Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes of the Lance

"Not really that bad of a game."

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes of the Lance is thought to be one of the worst games on the NES, if not one of the worst games of all time. It's commonly criticized with having bad controls, deafening music and sounds, and horrible graphics. Personally, I think there's worse games on the NES, like Back to the Future and Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde.

Story: 4/10
The story is basically 8 heroes going through this place called Xak Tsaroth to retrieve these things called the Disks of Mishakal, found at the end of the game. Not too shabby of a story. However, it doesn't say why they need these Disks of Mishakal or much of anything else related to the story in the game. I assume it's just all answered in the Dragonlance books. If they told more of the story from the books in here, I'm sure this score would be higher.

Gameplay: 6/10
The core of the game is basically an adventure/rpg game. You control 8 heroes, one at a time on-screen, each with different stats and weapons. About 40% of the game screen shows the heroes portraits along with their health, while the top rest of the screen shows the gameplay area or the menu (when the game is paused). Throughout the game you go through Xak Tsaroth, fighting enemies and occasionally finding items such as potions and shields. You can fight with melee attacks, ranged weapons, and magic. Healing is a constant need throughout the game, and I found the lesser of the cure magic much more cost efficient. Though a pretty short game (I'd say 3 hours at the very most, unless you're having extreme difficulties) you can save and load your game at any time. The game isn't really too hard, the main challenge is conserving heal magic and fighting dragons. I found the gameplay, while not too original, pretty fun.

Controls: 4/10
Here's what I think sets most people away from the game when first playing. While confusing at first, it's basically 'A' to jump (you can only jump when running) and 'B' to attack, or of course whatever buttons you set if you're using an emulator. However, both commands always require a direction to be pressed. With attacking you have to press left or right along with up or down if attacking diagonally (attack directions are: left, right, up-left, up-right, down-left, down-right). The controls themselves are fine, but fairly unresponsive and the movement could also be more fluid.

The menu can also be fairly confusing to a new player but should be easy to quickly get the hang of. On the menu, you can switch the heroes position in the formation with 'Hero select' (the first, top-left position is the current played hero), use offensive and detection magic if Raistlin is still alive with 'Magic User spells', use defensive and healing magic with 'Clerical staff spells' unless you lose the Blue Crystal staff. By the way, if you lose the staff you can't beat the final boss as far as I know. You can use items with, well, 'use', and check how many of each enemy you've defeated and how much experience you have (which does nothing, basically a score) with 'score'. You can also 'give' an item to another hero, 'drop' an item (which theres no point in with plenty of item space), 'take' an item off the ground, 'save' the game in three different files, and 'load' with the respective commands.

I highly recommend checking out BrakZero's great FAQ on the game for all the controls and other things when starting out the game.

Music/Sound:7/10
In my opinion, the music in the game is above average for the NES. The main tune switches about half way through the game, and I found both tunes to be a good listen and weren't annoying. I even found myself nodding my head a few times to the music. The sound effects are standard fare for the NES, but aren't loud and annoying like some games. Note I play NES with the volume on the low side, but still loud enough to clearly hear everything.

Graphics:4/10
While not horrible or hard on the eyes, they're about mediocre when compared to the likes of the MegaMan series and other NES games. The animation is a little lacking, and the sprites small because of the big interface. The backgrounds were good, though the ceiling at the later part of the game is a little hard on the eyes. The portraits in-game were excellent and the body shots before the game starts were good. Overall, the graphics got the job done fine with not much complaints from me.

Replay Value:6/10
The replay value is okay, I wouldn't mind playing through the game again because it would probably take about 2 hours or less a second time through. If you know what you're doing, it should be less than 3 hours the first time through. You could beat the game without using magic, or using a weaker party member as your main or other restrictions for more challenge on another time through.

Final score:6/10 (not an average)

Reviews are simply opinions and not facts, and though nothing in the game makes it particularly stand out, I found Heroes of the Lance an enjoyable game to play and certainly not one of the worst games of all time, or on the NES.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 07/23/07