The Forsaken Isle is a 1-12 level user campaign that you can download from Steam Workshop for Solasta: Crown of the Magister. It’s made by Artyoan and is the first campaign in a series of three, of which two are available. The third one is still being made, as I understand it. This campaign requires that you own the DLC Inner Strength for it to be playable. My overall opinion is that it’s a pretty good campaign, both in the sense of gameplay and story, but its combat is hard as nails. I will go into more detail after we have talked about the story a bit.
Jungle Island
The leader of New Shorehaven is on the search for brave adventurers to seek out a very mysterious island that long has been thought to be abandoned. Recently, a light was seen in the castle tower, which prompted curiosity. However, before being sent to the island, you have to prove yourself by taking care of some more local issues, like orcs ambushing traders and an ogre hiding in the sewers. If you succeed at this task and do not yet lay dead thanks to the difficulty, you are then sent through a hidden but very dangerous tunnel to the island. While there you notice that you are not the first group to be sent out, and survivors of the last expedition are now being held there by a curse. Welcome to jungle island hell – it’s here where the real story and struggle begins.
The story is not very complicated, but it has an aura of classic adventuring. The more you discover about the island, the more of the mystery gets revealed, and it actually had me intrigued throughout. I wanted to know what happened to the inhabitants of the island, and why it was abandoned in the way it was. You won’t be talking to too many NPCs, but the conversations you will be having feel suitable to the situation at hand.
Beyond the main quest, there are also a few sidequests, and I highly recommend you do the ones you can find, so you don’t fall behind in levels as I did at one point. The damn gorillas showed me that they are the kings of the jungle until I could make my way back there with 2 more levels under my belt. And this leads me to the thing that you will do the most: combat.
Fighting & killing
While The Forsaken Isle does have a nice narrative, the combat will be a the forefront. You will be fighting a lot, and you will be killing everything from undead, to creatures of the jungle, to old hags that love to use blizzard spells on your group. A few of these battles even intersect each other at times, as one group sometimes runs to the next, which naturally creates one hell of an encounter. I find that there might be a little too many fights, especially in the beginning, and well, you need to take them all if you want to stand a chance in the later parts of the campaign.
Stuff does get easier the more and better abilities you get, but some enemies remain a pain in the behind throughout the game, like the skeleton archers. I absolutely hate these guys, even if gorillas come at a close second. In the later parts of the game, you even get a meet a couple of Soraks with legendary turns. That means they will take a turn each time one of your characters takes one. These dudes are brutal and need to be made a priority quickly.
At times I feel units do have too much health, and I’m not sure if it’s the fault of Artyoan, or the rule setting (DnD 5th Edition). Some battles just go on and on, and if you run out of special attacks, or spells, the turn-based nature of the combat can feel very dragged out. Thankfully, there are many resting spots and plenty of food items to be bought or found. And from what I noticed there are no penalties for resting, except in a few instances where something scripted happens when resting.
The encounters feel good otherwise, and the locations where they happen feel diverse enough, everything from straight-up corridor fights to castle wall skirmishes. As most fights are tough, they do require a bit more from you than the original campaigns, so positioning and starting the fights from stealth is very important – to get an advantage over the enemy, and a few cheap shots.
The love for ambushes
Artyoan is a sneaky creator though, and loves to throw hidden encounters at you to create a challenge. These battles are intense, as most of them will start with you being ambushed in some way, but often there is a way to make them easier. For example, the cellar fight where you get ambushed by undead and other hideous creatures. If you are smart you hide behind the prison bars, which gives the enemy a hard time reaching you, while you can bombard them with spells and arrows at will.
In this campaign, there is also a big focus on lights since most inside places will be realistically cast in darkness. This makes it very important to get a character with a light spell, or just bring a lot of torches with you. I used both constantly throughout the experience. My party consisted of a paladin, a ranger, a wizard, and a cleric, and in general, I thought they did a good job. The only weak part, even if she had strong spells, was the cleric, as she often became the target for ranged creatures. I recommend going with a balanced party, and I must stress that you need someone with area-of-effect spells since many battles will have numerous enemies coming for you.
I played on authentic mode all the way up to the absolute final battle. After a few tries, I had to give up and lower the difficulty. That battle was just way too hard for me. But up to that point, I had a great time, and the game felt challenging and fair, even if the many fights had me battle-fatigued. The game took around 30-35 hours to complete, so it’s a fairly chunky deal. In conclusion, this is a great addition to Solasta, and I highly endorse this custom campaign by Artyoan. I’m already looking forward to the next.
Thanks for reading.
/Thomas
Tom's Gaming Blog 