Which are the best? [img]smile.gif[/img]

Hey ffan,

The best? That's impossible.

The one I remember most fondly (played it again a few months ago) is the oldest: Pool of Radiance.

I can also recommend Curse of the Azure Bonds, Champions of Krynn, Death Knights of Krynn, Gateway to the Savage Frontier, and a pleasant surprise: Buck Rogers: Countdown. That game was really interesting to me, seeing the goldbox style in a sci-fi game. I'm currently debating whether to take my party into Secret of the Silver Blades or to start up the Gateway games, which I liked but didn't get very far into before I was eaten by trolls. My only incentive for going through Silver Blades is to get to Pools of Darkness with my original PoR party (Swapping 2 fighters for a Ranger and a Paladin in Curse).

Of course, check out Dungeon Craft or the horde of Unlimited Adventure games for more.

[ 12-31-2006, 04:56 PM: Message edited by: Lucern ]

nice!

[ 01-01-2007, 03:23 PM: Message edited by: ffan ]

Silver blades and pools of darkness was worth playing several times. I liked pool of radiance a lot also. It was fun duel classing fighter and thief for the backstab multiplier which helped a lot in some fights. The last fight is very tough though in Pools of darkness and I hate drow thier magic resistance annoys me.

It's a matter of taste. Do you prefer high- or low level games? Do you enjoy playing non-humans (the Forgotten Realms series have level caps for non-humans making them more or less useless).

Personally I like Pool of Radiance and the Krynn series best. PoR gives you an illusion of openendedness as it allows you to roam about and do quests in any order, but the interface is a bit less convenient (you have to choose spells to memorize again after casting, and some other things).

I had a hard time getting into the Silver Blades (I'm more into overland worlds than dungeon hacking), but once I got going it had me hooked.

The savage frontier games (particularly the first ones) are a bit silly in that it is very easy to miss out on parts of the linear story, which leads to the game making a bit less sense than it should...

Never played very far into Buck Rogers as I didnt know which skills to pick...

My first was Curse of the Azure Bonds on the C64 and probably is my sentimental favourite for more than just nostalgic reasons. [img]smile.gif[/img]
It also has a neat plot and opens up exploration wise once the first bond is overcome in Tilverton. There's more of a middle range level development wise (5-12 I think...) and doesn't tend to goad one into going bezerk on the powergaming as much as I did with Silver Blades and Pools of Darkness and even Dark Queen of Krynn, which are still brilliant games in their own right.

I must pick up where I left off in Pools of Darkness one day just to see if I can complete Dave's Challenge! :D

If I were new to these games and got to play them all over again, I'd probably do it chronologically:

Pool of Radiance
Curse of the Azure Bonds
Secret of the Silver Blades
Pools of Darkness

Krynn trilogy:

Champions
Deathknights
Dark Queen

@Lucern and Zeleukos
I loved Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday aswell, played it and finished on both PC and on the C64. Very underrated, I think. Definitely worth getting into and perusing the manual over in depth for the skills side of things. [img]smile.gif[/img]
Did you ever get to play the sequel, the Matrix Cubed? I have it somewhere...I got it from a mate a few years ago now and played about half of it before the trusty Dx2 that I'd been playing it on, subsequently died. Whilst it wasn't as compelling as Countdown to Doomsday, it was another Goldbox game - probably the only one I haven't beaten. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Cheers,
CD

Buck Rogers rocks your goldbox socks off. Overland becomes over-solar system lol. It also had tactical and ship-to-ship combat. The best was when an entire crew of space pirates would meet your squad (of 6) at the airlock. Rocket launchers were like fireballs, and all my guys were practically wizards if I was ready for them :D . If you're curious about skills...you won't get far without piloting skills and computer hacking, but most of them do something. I tried to play Matrix Cubed immediately after, but couldn't get it to run for some reason. I should try with a newer DosBox.

If you're talkin' 'bout the Ubi-Soft Pool of Radiance, I liked it too. The only thing they need to change is how the characters are rolled up and random drops. But I think we're talkin' the original here.

Wasn't the non-original Pool of Radiance the one that had a chance of annihilating your entire operating system when you installed it?

Ahh, yes. Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday. It brongs back some fond memories.

The only thing I haven't managed to do in that game is boarding that big-ass slaveship.

Heh, it brings back fond memories, not "brongs".

There IS an edit button, you know. Just clickity click and you can fix up your typos.

Buck Rogers has the overland exploration of Venus and Mars aswell, which breaks up the space combat exploration very nicely. One of my most memorable parts however is one of the very first missions, where your crew stumbles across a large derelict ship floating in space amid junk and wrecks. Progressing and exploring that ship just has a fantastically chilling atmosphere, emphasised by the fact that your party is still very inexperienced at that time, anything could potentially kill you.
But yeah, get into Countdown to Doomsday if sci/fi cRPGs are your forte - its great stuff!

If anyone has played Unlimited Adventures, I think it'd also be great to identify some fan made missions that they've enjoyed and can reccomend to others. I've never really persevered with getting into any, but might have to one of these days!

Whilst I was able to play and finish Pool of Radiance once on the C64 and again on PC a couple of years later, I could never get more than half way through Ubisoft's blasphemic abomination - which was a pitiful excuse for a modern revisitation'. Talk about Ruined Memories of MythDrannor. :rolleyes: Thankfully Azure Bonds also takes place there towards the conclusion to cleanse such blasphemy!

So unless it has since been heavily modded to make it more interactive, meaningful and somewhat more balanced, (I found too many magic weapons ridiculously early) I doubt I could ever bring myself to go near it again.
It doesn't really have a place in a 'goldbox' thread, if you ask me. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

Geez am feeling a touch grumpy now, might have to go vent some modern frustration for a bit on some hapless creatures from Devil Whiskey! :D

[ 01-15-2007, 01:05 AM: Message edited by: CerebroDragon ]

My GOD The end of 'Dave's Challenge' in Pools of Darkness was hard!!!

Anyone remember that? A special developer area. Like an easter egg.

I loved the Dragonlance Goldboxes, and Pools of Darkness, Secret of the Silverblades.

I loved them all actually--except Hillsfar. BLAH.

Well, I wrote my correction post hours after I posted the original.

No, not when you installed it. It was when use the invisiblity spell and crash to desktop when you load the save game after. It do to the point where you would want to re-install. That's when the trouble happened.

I like the combat style in that game and Temple of Elemental Evil the best though.

Um, yeah - I do (as I first mentioned above.) I also believe there's a Dave's Challenge in Deathknights of Krynn, if as Yoshimo would say "memory serves", but I'm a little sketchier on that one. I know I passed it on the c64 but never did quite beat the one on Pools of Darkness, which was much more insanely difficult. Its a reward for exploration more than anything, named after one of the head developers, David Shelley, a big name in the history of the series. [img]smile.gif[/img]

I was disappointed with Hillsfar also - remember getting it after Pool of Radiance and trying to transfer characters and deciding that it just wasn't worth it. The gladiatorial fights were fun for awhile, but for the most part it never really felt like part of the series. Mind you, you could argue that its picklocking in-game has had a rather unique influence upon other more modern cRPGs.

Daves Challenge in Deathknights is pretty easy and rather small, you barely need any buffs for that one. Its an old temple with spectral dragons (level drainers).

I never got to the challenge in Pools of Darkness, as I couldnt win the final battle of the main campaign:( I also didnt manage to handle the stupid maze at the end of the first Savage Frontier game (you walk from area to area on the stupid combat map, making it impossible to navigate, and run into increasingly tougher monsters with no pause for healing or rest).

The Savage frontier games were superior in one sense though, they had more unique items and weapons than the others. Krynn in particular in practice only has four or five weapon types, longsword, flail, mace, quarterstaff, and dragonlance. It offends me to have a dwarf use longsword...