Curse of the Azure Bonds: Final Rating

Curse of the Azure Bonds 

United States

Strategic Simulations, Inc. (developer and publisher)
Released 1989 for DOS, Apple II, and C64; 1990 for Amiga and Macintosh; 1991 for Atari ST and PC-98

Date Started: 25 December 2012
Date Ended: 7 January 2013
Total Hours: 21
Difficulty: Moderate (3/5)
Final Rating: 60
Ranking at Time of Posting: 79/83 (95%)

Ranking at Game #455: 449/455 (99%)

So far in the history of CRPGs, we have only seen a handful of games with sequels. They include:

• Ultima
• Wizardry
• The Bard's Tale
• Phantasie
• Questron (including Legacy of the Ancients)
• Might & Magic
• Shard of Spring/Demon's Winter
• Pool of Radiance/Curse of the Azure Bonds

Which of these things is not like the other? It's Ultima. Every other franchise, so far, has featured essentially the same game engine between games, with perhaps some minor improvements in graphics, sound, and the interface. There have been variances in the quality of updating--Wizardry is indistinguishable from Wizardry V, while Might & Magic had some more significant changes--but generally speaking, each game in these series "feels" like it's part of the series. Ultima remains the curious exception throughout its history: they reinvented the game engine for every iteration (with the exception of the two Worlds of Ultima spinoffs from Ultima VI).

Naturally, then, the games in each franchise have very similar ratings. Wizardry I, II, III, and V are all within one point of each other. The variance between the two Might & Magic games is 2 points; the three Bards Tales are within 3 points; the Phantasies are exactly the same. It's to be expected. With the same (or almost the same) game engine, there are limited ways that a game can significantly improve (or screw up). We did see it in Demon's Winter, which had a significantly better story, less linearity, better NPCs, and more role-playing than Shard of Spring despite looking and feeling very similar.

I'm saying all of this to explain why I don't think my rating for Curse of the Azure Bonds is going to look much different than my rating for Pool of Radiance. Curse feels like what it is: a continuation of Pool. I'm writing what appears below without reviewing my Pool of Radiance final rating, but off the top of my head, there were a few interface elements I liked better in Curse but a better story and side-quests in Pool, and I'd be surprised if they don't end up with almost identical final scores.

1. Game World. This franchise is unique in that it takes place in a much larger game world with an enormously detailed history and lore, thanks to countless books, game manuals, magazine articles, modules, and other computer games. Each time you fire up a game set in the Forgotten Realms, you're amid a host of references and allusions to history, characters, and legends. There's nothing comparable to it in this era of CRPGs except perhaps the one BattleTech game.

I have to say, though, that I don't find the Forgotten Realms very compelling. It feels like there's too much in the setting--too many lands, too many races, too many monsters, too many gods. Every type of monster and mythology that could exist does exist; everything that could happen has happened; every plot twist has already been twisted. I was recently playing Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone which concerns a Githyanki general and a Slaad lord vying to see which one of them is going to lay waste to Faerûn. It's supposed to feel epic, but I wanted to tell them, "Guys, you're going to have to get in line behind about three thousand other arch-wizards, demons, gods' spawn, cult leaders, shadow druids, ancient lizard people, Drow matrons, disaffected half-breeds, dragon kings, fallen deities, and interlopers from other planes."

The Dalelands are only a small part of a much bigger world.

 
What the Realms lacks is a strong "core," like spice in Dune or the Force in Star Wars. Some of D&D's other settings have that core: Ravenloft's gothic horror, Dark Sun's dying earth, Planescape's "rules."

On the other hand, it's a good place to set a generic high-fantasy adventure, and once you're familiar with the way things work in the Realms, you can carry that knowledge to dozens of other games. Black dragons breathe acid, basilisks stun you, a platinum piece is worth 5 gold pieces, paladins are lawful good and can lay on hands, thieves can't wear metal armor, gnolls are evil, you can trust Elminster, and anything to do with Bane is bad--no matter whether you're playing Curse of the Azure Bonds, Eye of the Beholder, Neverwinter Nights, Baldur's Gate, or Icewind Dale.

I'm going to talk about the ties to the book at the end, but aside from Azure Bonds, the creators did a great job outlining the political situation of the area, the history of the Dalelands, and the nature of the various factions. With the possible exception of Tyranthraxus, it makes sense that these five power groups have entered into this uneasy alliance to bond the party for their own ends.

The game also does a good job evolving the world. When you first start playing, and you have all of the bonds on your arms, factions allied against Zhentil Keep treat you rudely and sometimes even attack you. (My party needed to be told about something called "long sleeves.") After you finish Zhentil Keep and lose the bond, those factions become friendly--but Zhent troops now have you on their "Wanted" list and attack on sight. After Silk made my ranger a Swanmay, several characters commented on it. River pirates remain cowed and stop attacking after you kill some of them. In a couple places, the game takes the convenient way out and simply blocks you from returning to places, but overall, it makes you feel like you're effecting permanent changes on the Dalelands. Score: 8.

2. Character Creation and Development. Curse did a good turn by introducing the paladin and ranger classes, and by introducing dual classes. The character system is otherwise indistinguishable from every other D&D game. As with Pool, I liked the ability to customize the icon. (We lost the character portraits, but they were goofy anyway.) My biggest complaint here is the lack of advancement. Imported characters from Pool of Radiance might only be able to advance three or four levels over the course of gameplay. The level caps ensured that my characters maxed well before the end of the game. There is no way to role-play alignments, classes, or races--the latter of which is a good thing, since the literal adaptation of first-edition rules means that you probably don't want anything but humans anyway. But for the few levels that you have, it feels good to get extra attacks and spells, higher backstab multipliers, and other benefits. Score: 6.

My winning mage was a victim of her own "Haste" spells.

 
3. NPC Interaction. There are about as many NPCs in Curse as in Pool, with the difference that many of the ones in this game were drawn from the Azure Bonds book. There are no dialogue options with NPCs, but the game does retain the "attitude" system, which sometimes works (rakshasa leave you alone if you're "haughty"), and there are frequently options other than dialogue.

I missed the hirelings from Pool of Radiance, and I wish there were more NPCs in this game that you could actually take into your party. But the few that do join you have interesting things to say about themselves and the environments. Score: 6.

4. Encounters and Foes. One thing I can say about the Forgotten Realms is that it has an interesting menagerie of creatures, and this game featured an awful lot of them--the manual lists about 40. The developers did a good job programming each monster's unique attacks, although as we discussed, the AI sometimes isn't up to par with these abilities. Having played about a billion hours in Forgotten Realms games, I didn't have to look up descriptions of my foes, but the manual did have them, with even an assessment of their relative difficulty levels (dogs are lowest, dracoliches highest).

 
(Just as an aside: it occurs to me that aside from the dracolich, there isn't a single undead in this game. That's a little unusual for a D&D game.)

The quality of the pre-combat and non-combat encounters was on par with Pool of Radiance, which makes it better than most of the games of the era. I liked the little choices: attack the dragon horde or talk with them; loot the crypts or restore them; punch the bartender or buy a drink; burn the trolls or watch them reassemble; help the rogue rakshasa prove that his comrades are cheating at gambling or just attack him; attack the hookah-smoking Drow or leave them alone. There were a dozen or so small but satisfying encounters along the roadways, including stopping an invading army, removing a displacer beast threat, and saving a farm from ettins. At the same time, though, I felt there were more cases in this game in which the choice was obvious, or the outcome was the same no matter what I chose. Score: 7.

5. Magic and Combat. I still think that the Gold Box system of combat is one of the best ever created. It has everything I like: a turn-based, tactical map; multiple attack and defense options; even some fun animations and sound. Magic is an integral part of the tactics of the game, and you need to carefully select spells to memorize and cast. Backstabbing and wiping out enemies with fireballs and lightning bolts literally never gets old.

Everything I could possibly say here is a rehash of what I said in my "Turn Based vs. Real Time" posting and my Pool of Radiance review, so I'll just conclude with the same thing I said about the first "Gold Box" game: "There are hardly any other games--ancient or modern--that achieve such a perfect blend of melee combat, spells, item use, morale, and (albeit limited) special abilities." That said, the AI limitations were more apparent in this game than its predecessor. Score: 7.

A tough beginning. These priests are capable of high-level spells and I need to damage them all quickly so they can't cast in the first round. There isn't enough space in this corridor to cast "Fireball" without hitting my own party. They're not lined up in the right way for "Lightning Bolt." "Stinking Cloud" would incapacitate maybe three of them. Since there are only five, I could try to have my party take them one-by-one in melee, but if they have better initiative, or I miss one of my attacks. at least two of my party members are getting "Hold Person" cast on them.

6. Equipment. Standard D&D fare, which is generally good. There was a wider variety of equipment in Curse than in Pool, including more rings, girdles, gauntlets, wands, and scrolls. As almost always happens, I was too conservative with my wands, and I ended the game with enough wand power to level a city. Every new map brought one or two equipment upgrades, and a few of them, like the Ring of Wizardry and the Girdle of Giant Strength, were unmitigatedly awesome. But we still don't see any detailed item descriptions, and where the heck are the helms and boots?

My ranger's final equipment list.

I must voice this complaint about this game and many others like it: all the good stuff appears in fixed locations. Why does it have to be this way? I think it would be far better if each reward cache had a random selection of the special items in the game. In the Fire Knives' hideout, you find a long sword +3 frost brand every single time. Why couldn't it occasionally be the Ring of Invisibility, or the long bow +3? It's not like there's a plot-related reason that the long sword has to be there. It would enhance replayability enormously if the items were mixed up. Score: 5.

7. Economy. Almost so bad the game might as well not have had one. Pool of Radiance had a glut in the economy, but at least you had to struggle a bit in the beginning. Curse of the Azure Bonds starts you with enough gold to buy everything in the equipment shop in Tilverton and still have enough left over for training. After that, battles and treasure hauls throw so many gold pieces, gems, and jewelry at you that you find yourself abandoning more than 90% of it--that isn't remotely an exaggeration--and you still have more than you know what to do with. The game did one thing better than Pool by including a magic shop, but even with that, I could have bought everything they stocked multiple times over. I don't understand how a game that does everything else so well could do this aspect so poorly. Score: 2.

There really isn't any point.

8. Quests. The main quest in Curse is more personal than in Pool, but it's still interesting. As with the previous game, there's a certain humility to it: your adventures take place in a small corner of the Realms, and you're basically determining the outcome of some factional strife, not saving the world.

I did like the quests in Pool better, though. The way the clerk fed them to the party, you felt like you were slowly accomplishing the revitalization of Phlan, not just hitting waypoints on the way to the final battle. Curse also doesn't have side-quests in the same way that Pool does, although it does have a few side-dungeons, including the memorable Beholder Corps. There is only one ending to the main quest, and not many quest-based role-playing choices along the way. Score: 6.

9. Graphics, Sound, and Interface. No strong complaints. Once I figured out how to enable the Tandy sound, it was actually quite good. There's a certain graphical paucity to the dungeon corridors and rooms, but the monster portraits and icons are good enough. The keyboard controls were intuitive. The "Fix" command was a welcome addition, and I hope the next game straightens out some cumbersome aspects of the combat interface. Score: 6.

10. Gameplay. As I discussed in my Dracandros posting, there is a refreshing nonlinearity to the gameplay. Although you have to do the Fire Knives first and Tyranthraxus last, you can do the three middle stages in any order, and intersperse those with the various optional dungeons and encounters. It doesn't have quite the same world-openness as Pool, but it's better than a lot of games.

Being too nonlinear comes with a price, and I found it in what seemed like excessive difficulty in some areas. But overall, I thought that the difficulty of the game was pitched very well. The pacing was also good; I felt it lasted exactly as long as it needed to.

As for whether it's "replayable," I'd have to say not very. By choosing a different route or different character classes, you might be able to alter the tactical challenge, but you'd have to be really into the game to want to do that. Score: 7.

The final score of 60 actually puts it 4 points below Pool of Radiance but still fairly high; only Ultima V, Pool, and The Dark Heart of Uukrul rank higher. That feels right. Fundamentally, I liked Pool of Radiance better for its story, quests, encounters, and a slightly better (if still bad) economy.

I don't know exactly what this ad is promising, but a teenaged me probably would have been disappointed.

This game throws an additional ingredient into the mix by basing itself on a specific book and introducing NPCs from that book to the game. I'm not sure how well that worked. When Nameless, Olive Ruskettle, and Akabar Bel Akash appear, the game is clearly winking at you, and you feel out of the loop if you don't know who they are. But expecting the reader to go through a 400-page book seems a little unfair. I'm not subtracting points for it, but I'm glad that not many CRPGs are based directly on books. It was a weird decision, really; surely, even when the game was new, only a fraction of the game's players would have read Azure Bonds.

I was hoping that Scorpia would corroborate the slightly "left out" feeling in her review, but she didn't mention it at all instead, in a curiously ornery review in the September 1989 Computer Gaming World, she bemoans that little has changed since Pool of Radiance, "combat still predominates," and there isn't much actual role-playing. (I'm not sure what games in this era she was playing in which there was actual role-playing.)

Best of all, though, she complains that the die rolls seem to be weighted in favor of certain monsters and against the party, and she goes into a long example involving otyughs to prove it. I was beginning to think that she might need a long vacation away from her computer, but the review is supplemented with a memo from SSI programmer Scot Bayless who says that she's right. He explains that they included hit and damage modifiers based on the terrain and environment without necessarily being explicit about it in the game: "Like all good DMs, our authors bend the dice to suit the story."

I'll be back in the Realms, with this party, in less than a year with Secret of the Silver Blades--a game that few of you seem to like--and in 1991 with Pools of Darkness. Four games in four years sounds like a lot, especially by modern standards, and that's just the "Pool of Radiance" series. SSI knew they had something with the Gold Box engine, and in 1990, they also launched the Dragonlance Gold Box series with Champions of Krynn, followed by Death Knights of Krynn in 1991 and The Dark Queen of Krynn in 1992. The two "Savage Frontier" games appeared in 1991 and 1992 respectively, and the company used the engine in a non-D&D context with Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday (1990) and a 1992 sequel. As much as I like the Gold Box engine, it'll be a miracle if I'm not thoroughly sick of it by the end of 1992.

The next game might be a bit of a surprise. I'm still trying to figure out the controls for Dragons of Flame. I just bought a game controller, which I've never used on a PC before, and I'm not sure how easy or hard it will be to get it to mimic a 1980s joystick. Dungeon Master: Chaos Strikes Back was never actually released for the PC, so I have to figure out whether to use a fan-made DOS port or learn another emulator. The next game might simply be the one that gives me the least grief.

Game 82: Curse of the Azure Bonds (1989)

Okay, The Curse of the Azure Bonds is awesome. All of the "Gold Box" games are awesome. So let's get out of the way, right at the beginning, the one way in which they completely suck: level maximums for non-human characters. Pool of Radiance had them, too, but the max levels for everyone were low enough that you weren't really sacrificing anything by playing a dwarf or elf.

It gets considerably worse in Curse of the Azure Bonds. The max level for a fighter for a human is 12, but the class that can achieve the next-highest level is the dwarf, who maxes at 9. Gnomes and halflings max at 5--that's lower than most Pool of Radiance levels--in everything except the thief class. Certain races simply can't choose certain classes: no elf clerics, dwarf rangers, gnome magic-users, or anything-but-human paladins.

Level limits for Pools of Darkness, the fourth game in the series--a game where playing with a dwarf fighter who maxes out at 9 would be absurd.

Even if you'd be willing to play with that kind of handicap for this game, you'd be screwing yourself for the sequels.  Max mage level for elves in Curse? 11. In Secret of the Silver Blades? 11. Pools of Darkness? 11. Even if you could live with the stifling lack of character development for three games, you couldn't...well, live. The same is true of every non-human race/class combination except one: any race can max out in thievery.

The result is that you'd have to be crazy to include any non-human characters in your party, except for the sole thief. Why would they include such a dumb rule? Well, because the first edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons included it. But the way I understand it, those level caps were gone in the second edition, which came out in 1989. Even if we allow Curse the excuse, we can't extend that to Secret of the Silver Blades or Pools of Darkness.

My tragically-fated Pool of Radiance party.

So, let's take a look at my imported Pool of Radiance party and see what we have. A dwarf, two half-elves, an elf, and two humans. Petrus, congratulations: your avatar (a human fighter) gets to continue on in Curse. Koren the cleric (the only one I didn't name after a reader) also stays. Everyone else is fired.

In a way, it's for the best. Curse introduced two classes that Pool of Radiance didn't have: the paladin and the ranger. That makes exactly six classes for six party slots. Except that with these new classes, the plain old fighter seems redundant. I can't see any advantage that he has that the paladin and ranger don't have (weapon specializations aren't a thing yet). Thus, I think I'll dual Octavianus to something more useful--maybe a cleric--later, but that command isn't available from the starting menu. Everyone else is new. My final party is:

• Bolingbroke, a lawful good male human paladin
• Goldeneye, a chaotic good female human ranger
• Octavianus, a chaotic good male human fighter (to be dualed to a mage as soon as I can)
• Koren, a neutral good female human cleric
• Pimm, a chaotic neutral female gnome thief
• Yorsh, a chaotic good male elf magic user (elves can achieve the max mage level in this game; I'll boot him for the next one)

Character creation is much the same as in Pool of Radiance: you specify a race, class, and alignment, roll a set of attributes, name the character, and customize the icon. Afterwards, you have a chance to "modify" your character's statistics to "match a favored AD&D character," which legions of 1980s gamers simply used to jack up every statistic to the maximum. I resisted that temptation but it wasn't much of a temptation; none of my rolls came under 10, and with just two or three re-rolls, I had this for my paladin:

New characters start at Level 5, which does offer a significant advantage for the Level 6-8 characters that arrive from Pool of Radiance, but nothing a little grinding can't make up.

I always spend a little too much time on the icons. Since I can't see a lot of color variance, the "primary color" and "secondary color" selections don't mean a lot to me, and I try to just go with something solid that will make each character stand out. Far more important is the weapon selection; by choosing a different weapon for each character, it's easy to remember who's who on the battlefield.

A character with the two-handed sword icon always feels like he does more damage, even if the icon has nothing to do with it.

With the party created, Octavianus and Koren simply pretended that the other four had been with them in Phlan, instead of treating them like the rank newcomers that they were.

The Story

Curse of the Azure Bonds takes place shortly after the events of Pool of Radiance, with the action shifting to the southwest side of the Moonsea, in an area called the Elven Court--a region formerly populated by elvish civilizations before the elves got sick of all the humans popping up in the area, and emigrated off to some place called Evermeet. The area is now home to a series of petty kingdoms and monsters, all of whom have flooded in to fill the vacuum the elves created.

Having saved the city of Phlan from the menace of Tyranthraxus, the party of mercenaries has embarked for the city of Tilverton (southwest in map above) to find the daughter of King Azoun of Cormyr, Princess Nacacia, who a year ago fled an arranged marriage and ran off with a cleric named Gharri of Gond. But on the way to Tilverton, the party is attacked by invisible brigands and knocked unconscious. Awaking in Tilverton, the party members find that their equipment is gone (convenient, that), and their arms are branded with a series of five azure symbols.

Waking up in a strange place, bereft of equipment, with strange markings on my arm. This is eerily similar to my 2007 trip to New Orleans.

Their main quest, in the beginning, is simply to figure out what the hell is happening.

A quick look at the Forgotten Realms Wiki's entry for 1357 DR, the year in which the game takes place, illustrates how I'll never become very fluent in the lore surrounding the game. There's simply too much of it. Various game guides, books, modules, and magazine articles have established the extraordinarily detailed history, setting, and personalities at work here. The wiki tells me that Azoun is a warrior king who has ruled for 20 years and will be killed in another 14 in the Goblin Wars. Nacacia is short for Alusair Nacacia Obarskyr, a hotheaded fighter/ranger and leader in Cormyr's armies, the Purple Dragon Knights. Tilverton, where I've just awakened, is due to be completely razed in 15 years by the armies of some place called Thultanthar.

More important, the entire setting is drawn from a book called Azure Bonds by Jeff Grubb and Kate Novak, published the year before the game. It concerns the adventures of the similarly-azure-bonded Alias, a female sell-sword and walking example of both the "1980s hair" and "cleavage window" tropes:

Wouldn't want that armor to protect the sternum, would you?

I've purchased the book on my Kindle, but I'm honestly not sure if it's better to read it now, wait until the end of the game, or wait until I encounter Alias in-game (yes, that one was spoiled for me).

It's possible that this will change throughout the game, but at the beginning, I'm not quite as compelled by the main quest as I was in Pool of Radiance. Solving your own problems seems less heroic than saving a city. But maybe we'll get to do both.

Gameplay

The gameplay is instantly familiar to anyone who's played Pool of Radiance or any other "Gold Box" series game. It mixes first-person exploration with isometric tactical combat in an adept adaptation of the AD&D rules. Both views are turn-based and tiled.

Exploration view. Sunrise is oddly at midnight, and the sun stays in one place throughout the day.

The tactical combat screen, which I maintain is one of the best ever created for CRPGs.

I encourage you to read my Pool of Radiance entries, but as I go through the game, I won't assume you have. So far, except for the addition of paladins and rangers, and the ability to dual-class, I've only seen a few differences in Curse. One is a particularly welcome change: in the encampment menu, there's a "Fix" command that automatically goes through the process of memorizing "Cure Light Wounds," casting it on the characters that need it, and re-memorizing it. Unless you're in a safe area, there is a chance of a random encounter during this process. I used the command immediately to heal Octavianus and Koren, who had been imported from Phlan with less-than-perfect health.

Beyond that, there are bits of furniture in the tactical combat screen, and you no longer have to specify "move" before moving in combat--you just start walking. I'm sure I'll encounter a few more differences as I go along.

Like its predecessor, this game comes with a paper "Adventurer's Journal" to which you are referred throughout the gameplay, starting from the moment you wake up in the inn in Tilverton. This process minimizes the amount of text on screen and allows for images that the developers didn't want to have to program into the game.

It comes with a codewheel, too, but the game doesn't include the same codewheel-based copy protection as Pool of Radiance, so I haven't had a reason to play with it yet.

From the moment I started the game, I was having fun, and everything I loved about Pool of Radiance came flooding back, from the little minor role-playing options you frequently get....

 I don't know if I want to start committing crimes so soon.

If I were role-playing honestly, my party is in a pretty lousy mood...

I'm glad I went shopping before I came here.

Oh, no. I learned that lesson in Spielburg.

...to the absurdly large selection of every AD&D weapon in the shop...

I'll bet that no starting player, not once, has bought a "jo stick."

...to the descriptors that you receive as you visit certain areas...

This refers to a big dragon attack in the area a couple years prior.

But the graphical paucity remains notable. Coming off of Drakkhen and Hero's Quest, which had lovingly-crafted screens, the relatively blank tiles of Curse of the Azure Bonds require the player to mentally supply most of the details. I don't recall that the Gold Box series ever gets any better at this, although I barely remember this game, let alone any of the others.

I haven't decided how much attention I'm going to give to mapping this game. I like the process of map creation, but it does tend to slow things down, and my Pool of Radiance map book was full of areas that I never revisited. The "area map" supplied by the game doesn't show doors or very much useful, but it does help you keep track of where you've been in simple areas, and I might rely on that for a lot of zones.

An area map of Tilverton.

Tilverton

My party isn't the only hard-luck cases in the inn: the room next door is occupied by a dissheveled man ranting in his sleep about a flaming giant, "plants that walk," and other assorted nightmares. An inn employee tells me he was found that way by a sewer entrance.

A note in the journal said that despite waking up with no equipment, "we have found a stash of coins." The stash was equivalent to 1,500 gold pieces per person, more than enough to buy all the weapons and armor I could possibly want, so I feel bad for whatever poor sap left it in the bedside table. There was an armor shop across the street from the inn. I went with some standard choices, keeping in mind the usual class restrictions (magic users can have no armor and no throwing weapons but darts; clerics can't used edged or pointed weapons; thieves can't wear anything metal).

After my purchases, I returned to the inn and had my cleric and magic-user memorize their spells (I'll revisit Vancian magic in a later posting). I was pleased to see that my magic user started with "Fireball" as his single third-level spell; I accompanied that with a couple "Stinking Clouds," "Magic Missiles," one "Charm Person," and one "Sleep." As usual, I deemed it a waste of time for the cleric to memorize any first-level spells other than "Cure Light Wounds" except one "Bless" spell. I took several "Hold Persons," "Prayer," "Dispel Magic," and one "Cure Disease."

Leaving the inn, I tried to check out the city's exit, but it was blocked by the equivalent of the Cormyr Secret Service. I'm guessing that's a "Purple Knight" on the guard's armor--a fact that would have been meaningless without that wiki.

At the inn, I was booted out after one drink because a "special customer" arrived--a woman in a purple dress who I'm guessing was Nacacia. I heard a scuffle in the alley on the side of the inn, but when I arrived, the only evidence was an ornate knife that happened to look a lot like one of my tattoos.

Returning to the bar, I noted that the bartender now had a black eye and his arm in a sling. He got very nervous when he saw my sigils and claimed that he just tripped over the bar. It appears to me that whoever wielded those ornate knives kidnapped the Princess from the bar and injured the bartender in the process. But I couldn't get anything else out of him.

I  nearly skipped the training hall--after all, I had just started--but I was delighted to find that Koren (who had been collecting experience in Pool of Radiance beyond her level cap) was able to ascend to Level 7. She only gets three more levels in the entire game, though. I was displeased to find that Octavianus could only dual to a cleric (his stats weren't high enough for thief or magic user), and I decided not to push that just yet.

During a service in the Temple of Gond (God of the Smiths), I overheard a snarky comment about Cormyr's presence in Tilverton. I visited the high priest, thinking that he might be able to remove the bonds, but when he tried, everyone ended up writhing in pain. Clearly, it's not going to be that easy.

That left a sage named Tilvani. For a couple thousand of my gold pieces, she told me what the five symbols on my arms represented:

1. The Fire Knives, a group of assassins whose base was recently destroyed in Westgate. She didn't know where they were operating from now.

2. The god Moander, who was recently banished from the world but "reappeared as a pile of filth" and laid waste to the city of Yulash.

3. The Zhentarim (incorrectly spelled "Zhentrim" in the book), an evil mercenary company out of Zhentil Keep. I tangled with them in Pool of Radiance when one of the councilors tried to get them to kill me.

4. A crescent moon symbol that "bears a disturbing similarity to a powerful sage in Shadowdale," but "for her own safety," she wouldn't say any more. I assume the "powerful sage" is Elminster, one of the most famous Forgotten Realms figures.

5. An unknown flaming symbol that she knew nothing about but that gives me a bad feeling.

I didn't have long to wait to determine what the azure bonds actually do. When I left the sage and headed for the city exit again, the royal carriage appeared. My bonds started glowing, and I was unable to resist the compulsion to attack it!

Maybe the book will explain what this means.

Within moments, I was in battle with the Purple Knights. My first combat in the game was thus with a group of good guards who were only doing their jobs. Ouch. I used the occasion to test the effectiveness of my magic user's "Fireball" spell, and they went down very easily.

After the combat, a group of red-robed men jumped into the carriage, hauled out the scared young man, and dragged him into an alleyway. Before I could pursue, some more guards appeared and I surrendered to them rather than slaughter more innocents.

I didn't have long to spend in jail (and, oddly, they didn't take my weapons). Some thief opened a secret door in my cell and let me into the headquarters of the thieves' guild in the sewers.

The guildmaster explained that the Fire Knives had kidnapped the Princess and were hiding her in their base in the sewers. While he was talking, however, Fire Knives infiltrated the guild...

...and killed the guildmaster. Within seconds, I was in battle again. The combat was long, and exhausted many of my spells. At the end, all of my characters were alive. I retrieved a map of the sewers from the body of the guildmaster. Now, I have to get out of here, rescue the Princess, and see if I can find some answers.

Curse of the Azure Bonds: Tyranthraxus Again!

Found in the Fire Knives' hideout. Who ever could they be talking about?

I was a little disappointed last year when a commenter spoiled the fact that Tyranthraxus returns as the main (or at least a main) villain in Curse of the Azure Bonds, but it turns out he wasn't spoiling much: the game gives it away in the first act. I'm pretty sure the sigil above shows up somewhere in Pool of Radiance, but if that wasn't enough of a hint, there are multiple references throughout the Tilverton sewers and Fire Knives hideout to Tyranthraxus, including this explicit one, found on a piece of paper clutched in a burned Fire Knife's hand:

Compared to Pool of Radiance, the beginning stages of Curse of the Azure Bonds are fast-paced and frenetic. Where the first game gave you time to explore the city, get used to the interface, and slowly engage the evil monsters residing in Old Phlan, Curse launches you into a series of difficult combats as you fight to escape the sewers of Tilverton, while a war between the Fire Knives and several foes rages around you.

Before we begin, I should note that we've had a change of cast, for three primary reasons:

1. In the comments in the last posting, Tristan and Malor successfully convinced me that a fighter/thief would be a better character than a straight thief, even if he can never advance his fighter levels past 9. The rationale is that being a fighter at all (even if he was only level 1) gives him a huge advantage in the equipment he can carry and wield. The disadvantage, aside from wasting half his experience after Level 9, is that dwarves can't achieve higher than 17 dexterity. Karnov, my level 7 fighter/level 8 thief from Pool of Radiance, rejoined the party. In keeping with a more-thief like tradition, I'm going to clad him only in leather or studded leather.

2. I began to regret the elf magic user. I wasn't thinking long game with that. I'd have had to dump him in Secret of the Silver Blades in favor of a human, since he wouldn't have been able to advance. I took a peek at the Silver Blades manual, and it appears that magic users start level 9. I would have had to sacrifice two levels for no advantage except for the role-playing satisfaction of having an elf in this game. And really, how does that affect my playing experience? What do I know about role-playing elves anyway?

3. That left me with a superfluous fighter. I don't really need four melee characters, and a plain fighter is almost entirely useless in this game. He has no advantages that a paladin or ranger does not have. Octavianus was capable of dualing to a cleric, but I felt I really need another mage more than another cleric, and Koren (my cleric) wasn't capable of dualing to a mage (she only had 13 intelligence), so I decided I couldn't keep them both.

I didn't have a lot of images for this section, so I thought I'd throw in a random shot of battle against trolls and crocodiles.

 
Dropping Octavianus, my lead character from Pool, would have been painful for legacy reasons (plus, he had really good statistics all around), so I dualed him to a cleric, which means he starts over at Level 1 and will be able to access his fighter abilities again when he hits Level 9 as a cleric (that might not take so long; he rose to Level 6 in the opening area alone). Koren, who had lousy attributes other than strength and wisdom, hit the road. Yorsh, the elven mage, I also sent packing. A human brother and sister, Viola and Cesario, joined the group. Cesario is a cleric who will later dual to a mage when Octavianus gets competent. Viola is a straight mage.

The funny thing is, I could have accomplished all of the above from the initial loading screen of my last saved game. When the game first loads, you get full functionality to add and delete characters before embarking on the continued adventures. I nearly did that, but that would have meant that Viola, Cesario, and Karnov technically don't have the azure bonds! I'm sure the game would have just retconned it for me, but I couldn't handle the paradox, so I restarted and played the initial Tilverton encounters again before continuing where I left off with the guild and sewers. Not mapping Tilverton had felt wrong, so I took the opportunity on the new outing.

The initial loading screen. I suppose you could replace every single character at any point in the game, leading to a Ship of Theseus problem.

With the limited amount there is to do in Tilverton, I still managed to accomplish more on my second outing than the first. I discovered that punching the barkeep or refusing to leave the bar puts you in a brawl with 8 low-level fighters. Drinking something other than lemonade gets you a series of "tavern tales" that flesh out the back story of Princess Nacacia, her lover Gharri, and her father, King Azoun, who is coming to Cormyr to find her.

A clue!

While my party was in town, the Fire Knives (a group of assassins) kidnapped the princess from the tavern and dragged her through the sewers to their hidden lair beneath Tilverton. Her lover Gharri, wielding a hammer and several high-level priest spells, charged to the rescue. At the same time, the Fire Knives started engaging the thieves' guild for the territory beneath the city and my party fled into the sewers after their compelled attack on the king's carriage (which turned out to have an impostor named Giogi of Wyvernspur). Thus, the Fire Knives were beset on multiple sides as I made my way through the opening maps. I frequently came across the remnants of battles between Fire Knives and the thieves, or Gharri, or some random knight from Myth Drannor. There were also signs of other incursions: bodies of mysterious cultists in green, and entire rooms that had been incinerated by fire.

I wasn't clear which of the Fire Knives' many enemies were responsible for this.

These opening areas preceded in three stages: the thieves' guild hideout, the sewers, and the Fire Knives' hideout. The hideout was actually the right half of the city of Tilverton, but with the transition between the two areas via cutscene (there appears to be no way to return to Tilverton proper having left). The sewers area was composed of two 5 x 16 maps and one 6 x 16 map, which together make up a standard 16 x 16 grid area. The hideout was just a regular 16 x 16 area. Already, though, the game seems to be having fun with the standard map area and coordinates.

Tilverton, with the thieves' guild area on the right in yellow.

The sewers. These three areas are technically stacked on top of each other, not side-by-side.

The Fire Knives' hideout.

 

Throughout the three areas, there were some interesting encounters. A few highlights:

1. The sewers held several packs of otyughs--large, tentacled omnivores that live in filth--and neo-otyughs, their larger cousins. I was curious about their origins, but it appears that they were created specifically for D&D. Anyway, they really pack a punch, hitting multiple times with every attack. Each of my combats with them exhausted my spells and hit points, and usually left one or two of my characters unconscious (fortunately, there were plenty of safe places to rest in the sewers). I wouldn't have thought them intelligent, but one of the groups contacted my party telepathically and asked me to get them some balls of dung from another group in the sewers. The experience rewards were significant.

An interesting side-quest with some role-playing options.

This combat against them did not go very well.

2. There was a hidden thieves' guild training hall in the sewers, thankfully. Since I had just dualed Octavianus back to Level 1, he would have been wasting all his accumulated experience if I couldn't periodically train him up (you stop accumulating new experience just shy of your current level plus two).

3. Several areas of trolls. They were no easier than in Pools. One of them even made a reference to the famous Pools encounter:

Why are trolls always throwing things?

4. This game has stepped up the number of random, non-combat encounters. Each map has exhibited some level of them so far, including:

• Random clips of conversation on the streets of Tilverton
• Pieces of trolls occasionally encountered in the sewers. You can watch them regenerate and then fight trolls or burn them before they have a chance.
• Random shouts heard through the Fire Knives' hideout.
• A stuffed figure of King Azoun used as a knife-throwing target, encountered randomly in the hideout.

Random notes like this add considerable atmosphere to the game.

5. I found some decent magical equipment, none of which I used until I could identify it at a shop later. Last time, I made fun of the large selection of obscure pole-arms included in the game, so it was somewhat ironic that my first magical two-handed weapon was a glaive-guisarme +1. Also among the items were two different-colored "Ioun Stones" that increase various statistics when held.

A nice haul from the thieves' guild.

6. There was evidence in the Fire Knives' hideout that they were the ones to do the tattoo work:

Combat was harrowing at times, but fun. The creators have continued to do a good job with the blend of random encounters and fixed encounters. When I first entered the areas and started getting random encounters, I girded myself for a long slog against multiple packs of 6 Fire Knives and such. But the developers wisely put a cap on random encounters, so that after you've experienced five or six of them, you don't get any more. Pool of Radiance did something similar, at least in most areas. Throughout the combats, I noticed the significantly greater difficulty in Curse, and at times my party felt like it was back at Level 1 in the ruins of Old Phlan again, missing most of their attacks, causing 3-5 hit points per hit, receiving blows almost every time the enemy swung.

Oh, how I love it when enemies are arranged like this, and I have "Fireball."

 
The final battle was with the Fire Knife leader and his minions in a large room, where they had Princess Nacacia and Giogi captive. She broke free, brained the leader so he couldn't invoke my bonds, and the battle was joined.
 

 
The first time I blundered into the room, my hit points and spells were low, and I died. The second time, I availed myself of some mysterious magical dust that I found in the thieves' guild, and boy did it make the battle go easier! At the end, Princess Nacacia held a knife to his throat and demanded he release my bonds.

Moments later, King Azoun and his guard burst in. Nacacia stopped them from killing me, explaining that the compulsion wasn't my fault, but the King still banned me from Cormyr lands, including Tilverton. Nacacia, meanwhile, escaped again with Gharri.

That night, I had a bad dream in which the remaining four controllers of my bonds taunted me.

That didn't work out so well for the "Flamed One" last time.

And with that, it appears that the linear part of the game came to an end. In a departure from Pool of Radiance, I no longer have an overland map through which I can wander freely, but rather a map of the various cities of the region, to which I can choose to travel by wilderness, trail, or boat. Each method of travel between each two cities seems to carry the chance of some kind of special encounter. I'll cover this next time, though.

The world broadens extensively after the opening area.

Now I have to find and defeat my other four "masters," and since the game world has opened up, it appears that I'll be able to do them in any order. This is what I know about them:

• The one with the moon that the sage in Tilverton thought belonged to Elminster of Shadowdale actually doesn't. A man in a bar in Shadowdale warned me that Elminster would be fairly irked if he found that someone was claiming to have been bonded by him. He suggested the real owner was a Red Wizard of Thay who has a tower to the south. There are rumors of a red wizard gathering dragons in the south, so this might be the same guy. A note in the Fire Knives' hideout indicated that he's "insane."

• The hand with the mouth belongs to the cultists of the dead god Moander. They are operating out of Yulash.

• The ornate Z belongs to the Zhentarim in Zhentil Keep. It appears they've been preparing troops for war.

• The flaming symbol is Tyranthraxus's. I don't know where to find him.

Before I go, I want to mention that I have started reading the Azure Bonds book, and I can already see how different parts of the game allude to it. For instance, this entry in the thieves' guild "guest book" refers to one of the main characters of the book:

The book also gives a lot of context about the political and martial events of the area. I'd like to finish it before I keep playing. To be fair to the game, it's not strictly necessary to read the book; the adventurer's journal does an excellent job recounting the various personalities and factions in the region. But you do need the book to understand a lot of the little references.

I wonder if the book explains who this guy is.

I'm going to wander the roads a bit, then probably hit Zhentil Keep first. I have a particular dislike for them after the events of Pool of Radiance, and there was some tavern tale that they have had "trouble from an ex-councilman from Phlan."