The Dwarves

Overview
The Dwarves is an Indie third person RPG set in a fantasy world, inspired to the novel series with the same name, and developed by King Art. Players impersonate Tungdil, a Dwarven smith raised by the famed high mage Lot-Ionan, though completely alien to his own race and the outside world. One day his mentor tasks Tungdil with an important delivery mission, from there his adventure begins and soon escalates to much greater levels as an enemy thought confined resurfaces.
🔵 Pros
Beautiful graphics and art direction, delivering highly detailed original locations, models, animations and textures consistently from start to end.
Successful mix of "choose your own adventure book" narration and real-time with pause RPG combat, bringing together diverse gameplay experiences.
Good storytelling, choice variety and characters, featuring many "grey area" decisions and believable personalities.
Satisfying combat system featuring physics-based blows, branching skill trees and several unique mechanics.
Very good soundtrack and voice acting, with fully-voiced dialogues and inspiring music.
🔴 Cons
Balance problems with heroes and ability stacking. Certain combinations are overpowered, while some companions are useless.
Noticeable quantity of minor bugs and glitches in both exploration and combat.
The late part of the adventure feels rushed and has very few choices.
Rating: Very Good
Click here for the complete Rating Chart
There are many good things to say about The Dwarves. First of all the setting and locations are transported into 3D beautifully, with high quality graphics and animations, rich in detail. This factor, combined with a well written and narrated story, creates a very enjoyable adventure. The narrative reminiscent of "choose your own path" books is joined with real time with pause combat, where ability timing and placement really make the difference, while also good pacing between narration, exploration and combat.
There is a good variety of choices, often of dubious morals and open to interpretation, in both main and side encounters - none of these choices will change the main quest in a major way, but can change companions gained, and the course of side-quests. Last but not least, the music, voice acting and soundtrack are top-notch and emphasize even more the events unfolding.
On the bad side, the biggest issues are found with companion and ability balance. While some companions are strong all-rounders that excel in both single and area damage, others are at best very situational, or at worst completely useless. Ability combinations can get out of hand in the hands of experienced players, with devastating results.
There are some bugs such as the camera getting stuck, inaccurate skill ranges, or characters being unresponsive but none of them is major. The fact the last part of the adventure feels very sudden and features little to no choices or secondary events, is disappointing and it really seems as if the devs ran out of either time or funds.
Overall, The Dwarves is a very good RPG with many solid points in its favor and some issues, that still will be enjoyed by fantasy RPG fans seeking a different experience. It took me 10 hours to make a thorough run on Hard, the highest difficulty - for the proposed price tag of 40€, and also low replay value, I suggest at least a -35% sale for this game to be worth the money.
In-Depth Breakdown
🎮 Gameplay Analysis
The gameplay of The Dwarves is divided into Exploration, Dialogues, Quests, Character Management and Combat.
Exploration
Is twofold, in the world map and locations. While on the global map, a series of pre-determined paths opens up, each aiming to a crossroads, town or city on the map. Players can freely choose which to cross, travelling between each "dot" costs 1 ration of food per party member. Different paths result in different encounters and dialogues, but the major main and side quests are already marked on the map most of the time. Running out of food doesn't mean death, just no passive health regen.
While in locations, exploration is done on foot and with a third person high view. Hovering the mouse on an interactive object highlights it, and there are no hotkeys to do so, so attentively looking at every part of locations is a wise decision, as additional loot, unique equipment and even quests can be found. Resting at a tavern completely heals the party, and merchants, both fixed and roaming, can be used to sell unwanted goods, buy supplies, or unique trinkets to equip.
Dialogues
Happen as well in both the world map and locations, but function the same way. Each dialogue with characters will have choices most of the time, which can open up quests, additional rewards, or instead optional fights or fail a quest. There are no attribute checks or "persuasion skills": everything happens organically and what you decide to say and do, is all that matters.
Quests
Are usually marked on the map, save some rare exceptions, with question marks. Entering the dot with a marker initiates the corresponding encounter, that will consequently start the quest. Most encounters begin and end in the same place, while others are more complex and require going to many places of the world, through multiple dialogues and choices, to clear them. Completing quests gives additional resources, and usually a good amount of XP since there is always at least one optional fight included.
Character Management
Is done anytime in the world map, or before every battle. In a handy menu, you can select party composition (up to four members), and one accessory for each hero, either a consumable potion or a trinket granting a unique skill. Choosing the right heroes for the task at hand is fundamental, as many times it will be more than just killing all enemies.
Combat
Plays out in real time, with a pause function to issue multiple orders. One character can be selected as "active", enabling the usage of skills, while the others will be controlled by the AI and only use basic attacks. Switching characters all the time, paying attention to their AP levels (used for skills, and gained on enemy kills, passively with time, and with some abilities) and combining buffs, AoEs together are keys for victory, while also placement is very important: using bottlenecks on the map and taking a few enemies at a time when possible, are good tactics.
Most skills have physics based weight behind them, allowing to push enemies off a cliff, knock them down for a killing blow, or move a mob of enemies away. This gives the combat a more meaty feeling. There is friendly fire on most, too, so being careful with aiming and positions is very important: if Tungdil is knocked out, it's game over. Other characters just pass out and are resurrected after the battle.
🔩 Technical
PC Specs: RTX2080Ti, Ryzen 3900X, 32GB RAM DDR4
There are no stability or performance / optimization issues to report. The only technical issues are some minor or rarely moderate bugs encountered while either exploring or fighting, none of them is game-breaking and at worst, restarting the fight or rebooting the game will fix them.
Final Thoughts
The Dwarves is definitely a solid RPG with some issues, ultimately the good sides are in overwhelming advantage and all considered, it's a game worth getting (on sale!) for any RPG fan.

Fantastic story filled with great characters, top-notch voice acting and memorable music; The map exploration music is really something else.
The combat is just deep enough to be fun but not overwhelming; and there's enough variety in the objectives to keep things fresh; It's not just "kill X number of enemies.
It's not a tough game once you get through the first few battles, I know a lot of people dislike Real-time-with-pause, I for one enjoy it; and once you unlock more abilites you can really start mowing down dwarves and it's super satisfying.
Fair warning though, the game gets VERY buggy in the second half and it's super obvious this thing was rushed without enough polish. I had to replay 4 battles because the game bugged out and I couldn't control any of my characters.
The bugs weren't enough to warrant a negative review and I don't think there's really anything on steam that captures this game's mood. Maybe it's the music, but it feels so wholesome and heartfelt.
tl;dr
Great writing and music, fun battle system that's just deep enough, but very buggy in the second half!

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The Dwarves Review – Take on Dark Forces
Both Tactical and Role-playing elements are ready to offer you challenging gameplay like never before. THQ Nordic presents The Dwarves, the real-time RPG game, in which a few legendary heroes are facing tons of vicious enemies. The game makes you the leader of those legendary heroes and your main objective is to lead them to victory at any cost while fighting against the dark hordes from an isometric perspective. Freely navigate the massive world to partake in tactical real-time fights, and unfolds the fantastic story focused on the bestseller “The Dwarves”.
Experience RPG mixed Tactical Gameplay
Set in the fantasy world where strange creatures are waiting for you as it is an RPG game that comes with an exciting story and challenging real-time fights. There are over fifteen playable heroes available and each comes with unique skills. During the game, you can deploy any of your legendary heroes on the grid-based map to assume his duty by fighting against enemies in turn-based combat. While playing the game, you can take on the following superior of:
• Zombies
• Alfs
• Orcs
• Dark Mages
• Bognilim
Based on the Best Selling Novel
You may be amazed to know that this RPG game is based on a novel of the same name and will let you experience an outstanding tale involving the fantasy race, known as The Dwarves. The Tactical real-time battles will pit you against tons of enemies with some companions. There’s a special feature that you can use for an advantage over the battle as many times as you want, is Play and Pause Feature.
Experience the Crowd Combat
As the game starts, you find your heroes in the crowd of strange creatures that are amazingly rendered using complex physics. Therefore, you feel the battle is running in real-time and lets you reveal your tactical thoughts. While navigating the world, you should reveal dark secrets and try to learn more about the world you are navigating and its inhabitants by merely solving challenging puzzles. There are several maps and each represents a unique environment to explore. The world, where the game takes place, is Girdlegard ranges from deserts to snowy mountains.
Navigate All Maps Freely
As mentioned above that there are several maps, ranging from mountains to deserts, and you are allowed to explore each one freely to meet new characters and experience challenging adventures to advance the story. During the journey, you should keep in mind that several actions you made on the map have some far-reaching consequences.
Pause and Play Battles
Control legendary heroes and lead them to victory. Using the Pause and Play feature, you can easily dominate the enemy territories. When you find yourself trapped, you can use a pause feature to take some rest and find the best solution on how to come out from it. Similar to a movie, you can make the game pause anytime when you want and play when you feel relax.
The Verdict
Both Strategy and Tactical approaches are required to lead your team to victory. Legendary heroes are ready to help you out in your task, but you have to decide who the best is for you. Making the wrong choices will push you into more difficult scenarios from where coming out is a bit difficult. Your every decision does matter in the game and will determine the fate of your people.
Rate: 10/10

I got this game through a humble bundle awhile back and was itching to play something different, so I downloaded it and gave it a shot.
Pros / Cons for the first 4 hours of gameplay:
Pros:
• Great voice acting
• Fun storytelling
• Good animations and graphics
• Dwarves!
• No crashes or game issues.
• Twin Dwarves!
Cons:
• Combat is a little wonky at times
• UI could be polished more, but it does it's job fine
Although if I hadn't have gotten this game through humble bundle, I don't think it would have been on my radar at all. If you are into dwarves, solid voice acting, an interesting world and fun storytelling, then I say pick it up on sale!

I really enjoyed it. Good and well narrated story, great music and visually gorgeous. The gameplay, which alternates combat mode/exploring mode/travelling mode, is pretty cool too.
On the other hand, the game feels too short (took me 12 h with all the secondary missions), and the ending a bit too rushed, lacking a proper "final boss fight'.
Note: I only played the campaign. The defy mode certainly adds more hours of play if you like fighting waves of enemies.

As someone who knows the novels. I would love a sequel.

They are in fact Dwarves.