Solasta: Crown of the Magister, a D&D-inspired game that closely follows the rules of the tabletop game's fifth edition, evidently released too soon. The 2021 RPG released to favorable reviews but didn't break into the mainstream. But now we live in a post-Baldur's Gate 3 world, which rocked the gaming industry (GameSpot named it our Game of the Year in 2023), and dice-based games are getting a spotlight they previously didn't have. Solasta II is launching into a far more favorable position than its predecessor, and feels like it could be a great game for folks who enjoyed Baldur's Gate 3 but now want a game that more closely aligns with the experience of playing Dungeons & Dragons.I played about an hour of Solasta II and the most striking part of the demo was how closely the game more strictly sticks to the parameters of D&D 5e in comparison to a game like Baldur's Gate 3. You can't, for example, drink a health potion and melee attack on the same turn. Baldur's Gate 3 adopts the commonly homebrewed rule (and now official rule in the latest edition of D&D) that considers drinking a health potion to be a bonus action and not an action, so you could reserve your action to attack and then use your bonus action to heal on the same turn. That's not how it works in the rules for D&D 5e, so that's not how it works in Solasta II. This parallel seems to extend across Solasta II and although I appreciate the accuracy, it does highlight some of the problems with D&D 5e that games like Baldur's Gate 3 have already circumnavigated by outright changing how they work.Different members of the party will want to solve problems differently and sometimes have unique skill checks.Ignoring the comparisons to Baldur's Gate 3, the combat otherwise feels great. Figuring out when to use my Rogue's unique cunning action ability to bonus action dash so I can save her main action to attack an enemy being flanked by the Fighter (a scenario that lets me add sneak attack damage!) felt awesome. I was repeatedly rewarded for thinking things through before engaging a target. Knowing when and how to use resources is paramount as Solasta II tracks ammunition (so I had to keep count of how many arrows my short bow-wielding sorcerer had on him, for example), and there even seems to be a risk-versus-reward consideration tied to the rest mechanic, as the first time I tried to camp to regain health and recharge the party's abilities, one of the members of the party cryptically warned that doing so might cause enough time to pass, meaning I'd potentially miss out on future storylines. That added a sense of urgency to what seemed to be an optional quest in the demo, but I'm curious to see if this same feeling is applied to portions of the main storyline as well and how often resting might cause a player to miss out on a quest.Continue Reading at GameSpot