newtmonkey Posted October 20 Share Posted October 20 Post the games you've completed on classic computers in 2023! Any classic computer is fine, whether real hardware or emulation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
newtmonkey Posted October 20 Author Share Posted October 20 Secret of the Silver Blades (MS-DOS) In this game, the third of the Forgotten Realms "Gold Box" series of AD&D RPGs, your party is summoned through a mysterious well to save a settlement under siege by evil forces. I consider Pool of Radiance to be one of the finest RPGs ever made (definitely within the top five if not top three), so I was somewhat disappointed to find that some of what made that game amazing was not present in its sequel, Curse of the Azure Bonds. Fortunately, CotAB was still a fine RPG. Unfortunately, Secret of the Silver Blades is a further drop in quality. CotAB sadly dropped the overheard wilderness exploration (and nonlinear structure) of PoR in favor of a single-screen world map from which you select your destination, like a fantasy GPS. SotSB takes it one step further by completely removing even this, as it is basically a linear dungeon crawl. I have nothing against linear dungeon crawls when done properly, but SotSB suffers from poor dungeon design, with several long and linear dungeons full of nothing but the same repetitive random encounters over and over. The entire middle portion of the game consists only of this, and I felt it hard to stay motivated, which explains why this game took me a year to complete even though it's really only 15-20 hours long. Fortunately, the game ends on a high note with an excellent couple of dungeons full of puzzles, unique encounters, and lots of great equipment to find. It's too bad the rest of the game wasn't like this! --- I've been taking the same party through this series of games, from Pool of Radiance to Curse of the Azure Bonds, and now this. I rolled my party honestly in PoR, and while I was able to complete all three games without too much of an issue, several of my characters really started to feel quite weak by the end of SotSB, so I will probably be transferring only my best two or three characters to the legendarily difficult final game in the series, Pools of Darkness. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
newtmonkey Posted October 28 Author Share Posted October 28 Champions of Krynn In this, the first of the Krynn trilogy of Gold Box AD&D RPGs, your party is tasked with saving the world from a looming invasion of dragon men and undead. Because it uses the "Gold Box" engine, it plays pretty similarly to Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, and Secret of the Silver Blades. However, it does have some tweaks and changes here and there, mostly due to the unique world of Krynn. There are also fewer restrictions on non-human characters, which lets you really go wild with multi-classing. Unlike Secret of the Silver Blades, you can actually exhaust random encounters pretty quickly within each area (though leaving the area will reset the counter). This makes exploring a lot less stressful/tedious. Also unlike SotSS, each area was expertly designed and a lot of fun to explore with plenty of unique encounters and minor puzzle elements. The designers did a great job at mixing and matching different enemy types to keep you on your toes ever during random encounters. There are even some fun role-playing elements, such as multiple ways through certain areas (combat or stealth) and a fun part where you can go around doing optional little tasks to make a boss battle much easier. It's a surprisingly short game that was much easier than I expected (though my experience playing through previous Gold Box games probably helped a lot). I'm really looking forward to bringing my party into the sequel, Death Knights of Krynn, though I might take a break and play the first Buck Rogers Gold Box game first. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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