Lets talk about Pool of Radiance. Do you like tactical combat in RPGs? Do you like having paths of character advancement that aren't combat? Well near as I can tell, Pool of Radiance was a great originator of those mechanics.
Dungeons & Dragons came out and the world got RPG fever. In the video gaming space, you saw countless games emulating, approximating or just inspired by D&D's rules and fantasy setting. But it wasn't until 1988 that an official Dungeons & Dragons video game was released, and that game was Pool of Radiance.
To give you an idea of the world this game was released into, you have to understand it's contemporaries. Ultima V, Might and Magic II, Wizardry V, Wasteland and Bard's Tale III were all released in 1988. And across the pond, Final Fantasy II was also released. Overwhelmingly, these games had combat which involved turn based systems very similar to the style Final Fantasy used all the way through it's 6th entry. Also, they used combat as the primary means of character progression.
But Pool of Radiance was different. If you've played any of the Infinity Engine games like Baldur's Gate, or even more modern games like Pillars of Eternity, you're just playing the most recent iteration of the mechanics laid down in Pool of Radiance. It, and all the sequels that collectively make up the Gold Box series, made tactical combat in RPGs a thing. But despite the combat being more than just a picture of the enemy and picking actions, combat was not the primary means of character advancement.
I've been playing a lot of Pool of Radiance lately, and one of the things that really shocks me is how little you are rewarded for combat. I might get 100 xp and a pittance of loot. Most of the enemies don't drop any sort of currency. And I need thousands of XP to level, and each level costs 1000 gold at the trainers! Where you get most of the xp and gold to progress is hidden treasures and questing. Finding a hidden cache in the ruins of Old Phlan can net you hundreds of XP and thousands of gold! Clearing out a dungeon and handing in the quest is worth over 1000 xp and a sizeable reward as well. You can miss out on combat xp in this game and still be successful. Does that sound familiar at all?
The game was technically impressive for it's time as well. Previews of the game in Computer Gaming World boasted an incredible variety of dungeon and monster graphics, many of which were animated. It was on an order of magnitude more diverse than other games of the time, according to the preview. It also boasted larger view and battle screens than contemporary games, and extremely customizable character portraits and icons. However, when it came time to actually review the game, none of it's technical achievements were mentioned much except for character customization. Perhaps like most games, it's features that were bragged about during development were old news when it finally came out. Or maybe it was just a technical detail that didn't matter in the grand scheme of things, like the much touted Megatexturing in Rage.
What Pool of Radiance was heavily praised for was it's believable and well fleshed out world. You aren't saving the world, you are just trying to reclaim the fallen city of Phlan from the forces of evil that have resided there for a long time. So the story does a better job of staying believable. There are numerous little role playing flairs added to the town as well. Thing like bar brawls, duels, and breaking into the shops at night. They brought over more from the tabletop than just the ruleset.
That's not to say Pool of Radiance didn't suffer criticism when it came out either. Despite my appreciation for the combat, one of the reviewers for CGW, since there were two, complained that combat took forever to resolve. Over an hour for a single battle sometimes. I can attest to this just last night actually. She also complained that the game appeared sexist since female characters start with a strength penalty which was part of the D&D ruleset, but didn't get the charisma boost that was also part of the ruleset. Lastly she complained that the game was just a terrible representation of tabletop role playing. A criticism which I think holds up against many, if not all, computerized RPGs to this day.
If you're curious about trying Pool of Radiance yourself, it's easy to find on abandonware sites. It's easiest to run it in dosbox, and the frontend Dosbox Game Launcher is amazing, as it will search for the metadata related to the game you are trying to run, and suggest dosbox configurations based on the year the game was released. I've had great luck using the IBM Clone 1990 profile. Lastly, you will need replacement documents, including a code wheel to get passed the copywright protection. But I can't recommend this piece of history enough.
Also, some sources:
List of contemporary RPGs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_role-playing_video_games:_1988_to_1989
The review: http://www.cgwmuseum.org/galleries/index.php?year=1988&pub=2&id=54
The preview: http://www.cgwmuseum.org/galleries/index.php?year=1988&pub=2&id=49
I ALMOST FORGOT! If you'd like to see this on GOG so you can feel good about having compensated somebody for it, you can vote for it here:
http://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/pool_of_radiance_1
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[–] blueryd3r ago
I've watched GameHorder's lets play of Pool of Radiance and it did peak my interest in the gold box games. But although I'm not a total snob when it comes to old game mechanics (I love the Ultima series after all) the idea of flipping through a PDF document to read all description and story elements is a bit too much for me. If the gold box games come to GoG which I hope they will some day, I'll will give them a shot but until then the work of compiling and hunting down all the extra bits and configuring dosbox is something I don't want to do. Please understand, I'm a very lazy person.
[–] Namrok [S] 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
Yeah, that's understandable. I'm luck to have the Forgotten Realms Archives Silver Edition. Came with a fat 300 pg manual, 3 code wheels, and a dozen games from the Gold Box series. I bought it back in the 90's when I was fucking hyped for Baldur's Gate to come out, but had never played a D&D game before. I tried Pool of Radiance then, and I made it up to the "so hard you should come back later" troll encounter in the slums and rage quit.
I'm having a much better time this time around. Although I just ran into the enemies that kill you in one hit with poison, and the enemies which permanently drain XP. And it's bullshit how they implemented those things in this game.