Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Pool of Radiance

"One of the greatest RPGs of its time"

I love NES games. I love them to death. Play my NES a lot more than my PS2. One day I was rummaging through a discount bin at the local used game dealer and found ''Pool of Radiance''. It has $1.50, looked interesting so I thought, ''What the hell?'' and bought it. After playing for 30 seconds I got lost and frustrated. I didn't play it again until I gave it another chance a few weeks later. After getting the hang of the first person navigation and learning how to use the menu system, I got hooked.

Gameplay: 10/10 The battle system in this game puts shame to most modern RPGs. The amount you can do, the depth of strategy, everything... its incredible! You can navigate in First Person or with an over heard map of the area. I switch back and forth so I don't get lost. The game uses a class system. You create characters and they enter the game world and you may use them. They are generic classes like Fighters, Clerks, Mages, etc. Also characters have races and alignments. Different races between classes (i.e. an Elf Magic user and a Human Magic user) have different advantages and limitations. Alignment is the character's personality. The alignment of a character has different effects in the game world. For example, some weapons have spiritual alignment, meaning an evil sword can only be used by an evil person.

Battles are very well done. They consist of your 5 character party (You can create more characters, but only 5 may be in your party at once) and the enemies on a battlefield. When you encounter an enemy you can do various things. If you find the enemy before they notice you (i.e. Surprise them) you may advance (And change your initial position for the battle. Starting early means you strike first and you will be father awhile from the enemy), flee, parley, attack, etc. Sometimes parley can avoid an encounter. Enemies will sometimes give you information as well. In battles you have around 9 moves for a character per turn (However attacking or casting a spell ends your turn). Attacks miss constantly so you need to use other tactics besides physical attacks (Meaning this is nothing like Final Fantasy where you hold down the X button for every battle). Spells have various ranges. The most useful spell at the beginning of the game is sleep, because you are ensured a 100% hit against sleeping enemies.

There are so many things you can do as far as gameplay is concerned. It is hard to belive that such an old game has such advanced gameplay.

Music: 4/10 Not exactly catchy. The battle music doesn't get your heart racing or anything and there isn't anything that will bring a tear to your eye your make you tap your foot. The music is just kind of there. If you want you can turn the music and/or the soundFX off, but neither are THAT bad.

Graphics: 4/10 I don't really care about graphics. After you get used to navigating in first-person, the graphics won't bother you.

Story: You can't really give the game's story a rating because the game is non-linear. Basically you have a party of warriors and you find yourself in the city of New Phaln. New Phaln is having a problem with monsters invading their city, the commission you for various tasks if you want, but really, you can do whatever the hell you want. You won't sit through lots of story dialog, this game is about gameplay.

Lasting appeal: 9/10 With countless strategies, plenty of optional quests and areas you don't have to go and non-linear style, this game offers you countless hours of game time.

Buy or ''Rent'': If you find it, its probably cheap, just buy it. It often pops up on Ebay.com for like $6.

Final Score: 9/10 The level of gameplay in this game is far ahead of its time. I recommend this game to people that like RPGs for solid gameplay. If you are part of the post-FF7 crowd, this game isn't for you. If you want pure Role-playing greatness, this is the game for you. It is well worth your time.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 08/07/01, Updated 08/07/01