1991/1992

            

1991 was, on balance, a depressing year. It took me nearly 3 years and 1,201 hours to get through its 37 games, nearly a quarter of that spent on Fate: Gates of Dawn. When it was all over, Ultima V from 1988 still stood at the top of the list and only four games had broken a rating of 50 all year, three of them sequels to games that had higher scores. The average rating was 2 points lower than 1990 and 3 points lower than 1989.

Games in 1991 got longer but not better.

        

Even the highlights had asterisks. There were four Gold Box games this year--Pools of Darkness, Death Knights of Krynn, Gateway to the Savage Frontier, and Neverwinter Nights--but still none of them managed to exceed Pool of Radiance, and for the first time I began to wish SSI had better balanced quality with quantity. Might and Magic III was good but not as good as I remembered. Fate was memorable but lasted more than 200 hours beyond the point I should have stopped playing.
          

This screen was not worth the equivalent of 7 full-time work weeks.

      

I did continue to appreciate the growing geographic diversity of our developers. There were more countries represented this year than in any previous year, including Canada (Ancients 1: Death Watch), Switzerland (Antares), Denmark (Chaos in Andromeda), Germany (Die Drachen von Laas, Fate: Gates of Dawn, The Ormus Saga, Dungeons of Avalon, Spirit of Adventure), Australia (Dungeon of Nadroj), Japan (Knights of Xentar), the UK (Moonstone, Heimdall, HeroQuest, Knightmare), and Italy (Time Horn). What's more, none of these games totally blew it. In fact, they all had moments of innovation and brilliance, even if they didn't always achieve high final scores.

I'm also satisfied with my "won" rate for the year. I only gave up on Antares, The Ormus Saga, Dungeons of Avalon, and the sample game with The Bard's Tale Construction Set, and I took both Ormus and Avalon as far as I could. They both still bother me.

The only major theme I can draw out of the year is the surprising persistence of low-quality Ultima clones. Between Quest for Tanda, The Rescue of Lorri in Lorrintron, The Ormus Saga, and Legend of Lothian, I've really had my fill of independent game with iconographic interfaces.

Game of the Year Nominees

Part of me wants to reach down to mid-list for "Game of the Year." Knights of Xentar--at least was different. The limited but satisfying Shadow Keep. Twilight: 2000, because no other RPG has let me drive a tank through Poland. But no, I can't nominate any of them with a straight face. So instead, here's my half-hearted list of nominees for "Game of the Year":

1. Disciples of Steel. The clear victor if I chose based on rating alone. It was the top-rated game of the year and the one I authentically enjoyed the most, despite its many flaws. In a year of blah, this one-hit wonder managed to anticipate dozens of future trends, including multiple interweaving quest threads, multiple modes of gameplay, and lots of player choice. Its character development and tactical combat systems, adapted from Wizard's Crown, are near-unsurpassed, and it gave solid attention to other mechanics of quality RPGs, including a tight economy and a diverse set of equipment. I was sorely tempted to replay it at the end of the year, favoring a completely different approach this time, seizing cities by force and maximizing the use of the optional strategy game hiding beneath the surface. My biggest quibble: it sold about 12 copies and left no mark on the future.
           

Despite hundreds of battles, I never got bored with Disciples of Steel's tactical combat system.

         

2. Pools of Darkness. Technically, as Gold Box sequels went, Death Knights of Krynn ranked higher. But Pools of Darkness took the Gold Box to new levels, maxing out spell capabilities and allowing characters to rise to god-like levels. It told a compelling story, featured one of the most memorable maps of the series (Moander's corpse), and concluded everything with a truly-epic final combat. While not the Omega of the Gold Box games, it's close, and it makes a worthy bookend with Pool of Radiance.
       

The final battle of Pools of Darkness is legendarily difficult.

         

3. Might and Magic III. I don't think it's the best of the Mights and Magics even among the first three, but it demonstrates New World's commitment to pushing the envelope and updating its interface with new technologies. The mechanics often feel unbalanced, and the game world is sometimes a little goofy, but it's still loads of fun. Between its million side quests, the dozen items of equipment that every character can strap on, and its constant sense of character development, no one else was offering anything exactly like it. The Might and Magic series has always, in my opinion, exceeded its sources (principally Wizardry) and competitors (principally The Bard's Tale), but this was the first year that it truly left them in the dust.
         

Combat in Might and Magic III is turn-based, but through sound and graphics manages to evoke a real-time feel.

          

4. Fate: Gates of Dawn. The game that embodies "go big or go home." Out of nowhere, developer Olaf Patzenhauer took an Alternate Reality base and made the largest physical RPG seen so far, with more monsters, more spells, more character classes, more items, more everything than any of his competitors. More isn't always better, of course, and in the end, Fate is ludicrously, unconscionably, almost maliciously long, with only the thinnest plot and an absurd ending, but it's hard to beat the mechanics of the first 50 hours. As whole, Fate re-defines "epic" and paves the way for Germany's ascension in the RPG world in the 1990s.
         

I managed to map most of the 640 x 400 game world.

            

5. Eye of the Beholder. It's easy to forget that up to this point, the Gold Box series has offered the only truly successful adaptation of the most famous tabletop RPG system. Every other attempt at the D&D license has resulted in something forgettable at best and execrable at worst. Eye of the Beholder comes along and, though flawed, shows that there is another way to do it. It kept Dungeon Master-style gameplay alive and managed to produce its own sequel during the same year.

Honorable mentions: Technically, Death Knights of Krynn rated higher than Pools of Darkness, but who gives GOTY to the middle game in a three-part series? Spirit of Adventure was a surprisingly effective improvement on its Bard's Tale template but didn't really leave a legacy. I had a ball with Conan: The Cimmerian despite it lacking in several core RPG areas. MegaTraveller 2: Quest for the Ancients was a poor game overall, but it was an important step to truly open worlds and lots of player choice in how to achieve objectives.

1992 Preview

While we let those percolate, let's look ahead to 1992. If 1991 was a disappointing year, 1992 promises to be the absolute opposite. I'm practically giddy at the list before me. Every franchise had a release this year. We get the final D&D Gold Box title (aside from the Unlimited Adventures construction set) with The Dark Queen of Krynn. The Ishar series begins. The Realms of Arkania series begins. We get the second Interplay Lord of the Rings title. We get the third Magic Candle title. We get a Might and Magic, a Wizardry, a Quest for Glory, and two Ultimas! And in between these surefire hits are a ton of titles that I feel like I've heard good things about, among them Amberstar, Black Crypt, Darklands, Four Crystals of Trazere, and Spelljammer: Pirates of Realmspace. Surely, one of these games is destined to unseat Ultima V at the top of the list.

Here's the bad news: there are 65 games. This is, in fact, the peak year for RPGs.
         

      
The following year, 1993, has one game fewer, and after that the number drops back to the 30s and 40s for most years, averaging 43 between 1994 and 2009. But 1992 is a definite hump, and I can only be glad that so many of the titles look promising. Given the sheer number, you'll need to understand when I'm relentless with my definitions. I'm tempted to start right now by axing B.A.T. II; the first one was hardly an RPG at all.

Despite the sheer number, there's not a lot of new geographic diversity with the 1992 titles. The USA and Germany remain strong. Canada and the U.K. contribute a few. A few more leak to the west from Japan. Hungary contributes its first RPG with Abandoned Places: A Time for Heroes, and Finland offers its first RPG since SpurguX (UnReal World). In terms of platforms, I'm going to be able to abandon most of my emulators. There are four Amiga-only games (Antepenult, Black Crypt, Dungeons of Avalon 2, and Warriors of Releyne), two Macintosh-only games (Darkwood and Minotaur: The Labyrinths of Crete), and a lone C64 game (Telnyr II). The other 58 have a DOS port.

We're going to be entering 1992 slowly, because I've decided to double up on 1988 and 1989 games until I clear the "old" list and can work off of 1992 exclusively. There are 38 games remaining on that "old" list, although I can tell a lot of them are destined to be cut.

Year-End Superlatives

Total games played: 37 (from an original list of 45)

Highest-rated games: Disciples of Steel (57), Death Knights of Krynn (54), Pools of Darkness (52), Might and Magic III: Isles of Terra (52), Gateway to the Savage Frontier (49).

Longest played (hours): Fate: Gates of Dawn, at 272. It's hard to write that without feeling like I need therapy. The average was 31 hours per game and the total was 1,201 hours.

Longest played (start to finish): Martian Dreams, which was on my mind between October 2015 and March 2017 despite only taking 35 hours.

Percentage won: 89%

Hardest game: Knightmare, the only game to which I've given a full 5/5 for difficulty.  I question whether it's possible to win without a hint guide. Even then, it takes more than 400 hits to kill the final enemy, who can kill you instantly if he hits once.

Highest category score: The 8 awarded to Disciples of Steel in "gameplay" for its nonlinear approach and replayability. It was a little too hard at the beginning for a perfect 10.

Best game with a bad category: The damned Gold Box games still can't get the economy right. Death Knights of Krynn and Pools of Darkness came in at 2 and 1, respectively, in that category despite breaking 50 in general.

Worst game with a good category: Playing Neverwinter Nights offline, I could enjoy all of the strengths of the Gold Box engine with none of the content. Knightmare was a beautiful-looking game that was absolutely enraging.

Game of the Year

          

          
In a year where I'm lukewarm about all my choices, I've chosen Might and Magic III: Isles of Terra less for the specific title and more as a representative of the overall series. If I don't give it here, you can imagine what will happen: IV will lose to one of the Ultimas, or Darklands, or one of the other awesome 1992 titles. V will fall to something like Betrayal at Krondor. VI, perhaps my favorite of the series, had the misfortune of being released the same year as Baldur's Gate and Fallout 2; VII came out the same year as Planescape: Torment. No way is VIII or IX getting it.

I liked Terra less than its predecessors, but I still liked it quite a bit. It continues to exemplify an approach that hardly no one else is taking: an open world that may reward or punish you for exploring in a non-obvious order; lots of side-quests (seriously, when do these become standard?); a heavy dose of lore attached to individual maps and areas ("Corak's notes" were particularly brilliant); and copious methods of character development. I love its contrast with development in, say, D&D, where a character's attributes remain (mostly) fixed his entire life and his reward for slaughtering a thousand orcs is four extra hit points and one new spell slot. A Might and Magic III character, in a fifth of the time that it took that D&D character to go from Level 5 to 6, will stumble upon a fountain that raises his strength 5 points, upgrade 6 items of equipment, gain 8 new spells, come across an amulet that doubles his hit points, and turn in a quest item for 3 levels' worth of experience points. I hasten to add that Might and Magic's approach isn't universally the better one--there's something to be said for more spartan character rewards--but it sure feels more rewarding when playing.

You also have to admire the engine, which manages to feel fast and action-oriented despite being turn-based and tactical. It offers a nice halfway point between Dungeon Master and Wizardry.
       

There are problems, of course--see my "Cabbage Theory" in my final entry. The rest of the game has long outgrown 16 x 16 maps. And the creators' inability to craft a plot with any gravitas remains a significant liability. But more than most developers of the era, you sense that New World has the capacity to learn from these mistakes and grow. We will soon see the results. Well, not soon--in like 100 more games. It is highly likely that I'll end 1992 and start 1993 with the IV/V pair. Whether I try them independently or combined remains to be Xeen.


Let's jump right in to 1992. In choosing the play order for the year, I often think of John Cusack's advice on making mix tapes in High Fidelity: "You got to kick it off with a killer, to grab attention," but it can't be the best, because you have to leave room to "kick it up a notch." Thus, I've chosen Ultima Underworld. It's a groundbreaking game that makes us feel that we've stepped into a new era, but parts of it haven't aged well, and I thus doubt it will be the highest-rated game of a very competitive year.

Game 215: Gateway to the Savage Frontier (1991)

    
Pool of Radiance, the first Gold Box game, still holds the position of #3 on my top-rated games list, despite three game years, five actual years, and 158 games since I played it. Although subsequent Gold Box entries never quite rose to the level of excellence as Pool, the engine is so good that they were destined for high marks, and Curse of the Azure Bonds, Champions of Krynn, and Death Knights of Krynn can all be found in my top 20. Even Secret of the Silver Blades is comparatively high-ranked.

But of these games, only one of them--Champions of Krynn--has given me the experience that I so love in a Gold Box title: starting a new, low-level character and slowly building my way upward. Rising from Level 1 to Level 8 is really the best part of any D&D game, especially in this early era, where there were no special perks or abilities awarded to high-level characters. Getting 3 more hit points and an 11th third-level spell really isn't quite as exciting as acquiring "Fireball" for the first time or a second attack per round.
   

More about combat in a later post, but I wanted to point out that even early in the game, I was able to do this. I love this.

   
I am thus excited to be starting Gateway to the Savage Frontier, one of four Gold Box titles in 1991. We've already seen Death Knights of Krynn and we still have Neverwinter Nights and Pools of Darkness coming up. This is the apex of the Gold Box titles; 1992 will have three (including this game's sequel), and 1993 will have the last one. A particular bonus for me is that I've never played this one before at all, whereas I'd had previous experience with Pool of Radiance and Champions of Krynn.

The "Savage Frontier" in question exists in the Forgotten Realms, north of Baldur's Gate and the Sword Coast, and south of the Spine of the World. It includes cites that we'll be revisiting in detail in another decade, including Neverwinter, Port Llast, and Luskan.
   

The game's territory, from the Adventurer's Journal.

   
The party is presented as a group of caravan guards who have just arrived in the city of Yartar after escorting a shipment of mithril from the dwarven Citadel Abdar. Rumors abound of increased raids by orcs and trolls coming down from the mountains, but the trip is uneventful. After a night of celebration, in which they are apparently drugged, they awake in the morning to find their rooms burgled and all their equipment and gold stolen, including a "fine magical sword" with a "gold-braided handle" that one of the party members "used to slay the griffon at Longsaddle last winter." Only a couple emergency stashes hidden beneath pillows remain. The desperate party sets out to buy new equipment, find a new employer, and hopefully track down the thieves.
   

"Dear Diary: this SUCKS!"

    
There are no surprises in character creation. Humans, dwarves, elves, gnomes, half-elves, and halflings can be male or female clerics, fighters, magic-users, thieves, paladins, and rangers--with the usual second edition race/class restrictions. [Edit: I misspoke. The series uses first edition rules, but in any event the race/class restrictions are the same as the previous games.] Unfortunately, the Frontier series keeps the race-based level caps, but it's not as much of a deal-breaker here as in the Pools series because there's only one more Savage Frontier title. I took a look at the charts for Treasures of the Savage Frontier and saw that dwarf fighters and elf magic-users can get near the maximum level for the game, so those race/class combinations are viable for this series.

Characters start at Level 2 with 3,000 experience points, which I guess makes more sense for role-playing reasons than a bunch of single-digit-hit pointers making a living as caravan guards. Attribute rolls are generous, never lower than 11 and rarely lower than 13. It isn't hard at all to get 2 or 3 scores at 18, and if you're a particularly pathetic worm of a player, you always have the option, present in the series since the beginning, to "modify" a new character to give maximum attributes all around. The manual continues with the absurd fiction that players might want to do this "to match a favorite [tabletop] AD&D® game character."
   

A fairly generous random roll.

   
The game provides the usual options for customizing the character icons, and I'm no better at it than I was at 15. My color blindness plus general impatience with all the different parts and colors means that I typically create either ugly icons or just set everything to the same color. I wish these games would randomize the default icons so that you don't feel like you have to adjust something to keep everyone from looking the same.
   

I generated random numbers and cycled through the color buttons the appropriate number of times to generate this icon for a cleric.

   
Before creating my final party, I tried two experimental parties that just didn't work. I tried six fighters, intending to dual-class them to other professions as they were needed, but I forgot that only humans can dual-class and thus messed up my intended composition. I then tried an all-mage party, thinking it would be a challenge and I could rely on temples for healing, but it turns out that you don't have enough money at the outset to even afford a couple castings of "Cure Light Wounds." I think challenging parties are possible if you already know the game and can optimize your progress accordingly, but for a first-time blind play the games really are balanced for the traditional party of a couple of fighters, at least one cleric, and at least one mage. I went with a human paladin, a human ranger, a dwarf fighter/thief, two human clerics, and an elf mage.

The game begins in the inn in Yartar as the party wakes up hungover and bereft of any equipment, although they all have 35 platinum pieces. Fortunately, an armory is right across the way. After sitting it out for every game since Pool of Radiance, the ridiculously long list of every obscure weapon makes a comeback! We've got fauchard-forks, military forks, bo sticks, jo sticks, becs de corbin, ranseurs, spetums, and four different weapons with the word "guisarme" in them. It's too bad my all-fighter party didn't work out; I would have had each one specialize in a different polearm. Still no helms or boots, though.
  

   

Yartar turned out to be a standard 16 x 16 Gold Box map, but with a bunch of inaccessible squares, some of them filled with water, and some just walled off. There are a large number (annotated in light gray on the map) that are inside buildings where you get kicked out after dealing with the encounter right inside, so you never get to explore the whole thing.
    

My map of Yartar.

   

Among the buildings, we have the standard armory, training yard, temple, vault, inn, and a small shop selling holy water vials, silver mirrors, and flasks of oil. This is the first Gold Box game to upgrade to VGA graphics, and it shows in some of the NPC portraits, but they're not astonishingly better. There are a few more details in the environment, such as windows next to doors and more detailed wall textures.
  

The game offers a few more details, but the environments are still pretty nondescript.

  

A tavern and the "Three Rivers Festhall" weirdly offered only options to fight or leave. Fighting put me in easy combats with trios of bandits who delivered only 7 experience points and a handful of silvers.
  

Why even have taverns if these are the only options?

   

Now, this entire time, I'd been assuming that Gateway came after Death Knights of Krynn because Death Knights was still on EGA graphics. But Death Knights also had a couple of interface upgrades that aren't here in Gateway, including not cycling through your own party members when you hit "aim" and ending combat immediately after the last monster falls instead of forcing you to finish everyone's turn. Those were welcome additions to Death Knights, so I'm sorry not to see them here. I'm guessing the issue is that both games were developed in parallel, Death Knights by SSI and Gateway by Beyond Software (later Stormfront Studios), and they didn't share all their upgrades. One weird addition in Gateway: "Fix" now causes spellcasters to re-memorize spells instead of just healing party members.
  

Graphics are notably better even in throw-away scenes like this.

  

Yartar provided only a few clues as to the developing main quest. On the street near the inn, I ran into a little guy named Krevish getting beaten up by thugs. When I helped him out in a brief combat--easy enough for any of my parties--he joined my party as an NPC and led me to his mysterious unnamed "captain," who said if I really wanted to help the region, I should head up to the city of Nesme and put a stop to a trouble-making Cleric of Bane. Once again, there seems to be no reason to play an evil-aligned party in a Gold Box game.
  

Already the party gets an NPC.

   

There were a number of other encounters throughout town that gave some more hints as to the troubles in the region. Someone's been raiding boat traffic on the river, almost eliminating commerce in and out of the city and cutting down the need for new barges. There's talk of trolls and orcs roaming the land. These bits of invoices are delivered in the classic Gold Box journal entries, which are getting a bit old by 1991. Surely, the developers could have programmed the text into the actual game (although this admittedly would have cut down on the ability of the player to reference the entries later).
   

I talk to the leader of Yartar on-screen....

...and in the associated journal entry.

  

So the next step after Yartar seems to be heading up the river to Nesme. Gateway re-introduces overland travel in the Forgotten Realms for the first time since Pool of Radiance (Champions of Krynn and Death Knights of Krynn both had it, but it was only meaningful in Death Knights). Two steps out of the city with my first party, I was attacked by hill giants and slaughtered. I was distressed to see the full-party death screen:
 

   

What happened to the monsters rejoicing?! If you're not going to change the screen to something more interesting or meaningful, why change the one message that has characterized the Gold Box series since its inception?

Anyway, hill giants seemed pretty advanced for any early party, so the second time I tried, I left the city by renting a boat. On the river, I was attacked by ankhegs. I braced myself for another slaughter, but they weren't as hard as I expected.

I reached Nesme almost by accident. The cities are not well-depicted on the tiny overland map, or perhaps it's my color-blindness hurting me again. At best, they're tiny little dots.
   

Can you see it?

   
Nesme was in chaos. Signs proclaimed a 100-gold piece reward for every troll slain in the ruins east of town, and a guard captain pointed me the way there, warning me about their regenerating power. I'm not sure I'm ready to take on trolls.
  

   

In a random building, I met "Longtresses" Alaraun who claims she recently seized the city from some corrupt priests of Waukeen and has employed barbarians to keep the peace (several parties have attacked me on the streets). A group called the Riders of Nesme told me they longed to attack the trolls gathering on the Trollmoors but they were afraid to leave the town in the hands of Alaraun's barbarians. In the stable, a stableboy said that someone's been stealing horses. The harbormaster complained about giant frogs overrunning the warehouses on the east side of town and lizardmen raiding livestock on the west side; I later encountered some of both.
   

She doesn't look like the sort of person to hire barbarians and take over a town.

   
A tavern again only has options to fight or leave--what happened to ordering a drink or listening to some tales? Several party members can already level up, but I haven't accumulated anywhere near the 1,000 gold pieces necessary for that. I found a Ring of Protection +2 worth 15,000 gold after the battle with the Banites (see below), and if I don't find a treasure haul soon, I'll have to sell it just so I can level up.

In a building behind the temple, I got a message that "Kraken spies attack!" and I had to battle three ninja-looking dudes. I have no idea what "Kraken" is. A secret door from their building led to a room where I found a hiding Priestess of Waukeen who thanked me for rescuing her before the assassins, probably sent by "Longtresses," found her. I have no idea who's good and bad in this Alaraun/Waukeen scenario.
   

Character portraits have a different style than previous entries. They're simultaneously more realistic and more cartoonish.

   

Through a secret door at the back of an abandoned exterminator's shop, I interrupted a meeting between lizard men and orcs. The passageways led to a hidden Banite shrine, where I faced several orcs and clerics. The parties were small and easy to subdue with "Sleep"; I had forgotten how useful that spell is in the early stages. The final battle of the map was with a fairly large group of orcs, lizardmen, and two clerics, but the clerics were capable of casting nothing more dangerous than "Curse."
   

The final battle of Nesme.

   
The Banite cleric burned a bunch of papers just before he died, but I recovered one letter that suggested that the Zhentarim (an evil mercenary company that rules Zhentil Keep--I had dealings with them in Pool of Radiance and Curse of the Azure Bonds) were behind the recent orc/troll uprising. The Banite Clerics, normally allies of the Zhentarim, were feeling taken for granted and thus planning to throw a wrench in their plans. The letter-writer had asked the evil cleric to meet him in an abandoned temple in the city of Silverymoon.
   

   
In a nearby room, I freed three prisoners--who turned out to be Zhentarim. They thanked me as they fled. The journal entry ends with my party feeling conflicted: "Because we knew the Banite to be evil, we had slain him--the one man who could stop the Zhentarim's plan for the conquest of the Savage Frontier....We had been searching for a mission. Now, by accident, we had found one. We would have to save the northern Realms ourselves."

Here's an odd statistic: there are only 62 journal entries in the adventurer's journal, and I've already encountered 16 of them, or 26%--and that's not accounting for the fictional ones that the journal always contains. Is it possible that I'm already a quarter way through the game after two cities? Or do the entries get sparser as the game goes on?

I leave you here, with my next destination probably Silverymoon, or I may just explore the world. The plot seems a little less polished than some of the previous games, but perhaps it will come together in the next sections. Not a mind-blowing game just yet, but a typically satisfying Gold Box experience.

Time so far: 4 hours
Reload count: 2 (full parties)

The Dark Queen of Krynn: Summary and Rating

 

Why does she dress like that? There's no one to see her but Raistlin and a bunch of monsters.

        

The Dark Queen of Krynn
United States
MicroMagic (developer); Strategic Simulations, Inc. (publisher)

Released in 1992 for Amiga, DOS, and Macintosh
Date Started: 21 September 2020

Date Finished: 26 October 2020
Total Hours: 36
Difficulty: Moderate (3/5)
Final Rating: 52
Ranking at Time of Posting: 372/392 (95%)

    

Summary:

 

The final game in the Dungeons and Dragons-licensed Gold Box series (except the Unlimited Adventures construction kit), Dark Queen satisfactorily wraps up the Krynn trilogy. The game uses the same "engine" that has supported a dozen games since Pool of Radiance (1988) with only a couple of minor interface and graphics improvements. The meandering story takes the experienced party from Death Knights of Krynn and brings them to a new continent, Taladas, where they must thwart the machinations of the evil queen Takhisis and her followers. The story is nothing great, but the game manages to offer challenging tactical, turn-based combat even for high-level characters, and without resorting to cheap tricks like wiping the characters' spells. There were times that it got a little long and frustrating, but nothing that a short break wouldn't cure. A good end to a good game series.

    

**********

     

The Gold Box goes out neither with a bang nor a whimper, but with something in between: a solid, well-crafted, challenging entry that nonetheless fails to break any significant ground. It leaves the player looking forward to the next new thing rather than wanting more of the old. While I was generally happy with Dark Queen, I couldn't help but contrast it with Icewind Dale II, the last Infinity Engine game, arguably the best of its series in mechanical terms, which kicked gameplay to a new level at the very time that its creators announced it would be the last game.

    

I am writing this before rating Dark Queen, but I know there's no chance it will unseat Pool of Radiance (1988), the first Gold Box title, as the best of the series. I know that some readers will disagree, but I suspect they are prizing what I consider rather trivial improvements--better graphics, better sound effects, the introduction of paladins and rangers, and the "Fix" command among them. (This game allowed loading from within the game for the first time, something I didn't realize until I read Scorpia's review.) I prioritize quality game content, and to me the series never improved upon what Pool of Radiance offered. Some examples:

    

• The most meaningful character development. Pool is the only Gold Box game in which characters start at Level 1. They can make it to roughly Level 8, right at the point that they start to feel overpowered. Every level brings awesome new resources to all classes.

• The most meaningful role-playing choices. Pool is the only Gold Box game in which you can really role-play an evil party, right up to the end where you can join with Tyranthraxus. Every map offers numerous encounters with several role-playing options that fundamentally change the nature of the challenge. Some later games approached this encounter complexity but rarely exceeded it.

          

This early role-playing choice set a standard that the Gold Box series rarely met.

         

• The most challenging battles. To me, the five most memorable battles in the Gold Box series are: 1) the troll battle in the ruined tavern in Old Phlan; 2) the hobgoblin battle in Sokol Keep; 3) the sequence of three battles against kobolds in the kobold caves; 4) the beholder corps; 5) the final battle of Pools of Darkness. Three of these are in Pool of Radiance. It never gets better than when you have a tight group of adventurers against a mass of mostly-physical enemies, and every asset--every "Cure Light Wounds," every "Hold Person," every "Sleep," every shot of a Wand of Magic Missiles--can make all the difference.

       

These were the days when one "Bless" spell made all the difference.

          

• The most non-linear plot. The world of Pool of Radiance opened up fast, and you could do most of the quests in almost any order.

• The most interesting plot. No world-threatening events ever improved upon reclaiming the city of Phlan block by block.

• The best quest system. Sidle up to the quest board outside City Hall and write 'em down, then later return to the clerk for your reward.

• The best use of NPCs. As with all the games, there were some named NPCs who would join you, but Pool gave you the only chance to hire mercenaries.

• Lots of random encounters on the world map. Pools of Darkness was the only other game to do this well.

• A fixed number of random encounters. Beat enough wandering parties, and you cleared the maps.

• Best use of the journal. Later games tended to use the journal for just long paragraphs of text. Pool had a few of these, but it tended to use the journal to offer things that you would actually find on paper in the game: maps, notes, scraps.

      

There were definite improvements in some of the later games, but none of them ever solved any of the original engine's most significant issues, including boring environments, little warning about impending encounters, and a horribly broken economy. Even the vaunted "Fix" command isn't much of an improvement when you realize how much it trivialized the resting-and-healing process. In short, the series did not improve in enough ways after Pool of Radiance to make up for what it left behind.

   

Nor did the engine incorporate any of the better elements of its competitors, many of whom were innovating past the Gold Box by the early 1990s. I still haven't encountered a game with you-wouldn't-even-think-of-taking-off-the-headphones sound design, but some of the best titles of the era were at least experimenting with ambient sound and more realistic effects. It would have also been nice to see more in the way of puzzles in the Gold Box--not like Dungeon Master, but more a combination of inventory and logic, like some of those in the later Wizardry games. It would have been nice to see some actual dialogue options with NPCs, and even more encounters with role-playing options, not fewer. Other games were doing these things.

       

I thought I'd play a little longer and at least get my characters leveled up. But I inadvertently found out that they're racist.

    

But one way in which no title has exceeded the Gold Box--and I'm tempted to add "even until today" in this superlative--is in combat. I will never stop loving the series' turn-based tactical battles, even if I like some individual elements better in other games (e.g., the point-based movement system of Wizard's Crown and Disciples of Steel or the sheer number of options in Nethack).

    

Part of the genius behind the Gold Box combat system lies in its faithful adaptation of the very large variety of Dungeons and Dragons spells. We saw how their absence significantly reduced the engine's value in the two Buck Rogers games. But here, again, we see how things don't get much better than Pool of Radiance. Once you acquire "Fireball," nothing else seems awesome again. (Its seventh-level "Delayed Blast" counterpart increases the utility, of course.) The fourth-level "Ice Storm" does less damage in a smaller radius. Even spells that sound like they ought to be awesome, like "Meteor Swarm," turn out to be more of a pain than anything. The Gold Box has a significant problem with the utility of higher-level spells. At the eighth level, I'm supposed to get excited about "Power Word: Blind"?

    

This, then, is one area in which Dark Queen improves upon its earlier counterparts. By making so many enemies immune to various spells, the player has to experiment as he never did before. Desperate for something to deal with the dark wizards, I actually cast "Otto's Irresistible Dance," for gods' sake. And while "Monster Summoning" could have been targeted better, I have to hand it to the developers for including it at all. It wasn't there in Pools of Darkness.

   

I will probably have a longer retrospective on the Gold Box at a later date, so for now let's rate Dark Queen of Krynn. This is where the Gold Box stands right now on my ratings sheet:

Pool of Radiance (65)

Curse of the Azure Bonds (60)

Champions of Krynn (56)

Death Knights of Krynn (54)

Pools of Darkness (52)

Treasures of the Savage Frontier (51)

Secret of the Silver Blades (50)

Gateway to the Savage Frontier (49)

Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday (46)

Buck Rogers: Matrix Cubed (34)

    

In my mind, I was thinking that Dark Queen would fall in between Champions and Death Knights, apparently remembering the latter as being worse than it actually was. There's not a lot of room there. Well, I definitely thought Champions was the best of the Krynn series, and Dark Queen definitely was better than Silver Blades, so that leaves a range of about 50-55 in which I'd expect to see it fall. Let's see.

    

1. Game World. I'm never going to feel all that positively about the Dragonlance universe (it has always sounded like bad fan fiction to me), but the bigger issue is the way the games handle the universe. For the most part, they expect you to know it. This is particularly true of Dark Queen, where neither game book gives you any idea about the history of the world; woe to the player who steps in without playing the previous two Krynn titles. Even within the game, I don't think the story is very well told; the party is always just running to the next thing, the scope of things only becoming clear at the end. (You could design a good plot where these things were true, but Dark Queen doesn't feel like it did it by design.) Too many moments depended on a player with existing experience with Dragonlance gasping with delight or shock at the latest appearance of Tasslehoff or Raistlin or some other character from the novels. I care about them less than I do about Buck Rogers. I don't mean to suggest there's anything wrong with players who do care, of course, and I understand if you want to bump up the score. Score: 4.

2. Character Creation and Development. One way in which the Dragonlance universe arguably does improve over the Forgotten Realms is in character creation and development. There are more character classes and races, and more of them are interesting. I like the way the moons affect spell volume, too. On the other hand, the specific classes and races matter less here than in any previous game, and you don't even have the satisfaction of your knights being recognized as Knights of Solamnia. Character development is also about as rewarding as any Gold Box game. Score: 6.

3. NPC Interaction. The Gold Box has always done a good job of having a character or two join the party, sometimes for a short stay, sometimes long. I generally like what they offer. Other NPCs are sometimes funny, sometimes boring, but you never get any serious dialogue options with them, just long dumps of text. The only two "romances" offered by the series are both bizarre, including the one that appears here. Score: 5.

4. Encounters and Foes. Dark Queen did a better job than any game since Pool of Radiance in offering numerous non-combat encounters that depended on role-playing, logic, or skill. And I will always appreciate the large and varied Dungeons and Dragons menagerie, each monster described in detail by the game manual, and with attendant strengths, weaknesses, and special attacks in-game. This game even introduced a bunch of new ones. There's room to do better, but so far few games have. Score: 7.

5. Magic and Combat. As you saw from my entries, I was continually challenged by the game's combats, but in a fair and satisfying way. I feel like I could use another round to really master some of the new spells introduced this time. (I particularly should have invested more in "Blade Barrier," since practically everyone in my party could have cast it.) If I could name one category in which I most wanted the series to go out strong, this is it. Score: 8.

   

6. Equipment. A bit disappointing. You hardly find anything new in this game that you didn't bring from Death Knights. The equipment system is good, but the actual items seem like an afterthought. Score: 3.

       

Except for the Ring of Free Action, Midsummer has nothing here that she didn't have at the end of Death Knights.

      

7. Economy. All I can say is that at least the last two Krynn games had a money sink. It wasn't completely useless to gather all those gems and jewels and appraise and sell them individually. But on the whole, this category goes out without any game ever reaching the halfway point. Score: 3.

8. Quests. Dark Queen has a meandering main quest as well as a couple of side areas with side quests. Again, we never returned to Pool of Radiance quality, but I could live with it. Score: 4.

9. Graphics, Sound, and Interface. The Gold Box games has always merited about a 6 in this category, and I don't see any reason to change it here. Small graphical, sound, and interface improvements really don't show up much on a 10-point scale. A 6 is about as good as any game is going to get before truly immersive graphics and sound. (I have given a few 7s for ambient effects). The interface couldn't be easier to use, though, with mice, joysticks, and keyboards supported redundantly and completely in themselves if that's what the player wants. Score: 6.

10. Gameplay. In this ill-named category, I look at length, difficulty, linearity, and replayability. Dark Queen has just about the perfect length and difficulty, but it's quite linear and only mildly replayable, mostly to see how different party compositions fare. Score: 6.

    

That gives us a final score of 52, right in the range I expected it, equaling Pools of Darkness but under-performing Death Knights. Even that issue seems to be more one of memory; scanning my Death Knights postings now, I see that I praised it more than I remembered.

        

"Achieve characters up to the 40th level!" That's double what most of my characters ended the game at. I wonder if some players did that much grinding.

         

Wow, did contemporary reviewers not agree with me. Scorpia couldn't have been harder on it. (She reviewed it in September 1992.) While acknowledging some interface improvements, she said, "There is little to like about Dark Queen of Krynn. Playability suffers from a couple of insidious bugs, poor design, and a great deal of gratuitous damage." I didn't experience the first bug she noted: the color of a multi-class character failing to change when he's ready for a level-up. She goes on for three paragraphs about this. I don't understand what the big deal is. You find training facilities often enough that you could just test everyone's ability to level up every time. Not having the color change would be mildly annoying at best. It seemed to bother her most because she actually went through the entire game without even trying to train those characters. I guess the difference between her and me is that I would never trust anything so fickle as color.

     

The other bug had to do with the book not showing up in the right place in Hawkbluff, and fortunately I didn't experience that. I agree it would have been worth a point or two.

    

She had some vitriol for the lighthouse, where you travel up 11 floors only to find the real way forward was in a secret room in the basement. This didn't bother me at all. The trek was hardly a waste of time; it was worth a ton of experience and some interesting encounters besides. Plus, you wouldn't have known the secret door was in the basement without making the trek. She didn't like the new draconians, but I appreciated the challenge they added to combat. (I still hated them, of course, but in a good way.) Finally, she made a good point about the useless economy, but that's been true since the first Gold Box game. Ultimately, she says that Dark Queen is the "nadir of the Gold Box games," which seems a bit harsh. She had played Matrix Cubed earlier that year, after all.

    

The review roundup on MobyGames shows no solace for the fan. The best review (82/100) came from the Swedish Datormagazin. An 80/100 from the German Play Time wasn't far behind, but after that, it drops like a rock, the median sitting at 68. The British Amiga Format gave both it and Treasures of the Savage Frontier 49s in the same issue, with no justification at all.

    

Dollars do the ultimate voting, of course, and Dark Queen was the third-worst selling Gold Box game, at 40,640 copies. (Champions of Krynn, in contrast sold 116,693.) The only ones that sold worse were Treasures of the Savage Frontier and Matrix Cubed, released the same year. According to Jimmy Maher's account, TSR had only extended its contract with SSI on the condition that the latter deprecate the Gold Box after 1992. These sales figures couldn't have helped any argument on SSI's part to keep it around. Unlimited Adventures, the Gold Box-based construction kit, was a kind of coda on the series, a way for fans to keep the adventure alive even if TSR wouldn't.

    

SSI's contract with TSR only lasted until mid-1994, and the developer spent the next 18 months developing or contracting as many Dungeons and Dragons titles, in as many possible formats, as it could possibly manage. The Gold Box may be done, but we still have a lot of titles from the partnership to explore: Dungeon Hack (1993), Eye of the Beholder III (1993), the two Dark Sun titles (1993-1994), Stronghold (1993), Al-Qadim: The Genie's Curse (1994), Menzoberranzan (1994), and three Ravenloft games (1994-1995). Not on my official list is Slayer (1994) for the 3DO. After the last one of these, it's only a year before Interplay starts showing what it can do with the license.

       

I'll look forward to a final turn with Unlimited Adventures, but one of the great things about the Gold Box is that no one can claim that it ended before its time or that it didn't leave enough games behind. If I weren't a CRPG addict facing a list of thousands of games that I'll probably never get a chance to play, I'd be happy to start over again with Pool of Radiance.

    

Game 199: Death Knights of Krynn (1991)

It was just about time for the predictable comfort of a Gold Box game. I have four of them to play in 1991, and I don't want them to get all clumped together at the end of the year.  I've spread them out like oases, knowing that I'll reach one every 8-12 games regardless of how bad or difficult the intervening games are.

I have no doubt that, just like its predecessors, Death Knights of Krynn will end up within the top 10 or 15 percent of games I've played as part of this project. I know that I'll enjoy the experience, particularly when it comes to combat. But what I also know--or at least suspect--is that the game isn't going to "wow" me. Gold Box used up all of its "wow" factor in Pool of Radiance, and since then it's been coasting on incremental improvements. That's fine--they're still great games--but it's too bad that SSI didn't continue to push the envelope the way that, say, Origin did with each new Ultima game (at least through 1992).

This game takes place a year after Champions of Krynn.

      
If you're just joining me, the Gold Box series is a collection of officially-licensed Dungeons & Dragons titles from Strategic Simulations, Inc. (SSI). Although not the first officially-licensed D&D games, they are the first to actually use D&D rules and themes. Starting with Pool of Radiance in 1988, the series spanned 12 titles in 5 settings through 1992, plus a construction set called Unlimited Adventures in 1993. This is my sixth Gold Box game.

Really? That's the helmet you're going with? You look like a droid.

  

Death Knights is a direct sequel to Champions of Krynn (1991; link to my first post), set in the Dragonlance universe. The games take place after a series of novels concerning the "Heroes of the Lance" and their war against the minions of the evil goddess Takhisis. A key plot point in the novels and in the first game involves the creation of "Draconians" out of the corrupted eggs of good dragons. In Champions of Krynn, my party worked for the Knights of Solamnia and foiled a plot to unleash a new horde of Draconians on the unsuspecting continent of Ansalon. Although I defeated the architect of that plan, the Draconian Myrtani, at the conclusion of the game, it was hinted that Myrtani was simply a lieutenant of a more sinister leader, a Death Knight named Soth. (The character appears extensively in Dragonlance literature.)

Sniff. I will try to remember the good times I had with the skeletal dragon.

       
As you may recall, my triumphant party at the end of Champions was:

• Midsummer, a Level 7 lawful good female human knight
• Dutch, a Level 7 lawful good male human knight
• Grave, Level 7/7 chaotic good male Silvanesti Elf cleric/ranger
• Squirrel, a Level 7/9 true neutral female Qualinesti Elf red mage/thief
• Atmos, a Level 7/7 lawful good male Qualinesti Elf cleric/white mage
• Coral, a Level 7/9 neutral good female Kender cleric/thief

I rather like my party. Everyone but Squirrel is capable of casting at least some cleric spells. I have two mages to back each other up and two thieves for backstabbing opportunities. I was happy to see that level caps go all the way to 14 for most classes and 18 for thieves. Oddly, new characters in Death Knights start at Level 8, suggesting that I didn't grind enough in Champions. I've never seen imported characters end up at a lower level than new characters.

As a quick reminder, the Dragonlance games do a few things different from the Forgotten Realms variants. You can't play evil characters, which wouldn't make sense given the nature of the plot. Elves and dwarves are divided into sub-races with special strengths and weaknesses. Mages specialize in white, red, or black (NPCs only) magic and have spells limited accordingly. They get bonus spells at different phases of the moon. Knights--which don't exist as a class in the Forgotten Realms setting--have several "orders" that they can progress through; higher orders mean more spells but also more experience to advance. They can also take command of NPCs in combat. "Kender" are halfling expies and have a special weapon called a hoopak and a special ability to taunt enemies into a mindless rage. All of this makes character choice and development more meaningful in Krynn than in Pool of Radiance and its sequels. 

Importing characters from Champions worked flawlessly, and for the first time in a Gold Box game, all the equipment came with the characters. The Knights of Solamnia had made off with my best stuff at the end of Champions (including a Girdle of Giant Strength and a Dragonlance), but I still have some +3 weapons and armor, which is better than brand new items.

My mage/thief and some of her imported items.

          
The game commences one year after the defeat of Myrtani. (Although imported characters have not actually aged a year.) The party has gone to the Knights of Solamnia outpost at Gargath to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the victory. Gargath was at the center-north of the Champions game map but is at the southeast of the Death Knights map; it seems to be the only repeated location.

This game takes place slightly northwest of its predecessor.

The introductory screens describe how Lady Maya, the beautiful silver dragon in human form, gives a eulogy for Sir Karl, our deceased ally from Champions. Suddenly, a skeletal dragon attacks the proceedings. Riding on the back is none other than Sir Karl, who has been corrupted as a Death Knight. He snatches a Dragonlance and rides off, the enraged Maya in pursuit, leaving skeleton warriors mounted on nightmares to fight the party and our Solamnic Knight allies.

Why does he have to be fat?

To be fair, I guess for him, honor and virtue didn't really "succeed."

Death Knights thus begins, just like Champions, with a relatively difficult battle. I liked it a lot, but I wouldn't have wanted it to be my first exposure to Gold Box combat. I don't remember encountering nightmares (undead horses) in a CRPG before; they're capable of blinding characters with smoke. The skeleton warriors were particularly difficult, as they're immune to magic, have high armor classes, and start with over 60 hit points. Two of my characters were unconscious before the end of the battle, and I'm sure I wouldn't have won if I hadn't started with half a dozen knight NPCs.

After the battle, I was free to wander around the outpost, which was besieged by the evil forces. There was a shop, a bar, a bank, a temple, and a training hall, and a series of micro-quests, like helping the temple clerics heal the wounded, patrolling the ramparts, and helping to bury fallen knights. In the cemetery, a journal entry revealed that Sir Karl's grave had been torn open and corrupted, and investigating it got me bitten by snakes.

A recounting of the scene from the adventurer's journal. If you're new to the Gold Box series, its games frequently tell you to consult journal entries for longer text passages or images.

 
At one point, I encountered a Dread Wolf, who spoke to me and said that he'd foil all my attempts to interfere with Soth's plans.

Eventually, a small group of warriors, mages, and clerics attacked the outpost. They weren't difficult to defeat (not immune to magic, among other things). When the battle was over, I was summoned to the commandant's chambers, where an old "knight emeritus" told me of a prophetic dream he had. He couldn't remember much, but a magic device called a "sleepstone," tucked under his pillow, had recorded it. He told me to take it to a Dream Merchant in Vingaard to decode it.

The commandant, Sir Bertil, told me that the Dream Merchant is "in Kalaman this time of year," however. Consulting the map, I saw that Kalaman was at the top, so I left the outpost and started in that direction. Within a couple of steps, I was in a random battle with several undead enemies that I don't remember from other games, including zombie mastodons and zombie minotaurs. It's a benefit that so many of my characters have the ability to turn undead.

A frequent message while traversing the wilds.

Rather than slavishly follow the game's instructions to go to Kalaman, I stopped in the city of Dulcimer on the way. The city was populated with the undead. As I entered, a text screen told me that: "Zombies fill a market to the east. A dog lurches past, pursued by an undead child." I was soon greeted by a lich, calling himself the mayor of the city. He asked if I'd ever visited Cerberus. Thinking he wasn't talking about my experiences in Elvira II, I said no, and he told me that I could "explore freely" except for the eastern exit and his private chamber.

Awfully friendly for a lich.

I didn't bother to map the Gargath outpost, and I didn't map Dulcimer, either. I normally like to map, but I wasn't in the mood for some reason. The "Area" command in the game shows you enough of the surrounding area to figure it out, and as long as you pay attention to the coordinates, it's not hard to make sure you step on every square in the 16 x 16 maps.

Naturally, I ignored the mayor and went for his private chambers. Before I entered, a specter appeared and told me that while destroying the lich would allow me to enter "Voice Wood," it was a bigger deal than simply defeating him in combat. I would have to find his phylactery and destroy it.

In the room beyond, the lich attacked me with several specters and wizards. It wasn't a difficult battle--"Fireball" was helpful given how they were arranged--but the specters managed to drain two levels from both Midsummer and Dutch.

Fighting the lich and his allies.

Once I killed the lich, I ran about town until I discovered the phylactery buried in a garden and destroyed it. All the undead collapsed at this point, and the game told me that "a great onus of evil has been lifted from this town." Clearly, I did this area a little bit out of order, but I made a note to return when I need to enter the "Voice Wood" for whatever reason.

Or when I need some undead eggs.

Returning to the road, I made my way to Kalaman, where I got my lead characters restored at a temple and leveled up some of the others. The knight commander, Daine, was eager for my help countering the growing influence of Lord Soth. He introduced me to "the beauteous Ariela, my advisor and consort," who told me that the Dream Merchant had a pavilion in the city's bazaar. She also warned me about Sebas Astmoor, "Soth's favorite and a potent cleric," who "left scenes of incomparable horror" the last time he was in Kalaman.

This is essentially the first time the party has heard of "Soth" in the game, although I guess he was probably pretty famous in the game world from the War of the Lance.

The bazaar occupies more than a quarter of the northwest of Kalaman. It's a maze-like area full of tent walls that you can tear through if you reach a dead-end, although that seems kind of jerkish. Anyway, when I approached the Dream Merchant, a bunch of guards suddenly shapeshifted into Sivak Draconians and attacked.

A true role-playing choice.

To recount, I met 5 types of Draconians in Champions of Krynn. Baaz are melee fighters whose skin is so tough it can capture a character's weapon for the rest of the battle. Kapaks can paralyze with their melee attacks and dissolve into pools of acid when killed. Bozaks explode when slain, damaging everyone around them. Auraks are the most difficult. They cast "Fire Shield" as their first spell, making it damaging to hit them in melee combat. Once you kill them, they immediately come back to life with 20 hit points. Kill them again, and they come back to life a second time, immortal and immobile--for three rounds, at which point they explode in a fireball.

Sivaks have the ability to change their features and impersonate humans--dangerous for plot reasons, but not in combat. I killed them quickly. Unfortunately, others kidnapped the Dream Merchant and got away. Wandering around, I found a note asking me to meet in the center of the bazaar after 16:00. "Since we both seek to stop the Lord Soth from coming to power," it said, "why not bring the sleepstone and the Dream Merchant together under rules of truce?"

I slept for a while, restored my spells, and went back to the bazaar. At 16:00, I was greeted by a red dragon leading a pack of blue dragons and carrying the Dream Merchant. The Merchant begged me to give them the stone, saying that "its message will not benefit these creatures." But I refused and found myself in battle with three blue dragons.

I'm not a fan of blue dragons because there's no "Protection from Lightning" spell. Sure enough, they slaughtered me in the first battle; none of my characters was able to withstand more than 2 breath attacks, and I just couldn't kill them fast enough. Fortunately, I learned that after 3 breath attacks in a row, the dragons stop using them. When I reloaded, I cast "Mirror Image" on my two spellcasters and had them loiter around the dragons while everyone else ran behind a wall to safety. The dragons' breath attacks affected only the mirror images for the first two rounds, after which I felt I was safe. I brought everyone else back on the battlefield and killed the dragons.

Immediately afterwards, the Dream Merchant croaked out "Crook! Vin..." and vanished. (This turned out to be instructions to visit him on Crook Street in Vingaard.) The Dread Wolf appeared and ordered his allies to attack, and I faced another battle with clerics, mages and evil warriors.

I love it so when they line up like this.

It appears that the next stop is in Vingaard.

I should have said "No," just to see if the game immediately ended.

Now that I've had a few hours of exposure to the game, I can report several changes in the mechanics from its predecessor:

• The game remembers what spells you've cast, so you don't have to re-memorize the same ones over and over. You can memorize new ones if you want, but otherwise you just have to rest to re-memorize the old ones. This is a very welcome addition.

• "Next" and "Previous" no longer target allies when aiming in combat. Yay! I've been complaining about this since the first combat in Pool of Radiance.

• In combat, the game remembers who you last aimed at. If he's still alive in the next round, he's automatically targeted. Another very welcome feature.

• SPACE has stopped working to center spells. Instead, there's a new "center" command--but it only works if you're cycling through enemies with "Next" or "Previous," not if you manually aim. This is a bit of a regression, but since the SPACE trick wasn't documented, it might be a benefit for some.

• We're back to having to hit "Move" at the beginning of combat to start walking, instead of just being able to go right to the movement keys. Boo.

• You now have the option to end the battle immediately when the last enemy dies, instead of having to deplete everyone's turn first. This is a good addition.

In total, the good changes outweigh the bad ones. Coupled with the "Fix" command introduced in Curse of the Azure Bonds, they address almost everything that was wrong with the original interface.

Other notes on gameplay.

• As I said about the last few Gold Box games, they feature a pleasing redundancy in keyboard, mouse, and joystick commands. If you're using the keyboard, you just hit the first letter of the command. To use the mouse, you click on it. And if using a joystick, you move it until the right command is highlighted and hit the button. It's refreshing to meet a game that accommodates every player's style. I'm naturally using the keyboard almost exclusively.

• I was surprised that the game doesn't support VGA graphics. I guess this is the last one that didn't, which means that I'm probably playing it in the right order for 1991.

• I keep hoping that the Gold Box games will start showing more in the environment than just wall textures, and I keep suffering disappointment. 

Would it be so hard to show a mound?

• It's been a running joke throughout the Gold Box series that the economies are horribly, horribly broken, loading up the player with so much money that the characters quite literally can't move. This is the case here from the first minute. In the first combat, I noticed that no one was capable of moving more than 3 spaces because they were carrying thousands of steel pieces from Champions. I dropped them all for mobility's sake. Even so, I left the outpost--the very first map of the game--with 12,000 steel pieces in the bank, mostly from selling enemy bracers. There has been nothing interesting to buy so far.

Why are bracers so damned valuable?

• Have we ever had a discussion about how turned undead provide no experience? Why is that fair?

• I love that the series has used the same full-party death screen since the beginning. I'm picturing a bunch of dragons and skeleton warriors breaking out the booze and dancing the night away.

• The "adventurer's journal" concept is starting to feel very dated. Surely, there's no longer any space reasons that they couldn't have put the text on the screen. I think it's more of a copy protection issue than anything else at this point.

Nothing about Death Knights of Krynn so far has felt familiar, so I'm guessing I never played this one, even in the 1990s. On the other hand, the plot hasn't exactly been gripping so far (I'm running around trying to get a dream out of a stone?), and the nature of the storytelling has been a little clumsy. 

But man, am I happy to be back in Gold Box combat again. It's been since Moria, which I stopped playing back in February, that I've rated anything higher than a 4 in this category. I never get sick of the tactics and challenge that this combat system provides.

And I never get sick of this.

Time so far: 3 hours

Reload count: 2

*****

In list news, I tried to get Return of the Ring working, but I couldn't get it running stably with a Dragon 32 emulator (the only platform it was released for). It was a tape game, and it kept wanting me to rewind, play, and advance the tape, and the emulator controls didn't seem to do the job or I didn't understand them. I think it's more of an adventure game anyway, despite being a sequel to an RPG.