Solasta: Crown of the Magister - Palace of Ice review | Same but better

Solasta is getting its culmination with the last expansion that looks like a really good sendoff.

Kickstarter projects don't always pan out and often lead to disappointed backers who never got the dream they were sold on. Every now and then, however, a project comes along that shines bright and makes all those crowdfunding disappointments a distant memory. 

Solasta: Crown of the Magister turned out to be one of those gems and close to four years after the Kickstarter campaign was initiated, the last expansion for the game was released. I am glad to say that it lived up to the base game's reputation and then some.

Tactical Adventures Solasta: Palace of Ice - Here we go again

Story

Palace of Ice kicks off a few months after the completion of the Crown of the Magister campaign. This already gives it an edge over the previous expansion, Lost Valley, because the storyline is not standalone, giving the players who went through the base game something more to be invested in.

On top of that, I would dare say Palace of Ice has an overall better storyline than the previous adventures as the devs took the feedback to heart in both the Crown and Lost Valley. As such, the story is not as linear as in the base game but it is also not as branched out as in the first expansion.

Initially, our party is invited into the lands of the Snow Alliance, which is basically a federation of five smaller nations. As soon as the first act is complete, we get to choose which one of them will be our path through the campaign. However, we will not be playing several sides or have different endings that could conflict with each other, which was the case in Lost Valley, eliminating the potential threat to story and immersion in the process.

Tactical Adventures Solasta: Lost Valley - I distinctly remember making choices that wouldn't end up with an empty throne. This will not be an issue in Palace of Ice

In other words, Tactical Adventures took the best parts of both Crown of the Magister and Lost Valley and stuffed them into the Palace of Ice while leaving the negatives behind. The result is my favourite storyline of the three and a definitive improvement in storytelling. Granted, it is not on the level of Dragon Age: Origins but the overall experience is well worth going through and its ceiling has to do with technological limitations, which are one of the reasons Tactical Adventures are closing the book on Solasta with this DLC.

The one part of Solasta that Palace of Ice didn't manage to improve are the stiff character animations in dialogue that cause voice acting to sound just as stiff. If you wanted an example of the aforementioned technical limitations, this is probably the most obvious one.

Gameplay

Those who have Lost Valley already had the level cap moved to 12 but if you only have the base game, it is at 10. Palace of Ice moves the cap to 16 and it seems like the ideal starting point is level 10. If you are starting with a brand new party, that is where your characters will be and you will get to choose their builds through a quick process.

With greater level come great powers and it looks like Tactical Adventures spared no expense in making these look and feel great. While eye candy and cool new effects are important, the crown jewel of the newly-improved power of our party is that the game doesn't get imbalanced. 

There are no ridiculous difficulty spikes if you are already used to Solasta's mechanics. If you are somewhat new, a few encounters could feel a bit overwhelming but the game offers the ability to switch difficulty levels, which should resolve such issues.

Tactical Adventures Solasta: Palace of Ice - Remember to pack for cold weather. A certain pair of crafted boots would help

The new enemies come in a wide variety - from nimble and deadly, over powerful and annoying to massive and hard to kill. With these new units up against the heroes, there will never be a dull moment but I did have to keep my wits sharp throughout the entirety of the campaign as overconfidence can often prove to be fatal in Solasta.

Even though Palace of Ice seems more intricate than Crown of the Magister and Lost Valley, I didn't run into many issues and especially not the game-breaking ones like in the first expansion. This is yet another showcase of Tactical Adventures learning from their past experiences, as they mentioned during the preview session that they avoided having Giant NPCs following us, for example, as their size caused one of the biggest problems Lost Valley had.

Tactical Adventures Solasta: Crown of the Magister - Giants in the Lost Valley proved rather problematic, not through fault of their own

Graphics and performance

Another high point of the expansion, the four new areas were vibrant and distinct from each other. Details in each of them were higher than in previous adventures, showing just how far the game has come in less than four years on a journey from the Kickstarter campaign to the second expansion.

Perhaps more importantly, I didn't encounter issues with performance while exploring any of these areas. In comparison, the moment I stepped into the lush foliage in Lost Valley, the frame rate tanked so hard it was almost towed away by a Ukrainian tractor .

This was not the case with Palace of Ice. The environments looked beautiful and intricate and yet, the performance remained stable, allowing me to enjoy the game to the fullest. Just like with all the other elements, the performance and visual fidelity seem to be the result of all the lessons learned in the past four years, made into one beautiful celebration of Solasta.

Tactical Adventures Celebrate with some music maybe?

Conclusion

Combining all the knowledge they picked up over the years, Tactical Adventures created a beautiful expansion for Solasta: Crown of the Magister. Solasta has shown many beautiful aspects so far and Palace of Ice delivers more of them but even better.

If you are a fan of the game, this is a no-brainer purchase. For those who haven't tried it, chances are you will love it even if you didn't play the previous campaigns. That said, I would highly recommend you play the base game first, both to learn your characters through the first 10 levels and to get a grasp of the game's geopolitical situation as well as some knowledge of your insidious enemies.

Overall, I can heartily recommend Solasta: Palace of Ice as it is an expansion done right - it is all we love but better.

Tactical Adventures Solasta: Palace of Ice deserves the crown for best DLC