If there’s anything more cathartic than taking down droves of enemies and gathering loot in a fantasy setting, don’t tell Dungeon Siege 3. Just like its predecessors, it offers up both of those things en masse. Being the first game in the series to be available for consoles and the first to be developed by Obsidian Entertainment, though, it isn’t quite a picture perfect continuation of the games before it.

The Legion was once a powerful and influential group in the Kingdom of Ehb, but that quickly changed after they were accused of murdering the king who ruled the land. The people of Ehb turned against the Legion and murdered as many members as it possibly could. As luck would have it, each of the four characters you can choose to play as are either members of or somehow connected to the Legion, and it’s their job to help the group regain prominence and destroy the dark forces looking to take over the land. There’s Lucas, who is best described as a warrior; Anjali, whose focus is largely elemental magic; Reinhart, a mage with melee-focused moves; and Katarina, who keeps her distance and shoots at enemies with her guns.

I’m probably not alone in thinking there’s a lot of ways this game could have controlled poorly. Its predecessors were on the PC, which has far more input options than your standard controller. Fortunately, the game controls as well as one could hope. What’s particularly notable is how competent the combat is, as that’s one area that some other console-based games in the vein of Dungeon Siege 3 fall a little flat.  It’s a hack-and-slash experience in every meaning of the concept, but you also have a suite of upgradable moves and attacks that are easy to use. The only downside is that availability of some powers is dependent upon whether you’re in the one-handed or two-handed weapon stance, but switching between the two only requires the press of a button.

Sometimes things get a little intense.

Dungeon Siege 3 as a whole is an incredibly streamlined experience, and this translates to navigation, weapon and armor selection, and the general progression of the game. For better or worse, you’re never going to be unsure of where you need to go or what’s expected of you. The quest menu can be opened by simply pressing left on the D-pad, and pressing up on the D-pad will populate a breadcrumb trail that leads you exactly where you need to be. The option to ignore the glowing trail and explore is available, but there are few areas you won’t get to by just playing through the main quests in the game.

The acquisition of awesome loot is a prominent part of Dungeon Siege 3, and there’s quite a bit to be found. I located a few pieces of armor that differed in name but not in specs to other pieces, but I far more often amassed new pieces of loot with awesome names like the “Trousers of Rage”. As any good loot will, it forces you to think hard about what will work best for your character. For example, whether or not your two-handed sword should have beefy attack stats and paltry stats for everything else, or if it would be better to use something a little more well-rounded. Thanks to the system in place for equipping gear, it’s incredibly easy to see how items compare to what you have equipped, and this applies to purchasing items from shops as well: whenever you highlight something, it will immediately show you the stats of what you have equipped and how the two compare. I still have horrible memories of playing games that made changing weapons and armor painfully tedious, so it was nice to see that not being an issue here.