Game 455: Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos (1993)

 

Apropos of our recent subtitle discussion, this game has at least one throne, but so far it doesn't seem to be chaotic.

         

Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos

United States

Westwood Studios (developer and publisher)

Released 1993 for DOS, 1995 for FM Towns and PC-98

Date Started: 2 April 2022

   

Playing Lands of Lore alongside Ultima Underworld II is an interesting experience--the apex of one style of game next to the birth of another. Writing from nearly 30 years down the road, I certainly appreciate Underworld more, but it's possible that I'll actually enjoy it less. Lore may be a derivative game, but it's a slick one. For the first time (and this is based on only a couple of hours of gameplay), I think that we might have a Dungeon Master clone that outperforms Dungeon Master (1987).

   

Dungeon Master is Lore's grandfather, but its father is Eye of the Beholder (1992), also created by Westwood (then Westwood Associates) under a sub-license from Strategic Simulations, Inc. Westwood was bought by Virgin Interactive Entertainment in 1992, and either because of the purchase or simply coincident to it, SSI stopped using the developer for D&D games. Left with the Eye of the Beholder engine but no more Beholder, Westwood decided to create its own game universe. The result is impressive: a game that maintains the puzzle-solving and real-time combat of Dungeon Master but without the D&D rules that didn't work so well in Beholder.

        

The opening moments of the game impress.

     

I bought the game from GOG, which sells the 1994 CD-ROM re-release with voice acting by Patrick Stewart. Westwood did not waste Patrick Stewart. Moments after you type in LOLCD, his voice booms from the speakers: "Virgin Interactive Entertainment presents . . . the Westwood Studios production of . . . Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos!"

   

Stewart also voices King Richard in the excellent animated cinematic that follows the title screen. It is perhaps the best that we've seen so far in RPG history. It begins with a horse galloping at breakneck speed towards a castle. The castle's portcullis raises, and the rider enters, dismounts, and rushes to the throne room, where he hands a scroll to the king's chamberlain. The chamberlain reads it and reports to the king: "My liege, it is as we feared: Scotia has uncovered the temple, and will have the Nether Mask soon."

     

A rider brings a desperate message to the king.

   

"We must be ready for her," Richard replies. "She will come here first."

"But Richard, what worry have we here at Gladstone? Surely we can arrange a defense against any charade."

"The Mask is not a toy!" Richard yells. "The time has come, and I have no choice. I must destroy her now." Sir Patrick really puts his talent into the delivery of lines he must only have barely understood. His performance, particularly in contrast to the wooden one by the advisor, really goes to show why professional actors are enlisted for these kinds of projects. Origin could have taken a lesson from Westwood on that point.

      

Captain Picard debates a block of wood.

     

The cinematic switches its perspective to a cliffside cave surrounded by scaffolding. Victorious cackling comes from within the cave, and a little goblin-like minion comes running out, giggling about how "she will be so pleased!" Inside a tent, the ugly crone Scotia demands to know, "What can be taking so long! I want it now!" When her minion appears bearing a ring with an enormous blue gem, she is not pleased; she destroys the creature with a wave of her hand. "You will not me wait again!"

   

"Ah, it's a pretty little package," she purrs. "At last: Richard and his puny forces have met their match!" She uses the artifact to turn herself into a beautiful young woman and then a crow. "Yes! This mask will serve me well. Beware, King Richard. You will pay for your lack of vision!"

      

Scotia admires the Nether Mask, which looks nothing like a mask.

    

The cinematic goes right into character selection. Yes, as with many DM clones, you don't "create" a character but rather choose him from several fixed options. Here, we have Ak'shel, Michael, Kieran, and Conrad, who specialize in magic, brute strength, agility, and balance in that order. Each has different statistics for magic, protection, and might. Michael and Conrad are both human, Kieran is a feline "Huline," and Ak'shel is a saurian "Dracoid." All are male. Each offers a (voiced) introductory paragraph if you click on him. If you take more than a few seconds, Patrick Stewart keeps asking, "Well, have you decided?"

     

The four characters make their pitches.

      

I went with Conrad, as I like the idea of a well-rounded character. He also has the highest point total (though some attributes, like speed, are clearly not represented). The game then begins with the character standing outside the throne room.

   

Before I get into gameplay, I must move on to an option that only appears after you've created a character. When you first start the game, if it senses no save file, it goes right into the introductory cinematic. On subsequent reloads, you get a main menu with a "Lore of the Lands" option.  Clicking this takes you to a three-minute slide show, again narrated by Stewart, in which we learn about the history of the setting.

   

You can read the full narrative here, but the short version is that a godlike race called the Ancients once presided over an epoch of peace and prosperity. This Golden Age ended with the War of the Heretics, which saw the Ancients completely wiped out. The surviving races descended into a dark age. They slowly recovered and began exploring the world, encountering each other and touching off a series of racial wars until, finally, the four "ascendant races" ushered in a new era of peace. These were the three character races plus "Thomgogs"--huge, four-armed, scaly creatures with Creature from the Black Lagoon heads and elephantine feet.

      

The history of the land in pictures.

       

Gladstone Castle became the center for education and magic, and thus the target of the Dark One, leader of the Dark Army. I'm frankly not sure whether Scotia is the Dark One or one of his minions. Maybe that becomes clear later. There's also no word in the backstory about what the world, continent, or kingdom of the game is called.

   

The game begins outside King Richard's throne room. I explored the small outer area before talking to Richard. The interface is loosely adapted from Beholder. The view window is widened and moved to the right. Character portraits are at the bottom of the screen, along with a shared inventory bar beneath them. It looks like there is space for two other people to join the party. There's a GTFO cluster in the lower left. The upper left seems somewhat wasted. The manual doesn't show anything happening there, and nothing happened there during my first session. I'm not sure what it will eventually be used for.

  

I am a bit disappointed in the lack of keyboard redundancy for commands. The numberpad adequately moves, turns, and strafes, but aside from the "R" key resting, I don't think the keyboard is used at all. Maybe when I have more than one character, the number keys will do something. I would have liked key commands to open the character sheet; instead, you have to do that by clicking on the character portrait. 

 

F1 activates the main character's attack. I assume F2 and F3 will do the same for the other two characters once they join. While I appreciate a keyboard option for attacking, these are a bit awkward. Screen elements like levers and buttons have to be clicked to activate them, which is a more acceptable use of the mouse because you're actually targeting something.

        

The character sheet.

   

Conrad starts with a salve, a sprig of aloe, a sprig of ginseng, 41 silver crowns, a shirt, a dagger, and sandals. Items add directly to "Might" and "Protection" statistics. He starts at Level 1 as a fighter, rogue, and mage. For this game, Westwood eschewed D&D's experience-based leveling and went back to a Dungeon Master model in which leveling is based on specific actions. Fighting and magic are obvious; characters gain rogue levels by picking locks and using ranged weapons.

    

The options menu offers a few features I want to highlight. This is a rare early game to offer the option to subtitle all narrated text. I've got to the point years ago where I want subtitles with everything, even television shows and films. Turning it on for video games is one of the first things I do as soon as the game gives me control. It annoys me how you often can't turn on subtitles (not to mention turn off music) before the introductory cinematic. The second feature is a difficulty level; monsters can be made "Wimpy," "Normal," or "Ferocious." I decided to try "Ferocious" and see how hard it actually is. The final option is the ability to turn on or off "smooth scrolling," which simply adds a subtle transition animation as you move between squares, probably a last-minute addition to make it seem more like a true 3D game. I find that I can move faster without it, and I turn it off.

     

Some of the game options.

      

One thing I like immediately about the game is that clicking on most things gives you a textual description, much like an adventure game. This description is also narrated by the character. He has comments on almost all objects that aren't simply part of the background texture, including paintings, decorative swords, and views through windows. One thing I don't like is that you sometimes can't move while the voice narration is going. This is inconsistent, though.

      

Conrad comments on a painting.

      

The small castle has a couple of shops, one selling salves and herbs and the other selling weapons. Items are expensive enough that I assume I'll be able to return here; otherwise, my 41 silver crowns don't buy much.

   

Guards part as I approach the throne room, and a button opens the door. I enter to find King Richard arguing with Geron Arbroath (the chamberlain) and a young woman whose identity I don't know. The king wants to march immediately, but Arbroath is cautioning him to wait for the army mustered by an "Eric." Both Arbroath and the woman are confident that the castle's magic and martial protections are enough to protect against Scotia, but the king isn't so sure: "Scotia is not an adversary to be taken lightly." Again, the difference in the quality of voice acting between Stewart and the other actors is stark. You'd forgive him for phoning it in for this kind of project--just his name alone would have been enough to sell boxes--but he reads every line with gusto.

       

Patrick Stewart: "A paycheck is a paycheck."

        

Richard turns to me and tells me that as a first quest, I must retrieve the Ruby of Truth from "Roland's estate in the Southland." He gives me a key to his private library and tells me that in it, I'll find a magic atlas. Arbroath invites me to stop by his office for an official writ.

   

I head to the library, which has four books on four pedestals. One of them is the "magic atlas," which adds an automap to the interface. It's a nice one. Graphically, it looks a bit like Ultima Underworld's, although without the ability to mark your own annotations. It does annotate buttons and other map features. I just wish you could call it with a key.

         

The automap of Castle Gladstone.

      

The other four books fill in a bit of the lore and history of the setting. Each time you click on one, you get a different message (again, all narrated by Stewart), so I spend some time making sure I read everything. Among them, I learn:

   

• Gladstone was the first major civilization to come out of the dark ages. Its power grew when its people discovered how to use magic.

• King Andrew, the "13th heir to the throne of Gladstone," found the Shard of Truth in the Urbish highlands. 

• In the 60th generation after the fall of the Golden Age, Sir Michel Robard found the Ruby of Truth and gave it to the heir of Gladstone.

• The combination of the Ruby and the Shard created a powerful magic effect. "All known forms of deceit were unveiled," and evil creatures retreated to the nether world. This event ushered in the modern era of peace.

• An emerald blade can help against undead.

• It is rumored that something called Vaelan's Cubes can drain magic from people.

• The Gorkha are fierce warriors but also fair traders.

      

Thanks for the advice.

    

• There's some advice to never drink from underground waters.

• One of the books has various things to say about the pubs and inns you can encounter the land.

    

The chamberlain gives me a Writ of Passage as promised, but he's kind of a jerk about it, and I wonder if he's going to turn out to be traitorous or villainous later on. A crow (maybe a raven) flew up to his window as I entered his office. He tried to play it off as, "Look, even the beasts seek shelter," but for all I know it was Scotia.

      

And if you asked me to touch something of yours, I wouldn't. I guess we're at a stalemate.

       

With nothing left to do, I leave the castle and head into the forest. Like Eye of the Beholder II, the game doesn't so much have "outdoor" maps as regular dungeon maps with outdoor textures. It isn't long before I find my first battle against a wild boar. Its animation and grunting are both superb. He dies in a couple of hits without wounding me. Combat is just as you'd expect in a Dungeon Master clone, with a "cool down" period of a few seconds in between attacks.

      

It's too bad there's no food system.

     

I find some items as I continue to explore: a weathered dagger, a stick, and something called a "swarm" that I understand by neither name nor icon. 

As I turn down a forest path, a mugger appears and announces he's taking my money. I have options to give, bluff, and fight. I try bluffing, but he doesn't buy it, so I find myself in combat. I try casting a spell. Apparently, I'll eventually find a spellbook, but the character starts with a "Spark" spell. When you cast a spell, you specify the level. I could only choose 1 or 2 for my one spell. I cast it at Level 2, which took all my mana points. It plus one physical attack killed the mugger. My mana regenerated relatively quickly, about one bar segment every 20 seconds for a full refresh in about 3 minutes.

      

I hit the mugger with a spell.

    

I soon came to a cave with two thugs guarding it. I had options to attack, sneak, or leave. It's nice to see these types of encounter options. Eye of the Beholder II had them, too, so it's not like this is the first time, but they're still not common in Dungeon Master clones.

      

An interesting way to offer a "sneak" mechanic in an interface that wouldn't otherwise support it.

     

I tried sneaking, but they caught me and attacked at the same time a boar started attacking me from my flank. I thus suffered my first death on my third combat. On a reload, I took care of the boar first and then rested to heal and restore mana. The game doesn't seem to have a food system, so I'm not sure if there's any downside to resting or otherwise taking one's sweet time.

      

Not much of a death screen.

    

I've explored a bit further, but I think I'll wrap up here because I want to get your opinions about the different character classes (I don't really like Conrad's voice actor) before I go too far. In its opening hours, at least, Lore looks, sounds, and plays great, and I'm really looking forward to continuing with it.

    

Time so far: 1 hour