It’s been a little while since I made a post, apologies for that, creativity can come in fits and spurts at times. I’ve been meaning to do a write up on Pool of Radiance for some time now, and yet it seemed every time I sat down in front of the PC I forgot, only to remember at some ungodly hour of the morning as I’m trying to drift off to sleep.
No more!
I was lucky enough to have received the Dungeons & Dragons Limited Edition ‘Gold Box’ in 1990 as a gift. I’m pretty sure it was a 13th birthday present from my parents. I was still rocking the XT at the time, dual 5.25″ 360K drives and no hard disk. I remember staying up late trying to install Pool of Radiance and for one reason or another it just not happening. A little dismayed and disappointed I tried the other games over the coming days and did play some Curse of the Azure Bonds. Hillsfar was probably the game that captured my attention most at the time though.
Some time later I do recall getting Pool of Radiance to work, possibly once I’d upgraded to the 286 and had a HDD installed. I remember the graphics looking pretty archaic by this stage though, in particular the mismatched heads and bodies of the character portraits.
Anyway, I barely played Pool of Radiance, let alone completed it.
Now, some 30 or so years later I decided to fire up the game and give it an honest bash. Assisted with the ‘Gold Box Companion‘ software and advice from some very helpful Twitch viewers I managed to not only play but successfully complete this iconic adventure.
So what are my thoughts?
Well visually it’s actually not bad when you consider the game was released in 1988. A quick look at other DOS games of 1988 thanks to MobyGames lets me compare the games visuals to the like of Ultima V, Zak McKracken, King’s Quest IV, Phantasie, Double Dragon, etc. So yeah, visuals are… okay. Nothing to blow you away but they do the job.
While aforementioned character portraits are pretty limited and a bit… average, you’ll spend most of your time looking at the combat screen and thankfully you can customize each ‘miniature’ or ‘figure’ of your party to give them a unique look.
The audio (or lack there of) is pretty disappointing. Adlib was definitely a thing by this stage and some tunes would have been nice. What you get is some very basic PC speaker, and not even much of that to be honest. To be fair though, looking through this list of DOS games from ’88 there are a lot of them that don’t have anything beyond PC speaker, so I guess it was a bit of a norm.
What’s really worth discussing here though is the adventure itself and the translation of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rules to the digital realm. Pool of Radiance was SSI’s first attempt to port the system over, and if I’m not entirely mistaken the very first ‘proper’ Advanced Dungeons & Dragons title.
So with that in mind I’m prepared to cut it a little slack. It must have been a fairly daunting task, by 1988 Dungeons & Dragons was a pretty well established IP with a fairly loyal fan base.
The story for Pool of Radiance is actually pretty good, if somewhat cliche by today’s standards. You form a part of up to six adventurers looking to make a name for themselves. Your mission begins in the city of Phlan, otherwise known as ‘The jewel of the Moonsea’ located in the Forgotten Realms. The forces of ‘good’ are looking to reclaim the city block by block from the evil doers that have taken it over.
It’s a good way to ease new players and level one characters into the adventure, and exploring each city block is fun, with each zone having it’s own kind of theme.
The pacing (for the most part) is pretty good, although it is possible to wander into an area you aren’t ready for yet, or skip ones that you should of done earlier. There is something of a difficulty spike when you eventually leave city of Phlan and begin to explore the wilderness, and while the game wont offer any hints internally (that I could find) there does appear to be a ‘preferred’ order to completing things, my advice is check a guide online for an easier ride.
Like most digital recreations of Dungeons & Dragons the bulk of the ‘utility’ spells have been stripped, but further to that so has a lot of the healing spells typically on offer to the Cleric. I assume this was done in order to make the game more difficult. Memorizing and casting spells while camping is also a bit clunky. But hey, ’88 and first D&D game right?
Combat is good, if a little tedious at times with all the wandering monsters. There’s definitely a sense of satisfaction when defeating a particularly tough fight.
There are a great many different weapon and armour types in the game, which is great, including magical variants. There’s also more ‘mundane’ loot that you can pickup and sell. It doesn’t really work mechanically but I get the feeling it was included so as to capture that feeling of tabletop D&D. Often I would just leave the ‘expensive looking rug’ on the ground instead of carting it back to town.
While I certainly made use of the save and load functions of the game I managed to complete the thing without any real cheating until the final battle which was pretty brutal. If I wasn’t streaming the game and time wasn’t such an issue I have no doubt that with plenty of reloading and a dash on RNG I’d have gotten through it eventually, ultimately on stream though I topped up my characters hit points a few times for the sake of brevity.
Overall I enjoyed Pool of Radiance. While I still own my Limited Edition Gold Box I purchased the series again via GOG as the ones in my box are outdated and the Gold Box Companion needed the latest patched versions. Speaking of which, if you’re going to play this one yourself I’d strongly recommend the Gold Box Companion, it’s really good.
I’m currently working my way through Curse of the Azure Bonds, the sequel to Pool of Radiance, and while the story is really good, the game is terrible in terms of pacing and challenge. Pool of Radiance clearly had more time and attention offered to it and I have no problem recommending it for those looking for some old school D&D RPG adventure.
Daemon Master 