Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Dragons of Flame

"Another terrible video game about Dragonlance."

Dragons of Flame was only released in Japan but is available for a translated download. I'm sure that was only done for completionists considering that this is another bad AD&D game for the NES.

Following the 8 Dragonlance characters once again, you go on a short journey full of terrible gameplay, abysmal sound, unresponsive controls and frustrating menus.

Fighting enemies is not very enjoyable in this game, which takes it's basic fighting technique from Zelda 2 and destroys it. Controls are unresponsive, enemy techniques are almost non-apparent considering sometimes you really can't evade attacks, and you run into situations where you have to take damage often.

The sound isn't particularly successful in this game, the effects are blocky and the music is very passable.

The controls are more fast-paced this time around but still retain the unresponsiveness that made fighting enemies in Heroes of the Lance so amazingly bad.

Enemies range in certain attacks but mostly you have to approach, hit, maybe not get hit, maybe get hit, back off, re-approach, hit continue. Some enemies will stand at the landing of a pit that you have to jump, and you have to take damage. You don't want to take damage in this game because healing is not very attainable beyond the small spells that your cleric can cast.

Crouching on items will pick them up, but you have to be careful who picks up what and if you can even use that item with anybody (???). Going into the menu is necessary to do a lot of things such as pick spells.

The game is also pretty short, which I guess is a good thing considering it's a pain to play. It has more redeeming qualities than Heroes of the Lance, but still it's not worth it. Why they even decided to continue this series on the NES is beyond me, somehow they don't realize how terrible these games are. Oh well, if you want the true Dragonlance experience, just pick up the old AD&D sets and the Dragonlance module to play it how it's supposed to be played. Don't play this.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 01/05/06