Maybe I just played too much Diablo 2 as a child?

Review

by Dave "!FT!Marauder" Kratky. Oct 06.2001

 

Allrighty, I've never been a big fan of RPGs....

But I decided to take another swing at it with Pool Of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Dranor. I couldn't help it. I'm a huge fan of the Forgotten Realms novels, but I've never really played any of the games. I don't think I will be again.

Loading screens are quite pretty and well done. Load times are REALLY short, which is nice.

An adventure gone horribly astray.....

In the first Pool of Radiance game, a mystical pool was providing power to a big ass dragon, who was causing untold grief and havoc. Your heros killed the beastie and destroyed the pool.... Or so they thought. It's back, and it's turning everything within reach into nasty undead thingies. There's also apparently an evil sorceress and some dragons as well.... You an your party go in to check things out, and to find out what happened to the first party of adventurers who never came back....

So we've got plot. We've also got a decent intro movie, and a nice menu system. Very cool so far.

The character creation system is simple to use. Pick your race, class, and allignment, then pick the skills your wish to increase. (You're given a set number of points to build your character up the way you want.) You can also select from a number of pre-made characters if you want to, but it's always more fun and personal to create your own.

Lets play "Miss the orc!"

Then I started playing. I spent my first minute or so trying to hit a damned orc. The orc didn't miss when he hit back and killed two of my four characters. I loaded. Same thing, only lost one character this time.

Reset the game. Brought a wizard instead of a Rogue. Much nicer. Magic missile spells fry those little bastards real good. Walked around the first level, killing orcs as I went. Got killed alot. Loaded alot. Finally kinda got the hang of combat, but still lost many, many characters. Met the pedler, whose an ungratefull and pretty useless sort. Really didn't have anything worth buying. Met a few other NPCS.

NPCs are basically your standard Diablo/Diablo 2/Any other RPG you can menion. (Oh, I mentioned the word Diablo & RPG in the same sentance. :) Someone's going to be sending me some hate mail over that one, I just know it!) They answer a few questions, some of them give you clues and tips, or help you out in some way.

Yes, the old guy in the wagon is a trader. Who has nothing you want.

Adventured into the first dungeon. Killed all the orcs, loading many times along the way. I was determined not to lose any characters this time around. Everything was going wonderfully, right up untill I ran into a wraith. These guys can't be harmed by conventional weapons. (Much like Dan Quail in that regard.) You have to use magic. Not being equiped with magical weapons, I was forced to use my wizardess.... Who rapidly ran out of magic, and teamates without killing the bastard. After trying to kill this thing a few times, I finally did it, but ended up loosing two of the four brave (and stupid) souls who had entrusted their guidence into my feeble FPS hands.

Stupid wraith! WHY WON'T YOU DIE!?!?! (*sob*)

It was here I discovered something interesting. Even if a character is struck down, once you find a safe spot in the dungeon and rest... They rejoin your party, hale, hearty and ready to party. Full health. Apparently this is part of the DnD rules. You're characters don't die when they hit 0 health, they become incapacitated. If they continue to remain unhealed, and they hit -10 hitpoints they die. Apparently a little nap heals all wounds. :)

After spending several more hours wandering this dungeon, trying to find a secret door... I found it. Right where you entered the dungeon in the first place........ The clue that was given is extrememely misleading...

I went a little further before deciding that this was NOT a game for me. I'm going to find someone else who likes these insanely hard, boring turn based RPGS and let them try it out. It seems like the sort of game they'd like. It's got elements very true to the pen and paper D'n'D games I've played in the past, without the pimply geek friends, junk food and beer. There's a deep and complex roll/turn based combat system that I find incomprehsible (The rolls anyhows, you can watch them if you want.) tons of races, classes, skills, spells and items. A little pop up DM voice box guides you though your travels, and points out interesting things, an obvious attempt to make the game feel more like the old Pen n' paper.

 

Your DM, enlightening you as you go on your way,

 

Graphics Engine & Sound

Quite nice, if looking a little low-res for my jaded tastes. Voice acting, what of it there is is done pretty well, intro movie is also done well. In game load screens are very pretty. Excellent detail on the maps, and locations. You can tell someone really put alot of work into making the game believable. Music is nice, but just like Diablo, gets old pretty quickly. Listening to the same fight music over and over can get wearing.

A smart adventurer ALWAYS carries protection. In this case a shield of faith spell.

Controls

Standard controls for RPG. Some hot keys for various menus and actions, everything else is mouse clicks. Combat is simple, when it's your turn, click to move to attack. Special attacks/magic/items can be accessed with hotkeys or the right click/menu pull down system. Right clicking on any item or character gives you their info.

Apparently my mighty adventurers are too damned wimpy (or stupid) to climb over a little pile of rubble.

 

Combat

Ugh. Boring turn based combat. You hit them (or try) they try and hit you, you all shake hands at the end of the day and go home. As I mentioned above, I can't follow the rolls of the dice.

Manual

Passes the weight test. Beefy and detailed, with complete information on skills, races, weapons, monsters and game play. Also gives explainations for how and why things happen in their strange and wonderfull world of dice and dies. Easily followed even by people like me.

Final analysis