QUESTS
Aside from the larger story arc, there
are many sidequests that you can undertake. In town, you'll find a
few of the characters there in need of your help. Short quest-related
stories that are basically item fetches are common, as well as a few
“locate this person” quests. I liked it that the quests had some
fun little story elements to them, and the actual quests were
somewhat incidental, in that I would eventually solve them through
the course of my dungeon explorations anyway. But it was fun
returning to town and seeing a location highlighted to indicate that
I'd solved a quest and could go talk to the quest giver to advance
the mini-quest story a little more. I'd get my reward, but in
addition to whatever loot I was awarded, I also felt like the next
part of the quest story was also a reward. Perhaps it was because of
the contrast of dungeon crawling and battling with monsters, but the
development of the quests while in town was a refreshing insertion of
narrative.
STORY
I'm not going to give any real spoilers
here; I'll generalize. The actual story in the game began with me
playing a character in a higher level party. What they encounter and
learn serves as a platform for my characters later when they join the
game. During character development, I spent quite a long time
designing each of my characters, not only because of the many
options, but because of the background options. Some time was clearly
spent on the history of this world, and it really helped give the
characters and their races some context in the game. As I began the
game, I had to talk to a few people to learn that I needed an
adventurer's license of sorts, and I was eventually given the task of
exploring the first level of the dungeon and activating 4 different
beacons. If I did that and came back alive, I could get my license
and be allowed to go deeper into the dungeon. After gaining my
license and exploring further, I was surprised to meet other groups
of adventurers in the dungeon, each group with different
personalities and goals. Every once in a while, I'll encounter some
of those characters and see the story advance a little more. I
especially liked it when I met a group that were basically going to
“allow” me handle the boss encounter up ahead. They, of course,
were able to advance further after I'd done all the dangerous work
clearing the way! The story unfolds as you play, but so far, it has
remained active and amusing despite my many dungeon forays intended
to level up some of the other character classes I designed.
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