A look back at: Treasures of the Savage Frontier

Again, sorry for not creating the post on Gateway to the Savage Frontier earlier. I am done with Treasures of the Savage Frontier now. And it is "more of the same but with marginal differences with talking about", surely. Yay, weather effects, okay? Not my favorite gimmick, but the in-battle reinforcements on the other hand are more intriguing. Plus, your choices in the game matter for certain, due to some sort of political intrigue. And you get plenty of interesting allies, such as Jabarkas/Siulajia as well as Kriiador, the ones I mentioned here are those that are in your team most of the time, and either Jabarkas or Siulajia even have romance options, probably a first for the Gold Box games.

So about that political intrigue? Oh yeah, your group are the Heroes of Ascore from the previous game. Your group also get a simple escort mission courtesy of the seer Amanitas, who you can also telepathically communicate with. The intrigue? You ONCE AGAIN are tricked, a nice feast in the honor of being heroes turns into yet another instance of evildoers drugging your food. Seems like a good strategy for the enemy to use, nobody would suspect it. Okay, this time it's more of an imprisonment, but also a bunch of framing the heroes as true enemies of the hopeful Lord's Alliance, so now you gotta clear your name as well as the names of other, innocent locations. Because the enemies of the game, combining Zhentarim, Kraken, or Hosttower enemies from the previous game, are going to be doing false flags, wearing colors of the supposed allies, and you uncover this plot with crystals to decipher some coded messages. And when things get brought together, that helps everyone.

Though honestly I do think the plot somewhat falls apart after that. The finale involves climbing an icy mountain area, freeing the town from the black-robed enemies, several kinds of ice monsters, and while it is hard and all, it just culminates in a dragon to defeat. All for the treasures. In other words, it goes from being somewhat politically intriguing to "okay you guys are allies and true heroes, go beat a dragon and get treasure". At least that's what it feels like. Anyways, while there's more Gold Box games to check out, I'm gonna take a break from this series for a little bit. 

A look back at: Gateway to the Savage Frontier

 

Did I, somehow forget to talk about this? Oops, looks like I did. I'm going through both of the two Savage Frontier Gold Box games in other words, and believe it or not, I played this one through weeks ago and I'm almost done with the second one. And yeah, I went back to the Gold Box games again. There's just something about the grid-based tactical RPG format of the DND games here that I really just enjoy for some reason.

It is a far cry from The Dark Queen of Krynn, which was easily the most advanced of the Gold Box games. So I have basically not much to say with regards to character creation, since you make your own party, and barely a thing to say about the gameplay, since it's the same thing as the other games. But it is surprisingly an open-ended adventure for once. It's got quite a few sidequests off the main path, but the adventure's culmination means finding a pyramid where the titular Savage Frontier is. Oh, by the way, a common theme this game and a number of other DND games in the series seem to have, you have a band of heroes, they feast after they become heroes, and something bad happens to the heroes, and it's usually drugging their food and drink, making them pass out, and stealing their stuff. This actually happens in the beginning. Pirates, Krakens (both the actual monster and a band of thugs who are named Krakens), Hosttower wizards, and the Zhentil Keep Zhentarim are the main enemies to meet all throughout the game, and there's also a number of guest star party members. One of which actually betrays you as you try to leave a certain tower. The most notable party member is Krevish, who has another type of plot twist but sticks with you most of the game. It's a game that certainly tries to have more intrigue to it than Pool of Radiance, and it was worth a go just because it is technically better, but not by much, just kind of more of the same thing. Again, sorry for not putting this post up sooner, but it does mean the Treasures of the Savage Frontier lookback will come rather soon since I'm almost done with that game.

A look back at: Planescape: Torment

 

Well this one was an interesting game. I knew I was going to experience it at least once, and I'm glad I did, even if I received it rather lukewarmly. It's nowhere near the best of games, but its probably the most interesting D&D game that is standalone or part of a lesser-known D&D plotline. No Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, or Icewind Dale, Planescape: Torment is about seeking mortality, as your Nameless One has immortality and would rather figure things out with lots and lots of dialogue compared to just bumrush battling.

This is the first game I've played in a very long while where combat is usually put in the backseat. It's a bit of real-time strategy and commanding your characters to attack a target or several, and real-time battles could get hectic. Though it's important to do some grinding at some points, as well as skill point allotting. What this game is really going to do is make your character go through the dialogue, and lots of it. You'll be going around, asking denizens questions with multiple possibilities, some of which can change alignment. And for once, the game offers actual named party members, each with some sort of connection to the main character. And even the main villain of the game and a random love interest also have some connection. It's super strange. It's even strange that the main character can't even properly die.

The journey the Nameless One goes through is a confusing one indeed. Aside from the dialogue, there is the inner incarnations of himself that he should fuse himself with. This happens at the end, which also separates and KILLS the other party members. And the main villain is...the Nameless One's mortality? Where all of a sudden the Nameless One can coerce to joining, killing it altogether, or killing his own self in order to...rejoin a blood war going on. Yeah, the ending really did confuse me a bit. The philosophical nature of the game is certainly its highlight, as is the lack of combat, but it's a weird game any way. 

A look back at: The Dark Queen of Krynn

 

I played this one in spades, often taking breaks either from work or trying to do other things. Nevertheless, I'm quite glad this one took a little less than a month in hindsight. It's just as linear if not more than Death Knights of Krynn, though it's both longer and harder in general. I mean, more dragons to deal with, more Draconians and their special nonsense death conditions. Yay, exploding enemies, rising into another form and exploding, or just blowing fireballs diagonally. And as I would always expect, both Fireball and Delayed Blast Fireball were the fun spells to use for almost every encounter with the mages taking point. The developers of this game really took that into account because there's an underwater kingdom to deal with though, so obviously the favorite spells aren't always useful. And then there's the dragons and beholder enemies which also proved quite challenging especially with multiples of them in one area!

So aside from fun and frustration, I take it that The Dark Queen of Krynn is perhaps the most advanced game of its engine, the Gold Box engine. The graphics are sleeker and there's more color usage, and I think the AI might have been slightly tweaked better, you never know. I also enjoy the guest characters here far more. Whereas your own party completely lacks characterization, where they MAY have something during the story in spades depending on who you choose to tackle certain events, the guest characters and other major characters shine a lot brighter. Captain Daenor is an ally who comes and goes, with his own story and trying to get his sister back. Grunschka and Baldric are other characters who are interesting allies, with the former being a party member until the end and the latter ending up doing something for the semi-twist ending. It's a shame that black mage guy in the Abyss isn't playable, and the defeat of the actual dark queen is underwhelming since you really don't directly fight her. It is sort of funny when dragons invade the celebration victory party at the end though, that was the semi-twist ending. But all in all, it really boils down to "do I already enjoy playing through the other Gold Box games" here. If you know nothing about them, it's probably not as good. 

A look back at: Death Knights of Krynn

More Krynn-inge. Nah, just kidding. I'm quite glad I knocked this one out in less than a week. Chock it up to the importing of characters from the previous game, as well as delving into the right quests at the right time. Death Knights of Krynn is certainly about defeating the new evil in the death knights, and at least two instances are where you have to battle former friendly NPC characters. That's cause this is a game where necromancy takes center stage in the plot. Lord Soth is the main bad guy to quell, and he's got the previously dead Sir Karl to his side WITH the Dragonlance. Note to the idiots in the epilogue of Champions of Krynn, THIS is why you don't take the Dragonlance from the party! Now we have to be in a terrible situation of having to bring Sir Karl to rest, which would definitely hurt his lover Maya, who's a dragon herself, of course.

The other major character for this game is Durfey, and he's a bit like Vala from Secret of the Silver Blades in that he's around for a very long haul once you recruit him. He then leaves to help a lovely woman, only to find himself as another undead trying to defend her and you have to slay him. Poor man. Oh my, are we really talking about the main plot of "Just defeat Lord Soth before he uses lots of undead, especially this one badass hero"? Yeah, that's the gist of the plot. This game, without sidequests, is very short. Though even WITH the sidequests, it was still short. But it was worthwhile to do them. I haven't really mentioned gameplay here since it's basically identical to Champions of Krynn, with the only notable new thing is the re-addition of the Paladin class. And they brought some DOS chiptune music back which is always nice. Alright, let's see what that last Dragonlance chapter will offer.

A look back at: Champions of Krynn

It's a good thing I saved my characters for these DOS games...wait, I can't transfer them over? Oh, right. So as it stands, the Pool of Radiance sub-series is separate from the Dragonlance sub-series as well as other sub-series in the Gold Box games. Have I mentioned that yeah, I am churning through these games again? Might as well, there's a little of that DOS charm along with some hardline tactical RPG gameplay. But in any case, I modeled my party after the ones I used up to Pools of Darkness, with only a few minor exceptions as usual.

Champions of Krynn is delightfully a lot shorter and actually easier in most regards compared to the other games. There's not too much in dawdling around for sidequests this time, and the plot is...honestly quite typical. That is something of a problem I guess, it's really just "find missing maidens to rescue" as well as "defeat dragonkin characters, including the big bad who is one himself" with a little dose of tragedy when your mentor and troop leader ends up perishing. Though there's a little more intrigue plot-wise, as not only are some of the guest characters very interesting, so are the races themselves. When Maya decides to join you, the twist of her becoming a dragon in combat was not something you expected, was it? What about Skyla, that doofus guy who actually gets new orders to kill you? Or how about the ogres, who are actually good characters, except for a select few, but you still get them to form a nice alliance? Oh yeah, and two flying fortresses, they crash into each other, and there's drunken Draconians, civil conflict in the final town, honestly, it's these little things that produce a nice charm to a fairly average Gold Box game. Not too much to really look back on, but it is the little things. 

A look back at: Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor

(Note: I finished this game last week from the timestamp of this post. Whoops, I usually do the post here after I finish, but I forgot. I did finish this game on around the 22nd of March though).

And so I continue with the Advanced D&D games but going away from Gold Box for a moment for this game that seriously has those WOW or Diablo vibes. I mean, look at that screenshot and you should be able to see some similarities. The vibes are certainly there with the medieval setting and all, but the gameplay is anything but MMORPG. Don't worry, I've got no intention to play those games, since I prefer the more linear plotlines of regular games in all seriousness.

Ruins of Myth Drannor is heavily, and I mean heavily, quest-driven. There's so many quests or steps to get to quests that I got sidetracked far more than I usually would. The main quest is basically "big good wizard tells your four heroes to stop this evil sorceress and her dragon boyfriend from using the Pool of Radiance, and to also finally destroy it", and then there's a bunch of other things to cover, maybe a few select characters that are temporary party members or so for extra fun. Plus all the extra treasures and having to fight all the denizens of the ruins. Yippee?

Well, not so much. First of all, the gameplay still practices the turn-based mechanics of its predecessors. When you have free-range like this, maybe trying the Diablo route would work better. Cause moving units to be right in melee weapon range will look awkward in free-range movement. Oh, but look at those D&D flair, the rolls and such. That's neat, but of course missing is never fun. An ideal party is two strong physical fighters and two mages, their classes could be anything aside from the cliche ones of course but there's always the skewing upon leveling up units and such. But the hardest thing about this game is just how boring it got. You go on the quests, but you basically have to tough out encounters each time of varying degrees, and that drowning orchestra does get grating after a while with each battle.

And then, there's the game-breaking nonsense that could ruin save files at times. It's easily the most annoying thing about this game. I think I might just return to messing around with the Gold Box games in the meantime. 

A look back at: Pools of Darkness

First of the year. It took 24 days, but I get caught up being bored and doing my own advanced college work when no one is looking, still churning through one Pokemon ROM hack while at the same time working on walkthroughs of other game ROM hacks (there's now four for SMB2 on my main walkthroughs page), but I also churn through other series that I've had to deal with and Pools of Darkness is the fourth out of five Pool of Radiance games. Again, franchise in a franchise with strategy RPG mechanics that have remained the same with each game. Slightly better graphics! Freakier sound effects! That's what the developers have decided to ensure the game didn't feel more like an expansion pack to the others.

Yet overall, the gameplay is largely similar, but I guess slightly better than Secret of the Silver Blades. This is largely in part due to the game actually having more than one overworld, and you can navigate freely on the overworlds (though of course there are random encounters, what you do is your decision in these cases). I of course import my characters and their stats, plus equipment hold over. Neat, until I horrifying find out that the game still is quite difficult despite this. Dragons always terrify you. Those annoying spiders and their instakill poison are there. Bane's minions have magic resistance. Fireball and Delayed Blast Fireball, as great spells as they are, are often not useful due to fire monsters taking a lot of precedence. And don't even get me STARTED on the unfairness that is the finale of this game. Yeah, no in-between rests for three or so battles, one of which has the beholders with multiple instakill gaze sets. Even the walkthrough I was using this game to complete with gave up at some point and changed the difficulty setting, while a Youtube video I watched went with a "tire out the enemy until enough turns have passed" cheese strategy. I was obviously quite exhausted with this nonsense, and didn't even bother to try Dave's Challenge as a result. Note to creators, I know you want the best of the best beating your post-game challenges, but when you have exhausting finales for the main game, it's very likely that I'm not even gonna bother with the postgame.

But I guess despite that I did enjoy what I did. A hub dimension where you go around, doing major quests in that dimension to unlock the way to the other dimensions (one of which being a giant god's body) and defeating one of Bane's lieutenants in each one feels a lot better than a game that didn't even have a true overworld. And these overworld have sidequests and side characters meaning that there is usually something worthwhile to do if you deviate from the main quest. 

A look back at: Secret of the Silver Blades

Wow, I was on fire this entire month. Quite ironic given that it is December we're talking here, but also even moreso when it was all little Advanced Dungeons & Dragons games from the early years of CRPGs, and believe me, I've got a lot on my plate with those. But it's actually nice to know that the games aren't super long either. Some, like this game for example, were somewhat arduous yet still very much doable, but hey, I gotta get to experience some oldies regardless.

So far I think Curse of the Azure Bonds is the best of the three I played. All three of these games have the same overall gameplay style (so I'm not commenting about that cause I did that already) and you customize your characters AND can import them (without a doubt the biggest plus of this series thus far). Plot-wise, all games are quite simple in plot. In Pool of Radiance, you basically go after Tyranthraxus and that's all there is to that. In Curse of the Azure Bonds, you also go after Tyranthraxus in a different body, but I enjoyed the whole scope of getting rid of the accursed bonds a whole lot more. In Secret of the Silver Blades, we get to hear about some lore of two twin brothers, one good, one evil, but good doesn't want to strike down evil so he wants others to do it even after he is long gone. And we got rivaling factions to deal with. Black Circle! Banites! Silver Blades! The latter is the actually good faction of course.

The game's difficulty did surprise me a whole lot more than the previous games. While I got annoyed with those phase spiders in the last game, this one also has enemies that can instantly slay your characters. Or rather turn them to stone, lots of medusae, basilisks, and cockatrices in the mine shafts near the middle of the game AND near the end. Combine that with the drider enemies, the very annoying storm giants, and the durable iron giants, and by the end it felt like the mini-franchise was toughening it up a whole lot more. And then there's Vala, the one guest character in the series so far who proved the most useful out of all of them, mostly because she actually stuck around all the way to the end and was a competent fighter. Couldn't have done it without you. But hey, expect a blog summary tomorrow, I'm really on fire with reviewing things and other stuff I've been doing in the meantime. 

A look back at: Curse of the Azure Bonds

Yeah, gonna be going through quite a lot of D&D Gold Box games for a while. Luckily, they aren't that long in length, and the bonus of importing characters is a huge plus! Meaning I don't need to over-customize on things, and the going is easier. Slightly, easier. Of course, it's not all set in stone, despite a whole lot of the game already being similar than Pool of Radiance. The sidequests are actually tough this time around, and the game is a lot more linear as some of those quests are more mandatory than I once thought. And woo, we got some additional grub, two new character classes as well as more monsters that are far more dangerous. Otyughs, yuck! And don't get me started on those truly annoying phase spiders who's poison bites are lethal. That and the more human enemies and their classes show a little bit more intelligence overall, actually casting some annoying spells like the holding ones and such. So yeah, it was a tougher game despite importing my characters.

Aside from this, well I am a bit intrigued by the plot. How your characters get cursed with these accursed Azure Bonds is interesting, you don't remember what happened, you just know you got ambushed somehow and then the bonds are on all your characters. Ironically this kind of "ambush while you are sleeping" mechanic is in the games overall, it's just that this happens before the game starts and is "special", I guess. And having to remove the bonds one by one by defeating evil factions tied to those bonds, well, it is considered original at the time. I feel like Tyranthraxus returning as a different beast and being able to mind control the party feels like a small Deus Ex Machina. And then there's Nameless? Is this the same Nameless One I hear from other games? I will certainly keep an eye out. 

A look back at: Pool of Radiance

Yes, even way back in the primitive days of video gaming, or at least when the Dungeons & Dragons series decided to be ported to game consoles and PCs, there existed nonlinear sandbox-style gameplay. And so I start combing through another franchise mostly on the computers, though with many different types of titles and sub-franchises under its belt, starting with the Forgotten Realms series and Pool of Radiance in particular.

We have Might and Magic-style navigation, Might & Magic-style character creation, standard dialogue that isn't too different from those games, but the main draw is the nonlinear quests you can do and the battle system. The main quest is as simple as "go to the last castle of the game and beat the dragon" and that's all there's to it, but of course with a beginner party this isn't feasible until you get more stuff. Gotta get that gold, gotta get that experience, gotta keep your characters' skills and spells up to snuff, and the difficulty is actually quite varied. Early on, goblins and kobolds shouldn't actually give you trouble, even though you're bound to miss a lot, so shall they. The quests do involve usual monster killing in general, or some other things. One quest in particular basically is a trap too.

The battle system is a nice blend of tactical RPG with some nice sprites (that you set yourself) and enemies always approach in hordes. Weak enemies however will miss your experienced fighters and die quickly, however you of course meet the stronger suits who will take up more than one tile. Spells are really really good in this game though, the stinking cloud spell and the hold spell render units helpless and VERY easy to kill, then there's the awesome fireball spell with high power and AOE. Some of the battles will be long just cause there's so many targets to take down, and then you have to manually end battle which is annoying. Oh, and the loot? There's often lots of it, but with the correct walkthrough and all I basically had to get what I truly wanted in these cases. Another fun fact to this game's overall nonlinearity is that it's not over after you beat the main quest, you can go and do other sidequests any time afterwards.