I love EverQuest. For years, Norrath was my favorite fantasy game world, so I was ecstatic to play an action-looter (my favorite genre of RPG) in that setting. What made it even better is that Champions of Norrath was from Snowblind Studios, who had released the sublime Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance on PS2 in 2001. Needless to say, for me, Champions of Norrath did not disappoint.
Built with an improved version of the Dark Alliance engine, Champions looks and runs great. It plays like your standard loot-focused ARPG, but becomes fairly challenging when playing solo. I managed to finish the game by myself, but it took a few story restarts (which allow you to import your leveled character to the beginning of the game).
Where Champions really shines, like its PC progenitor, is playing with others.
Champions of Norrath has 4-player local and online co-op, which felt very impressive for a PS2 game in 2004. I played online quite a bit back in the day and remember seeing ridiculously leveled and geared characters and finding it aspirational (although in retrospect those characters may have been hacked).
SPEAKING OF HACKING you do a lot of that in Champions. Slashing too. There is a magic system for certain classes, but the aiming is so imprecise it almost renders it moot, so you mostly end up hacking and slashing. This simplicity benefits the drop in / drop out multiplayer. My wife, who had never played the game (but had played a lot of console Diablo III and IV) was able to join me and fall into the game’s rhythm within minutes.
The core gameplay loop of hacking/slashing/leveling/looting is as satisfying as ever, over 20 years later. Champions of Norrath may not have the depth of EverQuest PC, but it’s just as addictive.
Screenshots and video captured by me from original hardware (PS2) via a Hyperkin HDTV Cable connected to an Elgato Game Capture HD60 S+.
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