GB Feature: Solasta: Crown of the Magister Early Access Preview

We certainly weren’t going to pass on a chance to check out a turn-based RPG based on Wizards of the Coast’s SRD 5.1 ruleset, so when Tactical Adventures’ Solasta: Crown of the Magister hit Early Access, we took the game for a spin to get a better idea of the direction that the team is taking the game. A little something from our four-page preview:

All of it comes together to create a mighty satisfying combat system with a lot of potential. Back when the game was just announced, things like illumination and verticality were listed among its key features. And let me tell you, I haven’t felt as giddy when playing a new game in a very long time as I did when an enemy casually jumped up on a wall and crawled to a spot where my melee guys couldn’t reach it but it could attack my mage.

The game really makes you think in three dimensions and that feature is anything but a gimmick, even if it inadvertently results in levels filled with gaps and pillars that force your party to jump around like a herd of mountain goats while grunting suggestively. That stuff is a small price to pay for all the great encounter opportunities this whole verticality angle provides.

And while there’s not enough content in the early access build to discuss Solasta’s actual encounter design with any degree of certainty, the final dungeon you get to explore right now is already quite promising. You have some optional quests, multiple secret passages, fights you can completely avoid, fights you can talk your way out of, and even a not half-bad puzzle.