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Dungeon Siege III DLC: Treasures of the Sun Review
by Adam DilevaI still maintain that if Dungeon Siege III had a 'true' online multiplayer that wasn't built with terrible design choices, I'd still be playing it now and then just like I played old dungeon hack and slashes from back in the day. Because it didn't, I haven't touched it till today, to try out the new DLC pack: Treasures of the Sun. It took me awhile to become accustomed to the long forgotten controls, but once I did I was hacking my way through hoards of enemies in my return to the Kingdom of Ehb.
You will now be discovering a whole new environment: the Aranoi Desert. Your quest is to find a lost Legion hero, but you'll uncover other secrets along the way, including a treasure so grand, its secret has been long lost. This new addition of story will be in addition to the games main story, but it will in no way relate to it nor change any outcomes in the main game. The story itself will take you a few hours to complete (including side quests) and it'll even culminate in a boss battle against a monster that reminded me of a Goldar rip-off from the old Power Rangers TV show (am I showing my age?).
Now, if you've already played Dungeon Siege III and completed it like I have, and then you want to load up the endgame autosave to get to the new DLC quest starter. If you're a new player (or starting a new character), then you'll need to get to a particular part in the story before you can begin the Aranoi Desert area. Any character level can start the new quest line as the enemies will scale to your level. I admit, it was confusing at first on how to begin the DLC, but that's more because I had completely forgotten the controls since it's been quite a while since I've played Dungeon Siege III. It took me about an hour or so to wrap my head around the controls again, but once I did, it felt natural once I remembered how to heal and block properly. The new content itself is actually quite challenging with my max level character, as you need to block a lot with many of the tougher enemies and bosses.
So other than a new quest line and story to go through, what else is new with the DLC add-on? Well, the first would be the ability to obtain and use one of three super powerful abilities by finding different shrines around the desert. One is a massive instant heal, another is a shielding ability, and the last is a hefty area of effect damage ability that will kill anything but the hardest enemies and bosses with ease. The catch is that you can only wield one of these new powers at a time (though you can swap them whenever you visit any of the unlocked shrines) and that it will use all your banked power orbs at once. There is a glaring problem with these new powers though. You activate it by pressing in both thumb sticks. The problem with that is that when you click in the Right Stick, by default it changes the camera to a zoomed in/out angle. So you'll find that when you're trying to frantically use the mega-heal or damage power, you'll constantly be accidently changing the camera rather than using the ability itself.
You now also have the ability to enhance all of your weapons and armor even further. When you loot an essence, you can use it to enchant any of your items to boost one of five characteristics; Chaos: Vampire, Stagger, Doom, Warding, and Retribution. You're limited to stacking any item only six times to prevent it from becoming too overpowered, though this probably won't be a problem, as it takes gold to enchant an item, and it can become quite expensive for the more powerful essences.
Also new to the DLC is finally the option to completely repsec your characters abilities and talents. I still wonder why this wasn't in the game from the beginning, but better late than never I suppose. You'll also still be following a linear path from objective to objective, and you're still able to hit up on the Dpad to show you the exact path you should be on.
For those that hit the level cap of thirty in the main game, you'll be happy to know that the cap has been raised now to thirty five, offering you some more points to boost your skills and making you even more powerful. If you skipped on Dungeon Siege III, this DLC pack isn't going to add anything drastically new to win you over. If you have the game an enjoyed your time in Ehb, the DLC is a great way to add a few more hours of gameplay and to boost your character even higher. Don't expect any new drastic mechanic changes, or a 'fix' for the multiplayer; go in expecting to have a good time killing a ton of enemies and exploring a few new dungeons while you amass even more loot.
