Whenever a sequel needs to be made, the designers always face an interesting dilemma: if they come up with something new, which is different than the original game, there’s a risk that the established fan base will not appreciate the new ideas. If they keep the original formula and just add a few things to make the experience a little better, people will accuse them of trying to rob the gamers of their hard-earned money, without bringing something truly interesting to the table. In the case of Dungeon Siege 2, Chris Taylor and Gas Powered Games decided to go for the second option, which had its benefits as well as drawbacks.

     Although at the time of its launch, most people saw it as an ill conceived Diablo 2 clone (which still holds the bar for the hack & slash genre), Dungeon Siege had enough commercial success to justify the creation of an expansion (Legends of Aranna) and a sequel. Worthy of mentioning is the fact that for Dungeon Siege 2, the designers from Gas Powered Games paid close attention to the criticism of the fans and press alike regarding the first DS and tried to correct these issues as best they could. However, since this was all too good to be true, new problems arose to take the place of the old ones, managing to diminish the final value of the game.

     The storyline, or better said, the lack of a proper story, was one of the main complaints of the fans regarding Dungeon Siege. For the sequel, the designers tried to create a more engaging storyline, which isn’t connected to that of the first DS: this time around, we have one very mean bad-guy, who happens to have a legendary sword in his possession, which allows him to wreak havoc everywhere he goes, and we also have an adventurer, who will try to find the pieces of a mythical shield and defeat the bad-guy mentioned earlier. Like I said, not very original, but it’s still better than nothing. However, the designers didn’t stop here and they created an entire lore for the player to learn about, by reading various books that are scattered throughout Aranna. And even though it’s not as interesting or as vast as the one found in, say, Morrowind (I know, kind of a forced comparison, but this is the first title that popped into my head), the lore in DS2 greatly contributes to the credibility and depth of Aranna.

     With the story out the way, the next order of business was the character development system, which was almost unanimously considered too simplistic for a hack & slash title. Fortunately, the core idea has remained the same: your character will progress according to the weapon or spell that he or she uses. Use a sword, your melee skill and strength will increase, use a bow and your dexterity as well as ranged skill will get better and so on. The “novelty” is represented by the skill tree, one for each class (fighter, archer, nature mage, combat mage), which is similar to that found in Diablo 2. At every level up you will get a skill point to invest in the skill tree. As you progress through the game you will also be able to unlock and upgrade powers, which are very powerful spells and attacks, without which finishing the game is almost impossible. The skills also allow for a better specialization of each character in the party, according to the player’s needs. For instance, if you have two melee fighters, you can use one as a tank for diverting the enemy’s attention from the more fragile member of your party, and one for dishing out obscene amounts of damage. Although at a first glance it might be tempting to try and create a character that’s good with everything, it’s basically impossible to steadily increase the skills for every class without getting your a*s severely whooped in the later stages of the game. And not because the enemies that you will be facing are smarter than you, but because their numbers have increased dramatically since the first DS.