completely broken at every level. This review doesn’t take any single-player content into consideration, as after experiencing the disaster alongside my friends, I couldn’t be bothered to give it another chance solo.
Presentation
“WAD” is wholly mediocre in both visuals and audio. Environmental designs are basic subterranean caverns, but the fixed camera angles actually make it difficult to see what’s going on in many cases. The three playable dwarves are about the most interesting thing, stylistically, in the game, as the enemies we encountered were all generic space pirates of the ‘Metroid’ variety. The game’s UI isn’t exactly great, either, with no tooltips or explanations of what each dwarf’s abilities do, and with teeny-tiny story text that never gets any bigger, even when the UI size is maxed out in the option menu.
I’ve seen a lot of people complaining about the voice-acting in “WAD,” but I honestly can’t say I recall hearing any. Likewise, the soundtrack is so bland and innocuous, it may as well not exist.
The real place where “WAD” falls completely flat, however, is in technical presentation. The only good thing it has going for it is that it natively supports Xinput controllers and can handle 3 at once for local cooperative gameplay. The rest of the game is a complete disaster of random game over screens for no apparent reason, characters falling through floors, characters getting stuck in animations and unable to do anything else, enemies that just keep respawning even when the trigger to make them stop has been flipped, characters randomly being stuck in place and unable to move, characters unable to pick up pick-ups, etc., etc. It’s just a horrifically unpolished experience, and I feel bad even spending the $2.50 on it that I did during a GOG sale.
Story
Three space dwarves, Smashfist, Forcer, and Shadow, are on the hunt for ore, apparently, and must travel through space pirate-infested caverns in search of a caravan that might sell them what they need. I think? The story doesn’t seem all that intriguing, and definitely isn’t worth struggling through endless glitches to see what happens next.
Gameplay
“WAD” isn’t an RPG, as I first thought. It’s more of a squad-based RTS. I can’t imagine how horrible it is to try and control all three dwarves in real-time, simultaneously as a single player, since trying to use them cooperatively was already a chore. Each dwarf has four regular abilities that operate on a cooldown – these are mapped to the Xinput face buttons. Each dwarf also has a super move that charges up, either as they take damage or deal it – I couldn’t tell. Interestingly, charging the special meter was incredibly inconsistent. I, as Forcer, the ranged dwarf, had my special available most often, but I couldn’t figure out what it actually did, besides making a sparkly bubble appear around my dwarf.
The dwarves plod along rather slowly – they ARE dwarves – killing enemies with their skills, and supposedly picking up blue rocks (which stopped working early on for us). Scattered around the stages are healing orbs that emit a corona of positive energy when spun, healing everyone around them – dwarves AND enemies. This agnostic targeting extends to ALL of the dwarves’ abilities as well, making friendly-fire a huge liability, with no way to turn it off.
Overall
“We Are the Dwarves” is a technical disaster that should be avoided at all costs. No matter how desperate you are for some couch coop with your friends, STAY AWAY.
Presentation: 0.5/5
Story: 2/5
Gameplay: 2/5
Overall (not an average): 1/5
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