Has anyone ever played this wonderful game (the old one, designed for the Apple IIe)? If so I would like some tips, if you can oblige, and maybe just talk about it here. It truly is a wonderful game and now that it is out on the Forgotten Realm Archives disc, anyone can play it. If you have not played it
than I recommend it.

I have played it, and I thought it to be a bad game. It has too much hack'n'slash and is the only RPG I've played that has little to no role playing in it. Only thing I can give a thumbs up is on graphics.

The new one is terrible, and the old is not much better. A bad series in general.

depends on the person i guess..

It's been a long time since I've even seen the game. However, some general tips would include to make sure to keep that translator disk handy (don't know if it shipped with the archive, but you need it to translate stuff later), make sure your party is well-rounded but leaning towards tank heavy (I went with one fighter, one mage, one cleric, a fighter/cleric, a fighter/mage, and a fighter/thief), and make sure to hire NPCs (there's a higher level fighter with magic equipment; get him killed off tanking, then strip him and dump the corpse in a ditch... ;) ).

I enjoyed the old SSI version DOS version. [img]smile.gif[/img]

I played it, and the rest of the series on the commodore 128 way back in the day. Still have the commodore also lol.

I liked the games actually, though Secret of the Silver Blades was the best in my opinion. Pool was a bit heavy on hack and slash, but the program wasnt that big, I think SSI was dumping everything that could into graphics and length of the game.

All in all, I liked the Pool Series, I would play it and Bards Tale all weekend when I was a kid

Well, here are a few tips in no particular order.
Mages and fighters are the best classes in the game. My normal party tends to be 2 Fighters, a Theif, a Good Cleric, and two Mages. While they are not much to look at when you start, it's pretty impressive what a pair of fireballs can do (espically in areas full of weenies like the Nomad Camp, or the Kobald Caves). You'll fight a lot in halls that are only 4 squares wide, so you don't really have a need for more then 4 characters capable of attacking. The Fighters, the Cleric and the Thief are all capable.

The western wilderness tends to have the toughest random spawns, it's ok to mess around the central wilderness at a medium level, but I would wait a while until you go west.

The graveyard is probably the toughest level in the game. Wait a long time after you get the quest until you do it. You'll also want a good cleric, as his turn ability will help you out here.

Save magic weapons, it's not uncommon to encounter things that can't be hit with normal weapons. (I'm actually thinking of a specific example, fairly early in the game, two if you don't know the password).

The fine composite longbow is the greatest thing ever. Get them as soon as you can, and you should be able to mow down the weenies as they move twords you.