You can sign up to get a daily email of our articles, see the Mailing List page.
We do often include affiliate links to earn us some pennies. See more here.

Sword Coast Legends RPG Released For Linux, Some Initial Thoughts

By - | Views: 18,097
tagline-image
We don’t have too many high quality RPG titles, and I was excited to finally give Sword Coast Legends a proper try.

Note: If you have me on Steam, ignore the time it says I've played. I played it during the Head Start Access too.

It has at time of writing gained a lot of mixed reviews, and I understand why some people aren’t happy with it. It’s certainly not as in-depth as it could be with any part of it, but with that said I’m personally finding it enjoyable for the most part.

The game world is actually quite beautiful and bright, which makes it quite easy on the eyes and I imagine a lot of people will be able to get into it. It’s great that we have so many games, but not a lot look as good as Sword Coast Legends. The only graphical part that is a let-down are the character models and running animations, as they look a little awkward. It’s especially awkward when the camera zooms in to show an enemy running into the area, as their running animation seems weirdly sluggish.

Creating your character
I went into it expecting to spend quite a while creating my character, but the first thing I noticed was the big lack of options for customizing your character. The amount of options for hair colour and style seem to be really rather limited.

I also found it quite weird picking your weapon and armour at the start, it was interesting to be able to do it, but there was no explanation of what would be best for your character. Honestly I found this section quite confusing.

Choosing abilities was much nicer, with a wide range of different things to choose. I decided to level up my archer’s stealth as much as possible, as I like the idea of sneaking up on someone with my bow and arrow.

Gameplay
It feels very much like Baldur’s Gate, and it has real time with pause combat which is nice. It doesn’t feel as unforgiving as Pillars of Eternity, as I’m finding the combat to be much more manageable. Even though it has the pause option, it seems quite fast paced when you put it next to Pillars. I can’t quite put my finger on why it’s making me feel that way.

During the character’s chatting it doesn’t actually say anything about skipping, but you are able to skip dialogue by pressing the spacebar. It’s odd they didn’t put any indicator on the screen to tell you, so I found this out by chance.

One thing I do like, is that your inventory is shared across the characters. This removes a lot of micromanagement I’ve seen in other RPG games, and helps make it a little more accessible. It’s one thing that annoys me about other games, so I’m actually quite happy with that here.

One thing that is currently getting a little annoying, is that every single movement click has a character voice over. Honestly, I would much prefer it if they did it every x amount of movement clicks, as to avoid becoming annoyingly repetitive like it is right now.

Another gameplay annoyance is most things are done with left click, so if you miss click during combat prepare to have your character run around. I’ve seen other people complain about it too, and it does get annoying. Luckily the developers are responsive and may put in a right click to move option.

Performance
Performance seems to be satisfactory on high settings, as i'm getting between 50-60FPS on my 970, so while it’s not amazing, it’s playable. If I turn it up another notch to the Best setting, I get a big performance drop to 30-50FPS. It does still remain smooth, and it is playable, but I can imagine people with less expensive cards struggling a bit. It does seem like it could do with some optimizations, as I’ve seen posts from Windows users saying it performs badly for them too, so it’s not specifically an issue with the Linux version.

Issues
Currently the Create account button doesn’t work on Linux (at least it does nothing on my Ubuntu install), so you may need to create an account here. This annoyed me somewhat, as I wasn’t aware I needed to register to play even the single player portion of the game.

I asked about it on the forum, and the reply was this:
QuoteThat is some crap. Not sure we've seen that with other Linux users at all but I'll pass it along. Possible the actual launch version might fix it? Keep us posted!

Not the reply I was expecting really. I can’t test if the release version has fixed it, as there’s no way to logout.

Final thoughts: It’s actually not bad, not bad at all. Not incredible, but worth picking up if you’re an RPG fan like me. I’m finding it much more accessible than Pillars, and I’m enjoying it much more. However, if you’re looking for something more in-depth, go get Pillars.

You can find Sword Coast Legends on Steam.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
0 Likes
About the author -
author picture
I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
See more from me
The comments on this article are closed.
25 comments
Page: «2/3»
  Go to:

STiAT Oct 20, 2015
Quoting: metro2033fanboyGood lord...I hope not...i eager to play it for more than 2 hours without getting dead bored!
Quoting: STiATIs it somewhat comparable to DA: Origins combat and story whise?

I had over 400 hours on that title with all expansions. It was certainly fun to me ;-). Sadly, the successors were bad.
Segata Sanshiro Oct 20, 2015
Really liking this so far, feels a lot more professional and polished than Pillars of Eternity.

EDIT: The only niggling thing so far is that the game suffers from a bit of aliasing which the AA doesn't fix. Would be nice if some additional AA options were added.


Last edited by Segata Sanshiro on 20 October 2015 at 10:32 pm UTC
Mountain Man Oct 20, 2015
Well, this all sounds rather disappointing. They name check Dragon Age: Origins in the advertising, so I was hoping for another in-depth sword and sorcery RPG with meaningful choices and consequences, but it seems to be a one dimensional action game. Apparently the game doesn't even support proper dialog trees.
Xpander Oct 20, 2015
and as always Gameplay videos:

Head start Version:
View video on youtube.com

and Release version:
View video on youtube.com

release version has voiceacting, story mode etc


pretty nice game, just dont have time to put into it atm.
Guest Oct 20, 2015
Quoting: Xpanderand as always Gameplay videos:

Head start Version:
View video on youtube.com

and Release version:
View video on youtube.com

release version has voiceacting, story mode etc


pretty nice game, just dont have time to put into it atm.

You always do great Linux gameplay videos.
amonobeax Oct 20, 2015
Don't get me wrong the game looks fun, and it probably is.


What I don't like is the way they hyped the game to D&D fans, which mostly don't like the actual genre this game fits in.

The worst case IMO is the fans that came from NWN...
NWN brought a full toolset (aurora) that was so powerful that the player could do almost anything with it (stories, whole persistent worlds - mmo like - etc.).
If you compare NWN with this game, Sword Coast will look shallow and too action focused.


Last edited by amonobeax on 20 October 2015 at 10:05 pm UTC
Keyrock Oct 20, 2015
Quoting: Mountain ManWell, this all sounds rather disappointing. They name check Dragon Age: Origins in the advertising, so I was hoping for another in-depth sword and sorcery RPG with meaningful choices and consequences, but it seems to be a one dimensional action game. Apparently the game doesn't even support proper dialog trees.
The campaign does have branching dialogue and choices to make, though I'm not far enough in to be able to tell if the choices have meaningful consequences or if it's just window dressing ala The Walking Dead. It's the Dungeon Master tools for creating your own adventures that currently do not support branching dialogue.
Xzyl Oct 21, 2015
I'm on the fence with this one looking at the video it looks alright. If I were to ask if you felt the game play was worth closer to a $60 game or a $20 game which would you who own it say?
Mountain Man Oct 21, 2015
Quoting: Keyrock
Quoting: Mountain ManWell, this all sounds rather disappointing. They name check Dragon Age: Origins in the advertising, so I was hoping for another in-depth sword and sorcery RPG with meaningful choices and consequences, but it seems to be a one dimensional action game. Apparently the game doesn't even support proper dialog trees.
The campaign does have branching dialogue and choices to make, though I'm not far enough in to be able to tell if the choices have meaningful consequences or if it's just window dressing ala The Walking Dead. It's the Dungeon Master tools for creating your own adventures that currently do not support branching dialogue.
Oh, O.K. I was under the impression that the game didn't support branching dialog at all.

I think I'll keep my eye on this one and see if the editing tools improve at all, but at the moment, I'm making my way through Wasteland 2: Director's Cut, and there's Pillars of Eternity which keeps kicking the crap out of me at every turn, so I really don't have time for another RPG at the moment.


Last edited by Mountain Man on 21 October 2015 at 1:00 am UTC
SuperTux Oct 21, 2015
Quoting: Xodetaetl
Quoting: SuperTuxThe camera is much better than Pillars (I know and understand their decision to not invest in the scenery so they can lock it to one view)
You're off beam: Pillars has 2D backgrounds, which aren't cheap to make with the level of detail they have, and they decided for 2D background because they wanted to make a successor to the Infinity Engine games which are isometric games with hand crafted 2D backgrounds.

Thanks for the detailed response, I tried to proof read as much as I could before rushing off to work without any caffeine, so hopefully the quick right up wasn't too bad. I had read their reasons for not making a full camera and it was probably the correct one, but I do prefer what I have seen so far in Sword (although don't take that mean I dislike Pillars method).
While you're here, please consider supporting GamingOnLinux on:

Reward Tiers: Patreon. Plain Donations: PayPal.

This ensures all of our main content remains totally free for everyone! Patreon supporters can also remove all adverts and sponsors! Supporting us helps bring good, fresh content. Without your continued support, we simply could not continue!

You can find even more ways to support us on this dedicated page any time. If you already are, thank you!
The comments on this article are closed.