Terrinoth: Heroes of Descent Demo Review

• Overview
• Gameplay
• What I Like
• What I Don’t Like
• Voice / Art / Music
• The Tales Told
• You Might Like This Game If…
• Score

Overview

From publisher New Tales

Step into the epic fantasy universe of Descent with the first co-op tactical RPG forged from the legendary dungeon crawling boardgame. Lead a company of fearless heroes across Terrinoth, survive against epic boss battles in turn-based combat, and settle the fate of a world facing unending darkness.

Terrinoth: Heroes of Descent is a turn based tactical dungeon crawl video game of high fantasy. Thematically right in line with others like Dungeons and Dragons, Dragon Age, or Baldurs Gate, it’s something that should be instantly recognizable to fans of the genre, yet stands on its own.

The game follows a narrative campaign in, you guessed it, Fantasy Flight Game’s (FFG) fantasy realm of Terrinoth. It’s neat to see the world they created so long ago, and one that I’ve grown quite fond of, continue to be explored. As a fan, and owning all versions of FFG’s Descent, Rune Age, Runebound, Rune Wars, Battlelore, and Legacy of Dragonholt, as well as two novels, I couldn’t wait to jump in and see what they did. It’s been a joy already. Once the full game releases, I’ll likely update this post with my thoughts on the rest.

While the game is mechanically lighter than its bigger RPG cousins, I don’t think that hurts the experience. Much like the board games, it plays faster and easier than the competition. Skirting the line between casual and enthusiast communities, it reaches for a broader appeal. I’m curious to see if that translates to the video game community, but I like what I’ve seen so far.

Currently released as a demo, the game boasts a full release window of only a few months from now.

Player count

For now the game is single player through and through, but online co-op is planned at release. That’s an interesting route to go, but one that will surely appeal to game groups that love to delve together. I don’t think the game will blow up on Twitch or anything, but I can see friends, family, even parents and their kids enjoying this game together. I doubt I’ll get the chance to try it co-op, but it’s been absolutely fine as a soloist.

Play time

While the demo only contains the tutorial and one dungeon, it’s said to contain 20 dungeons on release. The one included in the demo, The Crypts of Aerendor, took a little over an hour to enjoy. It’s likely, then, that the full release will end up offering 20-30 hours of play. That’ll also depend on the exact length of dungeons and a player’s attention to detail, however.

Gameplay

Heroes of Descent will be very familiar to fans of turn based RPGs. It does not seek to reinvent anything, only to streamline and focus the experience into something lighter, easier, and fun. The world of Terrinoth is leveraged heavily here, so it’s leaning on that instead of a totally new RPG experience.

Characters

Starting the tutorial with two characters, quickly jumping to four, then six by the end of the first dungeon, the game opens up at a pretty speedy pace. Characters have clear archetypes, and no options to play with that. Be they tank, wizard, thief, rogue, cleric, or druid, it’s fairly clear what they are from the get-go. There are some options to customize abilities and equipment, but it never veers too far from those initial roles. The game is not brutal enough, at least on normal difficulty, that it matters too heavily which ones you bring anyway. Having fun remains the focus.

One neat addition is the ability to perform special, ultimate actions, charged by combining attacks on enemies. It’s a neat way to encourage cooperation, and the abilities themselves range from situational, to pretty game changing.

Dungeons

Taking center stage, dungeons are where players spend their time. Complete with traps, hidden treasures, optional fights and puzzles, bosses, and plenty of lore sprinkled in, they hit the mark. There are some funny situations, like I’ve seen some reviews dislike some of the trap mechanics and how the game handles them, but it’s hardly game breaking.

So far, the puzzles and hidden treasures have been pretty easy to get. I do think the puzzles are stronger than just the occasional breakable wall trick, but it’s all been straightforward. Rewards are usually gold to spend at the end of a dungeon on new gear, but some of the side areas offered unique abilities as well. Occasionally, a specific character is required to handle one of these specific challenges. This varies from breaking something, to swinging across a pit, and more. This is highlighted in the tutorial, but then reserved for optional areas with special rewards, they don’t lock progress. Don’t feel too bad if you’re forced to skip a bit of treasure because you brought someone you liked.

Exploration flavor is denoted by a subtle blue indicator. I almost missed it at first, but it does draw attention when knowing what to look for. From there, hovering over the point reveals a page icon, and clicking it lets the player interact with it. There aren’t any rewards for doing this, it just adds a little dungeon crawling spice. With how many there are, while they’re not transformative to the experience, they do add quite a bit of immersion to what otherwise might be ran past or skipped in an instant. Things like this can tease a player to slow down and enjoy the journey, and I really like that.

Progression

Characters have four abilities, and two items in their hotbar but can have many more on reserve. Even passive items like armor counts towards the limit, so careful decisions need to be made. Between dungeons, players are free to swap out any abilities or gear they have, and shop for more. XP is gained after each dungeon, and that goes towards leveling up, where players choose from one of two possible rewards in the form of ablities and/or items. Additionally, abilities can be earned in the dungeons themselves, mostly through side areas, but sometimes with hidden treasure.

Story

Terrinoth is a fantasy world like many others, yet it’s had years and years of depth added to it from way back in the late 90’s when it was created. Heroes of Descent does dump lore and various terms on occasion, but almost all of it can be understood through context. It’s clear that the writers knew what they were talking about, and it’s great to see such a rich world get the attention I think it deserves.

What I Like

Not going in expecting a masterpiece, or a sweeping epic, I was pleasantly surprised by my brief time in Terrinoth.

Terrinoth

I touched on it a little already, but Terrinoth is a fantasy world that borrows heavily from others in the genre. It doesn’t reinvent much at all, yet still has plenty of depth to it. It’s funny because I’ve read a lot of lore for it over the years, yet can’t remember much, except that it’s fun. Magic? Of course. Undead? Yup. Dragons? You bet. Elves, dwarves, warriors and wizards? All of it. Terrinoth is like a catch all for anything fantasy. It gave Fantasy Flight room to do whatever they wanted with the IP, and maybe that was the point. Still, significant work has gone into fleshing it out as much as they can, the fruits of which are on display here.

Heroes of Descent runs in lock step with the established lore. It actually dumps a little too much, I’d say, at least to start. I don’t mind it though, a most of it is understandable through context, and pleasantly fun to interact with. It’s great to see it come full bore into the video game medium, and I can’t wait to see what others think of the fantasy world I’ve enjoyed for many years already.

Accessible Gameplay

Compared to super heavy games with complex, TTRPG mechanics, I was able to jump into Heroes of Descent right away. Limiting the available abilities characters can have at one time and keeping the party size to four means players are not overwhelmed with too much at once. While I think the abilities themselves were a little simple, using them together created some cool synergy battle options that are highlighted by the combo mechanic.

I did try a variety of the few equipment and abilities available, but the demo is just too short to see much meaningful difference in gameplay. There’s strong potential for a lot of different strategies, however, so I look forward to seeing what’s in store with the full release.

Immersive Details

It was pretty great to see interactable flavor text in the demo. It’s a nice touch that adds a fair bit of flair to the immersion and exploration. While it isn’t anything game changing, more akin to computer logs or journals in other video games, I actually do read them from time to time and I love getting that extra kick of feeling like I’m there in the environment I’m playing in.

What I Don’t Like

I’ll throw down a few points that I was hesitant about during my playthrough of the the demo. It’s hard to judge the game on only one dungeon, however, so all of these points could disappear in the full release.

Cheesy Writing

Terrinoth has always been an overall lighthearted place, more closely resembling Azeroth than Middle Earth, but that doesn’t mean it needs to be goofy. Heroes of Descent’s characters just show up, then lean into their tropes really hard. The bad guys are equally one dimentional, so most of the game’s dialog comes off as Saturday morning cartoon and not very serious at all, despite the themes. Now, I’m not asking for a backstory dump out of the gate either, just a more graceful introduction and some smarter dialogue to carry through to the next plot point.

To the writer’s credit, characters do drop lines about themselves during play. Their backstories are touched on a bit in even the first dungeon, so I have hope that there will be some deeper history, and hopefully better dialog as the dungeons progress.

Repetitive Combat

My only quibble so far is that all enemies: undead, possessed human, or bandits from the tutorial, acted pretty much the same. There are ranged and melee varieties, mediocre AI, and not a lot of buffs, debuffs, or special abilities between them. That’s not really a deal breaker, again, especially up front in the first dungeon, I just hope there are a lot more mechanical differences to enemies later.

Inconsequential Mechanics

Similar to the previous point, I did not see differences in strategies, or even much effect at all from the items I used during the demo. Adding armor, weapons, performing knockbacks, grapples or any other status effects just seemed negligible compared to burst damage. The best strategy so far has been to position correctly and use all action points for attacks. All other effects don’t matter when the enemies are dead, after all. My hope is that this diverges greatly in future dungeons, and players can really customize the characters into pretty different roles as they develop.

Voice / Art / Music

Voice

Fully voice acted, except for the small investigation flavor text, Heroes of Descent won’t be winning any awards for its voice acting, but is in line with others in the genre. Some actors fit their characters better than others, but all deliver their lines, pronunciations, and expressions well. The only stand out failing so far are the supporting characters. Guards might as well have been voiced by some of the developers themselves. Some of the timing and delivery is definitely a bit off…

Art

Heroes of Descent does a fantastic job with its visual design. Colors are bright, lighting effects strong, and there’s wonderful fantasy design to the characters, environments, spells and story narration. It’s all as it should be for Terrinoth’s high fantasy design aesthetic, so I was pleased to see the developers hit the brief on the head.

Music

While there isn’t an official soundtrack release for Heroes of Descent yet, it could happen later on. For now I’ll say that, similar the rest of the sound and voice work, it’s nothing that will win any awards, but fits the theme perfectly and is enjoyable nonetheless. For something similar, below is the soundtrack FFG created for the most recent version of the board game:

The Tales Told

I’ll keep this section quite brief because in the demo, there was not a lot on display. The tutorial is a quick jaunt through a city to chase a magic rune stolen by a bandit. Some undead show up out of nowhere, as does a new character determined to thwart them, and thus kicks off the quest to discover the plot. The first dungeon, The Crypts of Aerendor, then takes the players into the very beginnings of a deeper mystery. Vampires control enthralled guardsmen, so it’s only the heroes who can save the day. Yet another character shows up to help, and the group sets off deeper into the unknown. With 19 other dungeons to go, I have no doubt there will be quite a bit of plot development, bosses, baddies, and hopefully, a whole lot more Terrinoth.

You Might Like This Game If…

Fans of the turn based RPG genre will probably find Heroes of Descent OK. Board game fans might like it a little better since it’s pretty inline with the feeling of the board games. Fans of both, and especially Terrinoth, will likely be the best audience. I’m one of those, and I’ve quite enjoyed what I’ve seen so far. I do hope the full game continues to deliver on the points I like and addresses some of the ones I don’t, but I don’t think that will change who I think will enjoy this game the most.

I will add that while the game has a mature content warning, I did not see anything really warranting that. There is death and violence, sure, but no cussing and no sexual themes. I’d imagine it would be a fine game for teenagers as well as adults, and a good way to introduce Terrinoth to the next generation.

Score

With a lot of promise to deliver something lighter than an epic but still provide tens of hours of dungeon crawling joy in one of board gaming’s most memorable fantasy realms, I’m excited to see where Heroes of Descent lands. I do think it needs quite a bit of cleanup and balance tweaking before it can shine, but that can happen between now and release.

To be fully transparent, my score is pretty up in the air. While I doubt the game’s final release will blow me away enough to raise it, it could fall if the game stumbles. I like what I’ve seen of it so far, however, so I’m remaining optimistic. If many of the final dungeons tickle that delving itch just enough, and if the story and lore deliver the immersion that I know Terrinoth is capable of, it’ll be a game that I’ll hold in high regard. I’d love to be able to recommend it to fans of the turn based RPG genre and Terrinoth both.

Terrinoth: Heroes of Descent gets a tentative 4/5.