Nintendo Pool of Radiance
 

Wow, I never knew that the goldbox game "pool of radiance" had a version available on the original Nintendo. About 20 years ago I'd have been all about this game...


here's the link to check it out if you want to:
http://www.everyvideogame.com/play-n...diance_(U).htm

and here are a couple of screen shots.

-SilentThief

Re: Nintendo Pool of Radiance
 

Intersting... very different. I would've played for more than five minutes if it wasn't breaking my eyeballs. :)

Re: Nintendo Pool of Radiance
 

Actually, it looks pretty nice - a bit "Japanified" for some reason, but not bad. I suppose that using colors besides gold and blue might have been nice, but... :)

Re: Nintendo Pool of Radiance
 

Well, remember that the nintendo wasn't very advanced, and this was a goldbox game that had (IIRC) 5-6 disks of data as well as a save disk for the player. I'm not all that impressed but for the fact that it was a goldbox game in the first place on a nintendo. It really doesn't resemble POR much at all, tho.

A bit nostalgic
-SilentThief

Re: Nintendo Pool of Radiance
 

I read an interview with the head guy at SSI when they first decided to do a gold box game. He said that because the Japanese were so into RPGs, that's the main reason they ported it to the nintendo.

He said that they basically didn't make any profit off of it due to the fact that the Japanese prefer a different type of RPG (final fantasy, etc). He said it was a good experience but that is why they never ported another game again.

Re: Nintendo Pool of Radiance
 

Did they try to sell it in Japan?

Japan is rather insular (new ideas are not adopted easily) and the media controls a lot, so that may also have been related to why the software didn't sell well.

Also, what was the Nintendo port like? The same game with different graphics, or a completely different game?

There was a game called "Eye of the Beholder" for the Gameboy Advance (fairly recently) - it had little to do with the original SSI semi-action RPG game series, but seemed a lot like the old Gold Box games.

I think that Japan's first taste of RPGs was the Wizardry game series - still popular today. You might notice that, in essence, Dragon Quest (i.e. Dragon Warrior) games are basically like Wizardry, but with 2D overhead maps instead of 3D first-view dungeons. The Wizardry-like combat system has pervaded Japan's CRPGs since, while a completely separate genre of "simulation RPG" has been made for a somewhat more wargame-like RPGs, but the two have remained very separate.

Unfortunately, the truth is, of course, that Wizardry was Wizardry because that was as far as programming could take CRPGs at the time - the "goal" was clearly an actualization of paper/pencil/dice RPGs. Japan never really knew the actual goal, so they just started with Wizardry (and to a lesser extent, Ultima) and "powered-up," so to speak. Powering-up, of course, meant upping graphics and music, but also adding a very anime-ish element as well, and diverging from the original RPG idea.

Re: Nintendo Pool of Radiance
 

I actually broke out my copy of PoR and tried to get it to run, but I keep getting an error... :(

Oh well, I have plenty of other games to play. :D

Re: Nintendo Pool of Radiance
 

It is definitely the hardest of the old games to run... :(

Also, darn that stupid code wheel thing! :(

Re: Nintendo Pool of Radiance
 

It keeps telling me during character creation that I need to insert disk 3...

Since it's all in one file folder, and I long, long ago lost the disks... (I have downloaded a version from the web and it had the exact same files as what I already have, so I don't know what else to do right now.)

Re: Nintendo Pool of Radiance
 

I think that's what may have happened for me, too. Whatever the reason, I never was able to actually start the game (besides part of character creation).

The NES version may actually allow me to try the game out! :D

Re: Nintendo Pool of Radiance
 

Last time I tried to run PoR I created a 6 character team and saved the game, then when I loaded the game (like the next day) it had 6 copies of 1 character. Kinda strange. Of course, this was on a computer with win 95 and not DosBox

-SilentThief

Re: Nintendo Pool of Radiance
 

I got the actual cartridge and a ROM of the game. (Hence it is legal for me to keep.) Believe it or not, I was thinking about breaking it out and translating it into DC....

Re: Nintendo Pool of Radiance
 

That would be cool, FD. :D:D:D Translations of Goldbox games are always a popular topic here. ;)

Re: Nintendo Pool of Radiance
 

And translations of nintendo games... well...

On that site also had a few more games that had the same pseudo-3D perspective:
Bards Tale, Tales of the unknown (no idea if good)
Swords and Serpents (played on NES, didn't like)

The perspective alone does not make a good game, however; and my problem with the swords and serpents game was you were in a 16 level dungeon with nothing else but an occasional old man (in a dungeon???) that says something possibly useful, an occasional shop, a LOT of random combats and a maze of teleporters. Too much repetition :(

SilentThief

Re: Nintendo Pool of Radiance
 

Hi Manikus:

A few days ago, I noticed this issue also. I think it was the way I zipped the program up before uploading it to the website. If the program you downloaded is located in a folder called Pool and inside that folder another folder called POOLRAD which contains the game files. ( C:/Pool/POOLRAD) Extract the folder called POOLRAD out of the Pool folder so that you have.....

C:/POOLRAD

That should eliminate the insert disk 3 error. (DOS version)

-Bri

(in case others had the same issue)


If you are receiving a HALI3 error and not an insert disk 3 error, then that might require changing the config file.

Re: Nintendo Pool of Radiance
 

Guys, I'm house bound...No job, no car. I can't get those things. I didn't have a real computer until I was in college, 93, and it couldn't run much. Black and white. And a computer store? What's that? Money? What's that? The one time I got to computer store back then, I got FRUA. And they had a goldbox ravenloft game, and I've kicked myself in the butt for not getting that.... My point is I haven't played much of the goldbox material is because I'm unable to get them....
But like any other kid I -did- have a nintendo and had it until 95....
Anyway, the translation of POR on the Famicon (nintendo) was not anything like that. I don't remember it being very repititous. Fact it was rather fun...my only real complaint aout it (c'mon, it was a Famicon game, you can't compare it to a PC game or PS or XBOX game, there -is- no comparison) was it was like uber hard cause it had a level cap. -All- your PCs couldn't raise above like 9th level or something like that. It was very frustrating towards the end, considering most of the bosses could pretty much kill you in one hit and it was designed to challenge characters of higher level than you could get to. That, and you had to do jobs continually to get the gold to buy the equipment you needed and it was designed for you to run -evil- PCs through it.
I wasn't saying the translation didn't work, it did, and it does. But POR was one of my greatest inspirations and I just thought it would be neat to see on DC.

Re: Nintendo Pool of Radiance
 

The level caps did make those games rather hard those days - especially if you didn't make sure that your PCs got full HD each level (my first PC was quite slow, and it took an HOUR for it to load Champions of Krynn, so I couldn't exactly be picky when leveling up my PCs)...

Re: Nintendo Pool of Radiance
 

I actually finished Swords and Serpents. Man that game was a pain in the arse. I couldn't stand the music/sound effects and the monsters had no names. I did map out the bloody thing and wrote down a ton of notes on where various things were but the end was pretty damn anticlimatic for all the effort. I never really understood the combat that much either. The spells were easy enough to figure out but how many hits and damage seemed odd. Don't torture yourself if you want to play this game.