Gold Box Never played them seriously, so... what's the best Gold Box game?

[octavius]

From my experience with Pool of Radiance:
They all prob suck hard.

- Backstab! - is fun.

 

[The Old Kiwi]

- Backstab! - is fun.

Other than that, I believe the D&D / AD&D rules really crippled the Thief class, so I always double classed one member of my party as a part-time thief (well, at least I think I did. It WAS 30-something years ago! Only now am I so ({Covid19} restricted on activity I'm considering replaying a couple of these!)

 

[ProphetSword]

I was one of those fools who bought Pool of Radiance for 50 euros after finishing Baldur's Gate 2
After see how battle paced so slow I never played it again.

As other people have said, I think you've got the wrong game. The shameless "sequel" to Pool of Radiance (called "Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor"), but a blatant cash grab trying to seize upon the popularity of D&D video games and the legacy of a much cherished series. It was a buggy mess that was infamously known to uninstall your operating system when you attempted to remove it from your hard drive. I paid $60 for it on the day of release, and like you, found it to be a steaming pile. Combat was extremely slow an unintuitive, and I could have probably lived with it if there had been more to the game than just that, but there apparently wasn't.

POR:RoMD is not a Gold-Box game. Never will be.

Just for reference, there are 13 actual Gold-Box games in total:

Pool of Radiance
Curse of the Azure Bonds
Secret of the Silver Blades
Pools of Darkness
Gateway to the Savage Frontier
Treasures of the Savage Frontier
Champions of Krynn
Death Knights of Krynn
Dark Queen of Krynn
Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday
Buck Rogers: Matrix Cubed
Heirs to Skull Crag (comes built into Unlimited Adventures)
Neverwinter Nights (online only, but considered by the authors to be the third in the Savage Frontier series)


Despite what some people think, games with "Eye of the Beholder" or "Dark Sun" in their titles are not Gold-Box games (which is not to say they aren't good games in their own right), nor is the game "Hillsfar," despite it allowing you to port characters in and out of it to different games in the Gold-Box series.

 

[Lilura]

POR:RoMD is not a Gold-Box game. Never will be.

It never claimed to be. PoR: RoMD is pretty good. I'd much prefer to replay it than Goldpox RPGs.

 

[Lawntoilet]

POR:RoMD is not a Gold-Box game. Never will be.

It never claimed to be. PoR: RoMD is pretty good. I'd much prefer to replay it than Goldpox RPGs.

Looks somewhat like ToEE - or at least, it looks more similar to ToEE than it does to the IE games. How would you compare/contrast them?

 

[Lilura]

Looks somewhat like ToEE - or at least, it looks more similar to ToEE than it does to the IE games. How would you compare/contrast them?

ToEE >> PoR: RoMD.

 

[Lawntoilet]

Looks somewhat like ToEE - or at least, it looks more similar to ToEE than it does to the IE games. How would you compare/contrast them?

ToEE >> PoR: RoMD.

Well obviously.
I meant more like, how similar are their systems?
I have not seen any such comparison on your blog so I am of course incapable of forming an authoritative opinion on the matter.

 

[Daemongar]

Other than that, I believe the D&D / AD&D rules really crippled the Thief class

I also believe the system that invented the Thief class crippled the Thief class. It was born crippled!!!

 

[Null Null]

Old-school tabletop dungeons had a lot of traps and chests to make the thief useful. My guess is SSI, with their wargames background, didn't play that aspect up.

 

[The Jester]

POR:RoMD is not a Gold-Box game. Never will be.

It never claimed to be. PoR: RoMD is pretty good. I'd much prefer to replay it than Goldpox RPGs.

Is this the one that would delete windows system files when you uninstalled it?

 

[The Old Kiwi]

It never claimed to be. PoR: RoMD is pretty good. I'd much prefer to replay it than Goldpox RPGs.

Is this the one that would delete windows system files when you uninstalled it?

Yes, this was the one!

 

[The Jester]

It never claimed to be. PoR: RoMD is pretty good. I'd much prefer to replay it than Goldpox RPGs.

Is this the one that would delete windows system files when you uninstalled it?

Yes, this was the one!

Bruh, what the hell were the programmers doing?

 

[ProphetSword]

Getting back to the original question asked in the thread, when it comes to the Gold-Box games, I would probably play the DOS versions. The Commodore 64 versions have better sound, but the DOS versions have better graphics and run much faster overall. Also, DOS actually has all the games in the series. Except for the Mac, I'm not sure if any other system actually had all the games (I know the C64 is missing some of the later games).

Another reason why you should play the DOS versions: If you want to get into playing any of the modules made for Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures (FRUA), most of the tools to make them run correctly are written for DOS.

 

[Null Null]

True, but then they could download the DOS version of FRUA and play something else for the game they prefer.

If you just want to play Pool of Radiance, I'd argue Amiga is best--the graphics are better. Otherwise, yeah, go with DOS. The Mac graphics have their charm, but are there Mac emulators for that era?

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

The Mac graphics have their charm, but are there Mac emulators for that era?

Yes, Mini vMac should work just fine, and supposedly Basilisk 2 will run it too. That's assuming someone is willing to put in the effort to get a Mac emulator running. Although if they're willing to put in the effort to get an Amiga emulator working...or you know, just find a pre-packaged emulator, but it would be a fool's errand to just randomly search for such a thing...

 

[rusty_shackleford]

The correct answer is the buck rogers games

 

[Grauken]

The correct answer is Pools of Darkness, but to really enjoy what it does you should have played from Pool of Radiance to it (including the two Savage Frontier games, you can import your parties (except some stuff), which is kinda neat)

 

[Arrowgrab]

The Buck Rogers games were always close to my heart, but I'll be the first to admit that they're the red-headed stepchild of the series.

 

[Null Null]

The correct answer is Pools of Darkness, but to really enjoy what it does you should have played from Pool of Radiance to it (including the two Savage Frontier games, you can import your parties (except some stuff), which is kinda neat)

It's my favorite as well, but it's a tough slog for a beginner. The game is constructed to challenge longtime fans of the series, and a lot of the references will go over a new player's head (who is Sasha, and why do I care that she keeps getting kidnapped?)

Glad to see you mentioned the little-known Curse<-> Gateway and Pools <-> Treasures transitions. When transferring to Pools, be warned as the named items (Golden Battle Axe etc) will get corrupted names.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

I only played 3 Gold Box games to completion, all on my Commodore 64, but I enjoyed them. They were (in order): PoR, CoK, and BR:CTD. I remember getting bored near the end of the Buck Rogers game and skipping a lot of the areas just so I could rush to the finish. Doing this with PoR would have been unheard of since I wanted to thoroughly explore every nook and cranny. I took a look at the IBM/Amiga ports of Pool much later and I was surprised at how much I preferred the C64 version. Same with Dragon Wars and Neuromancer; the Amiga versions had nicer graphics/sounds but something was missing. Anyway, Pool of Radiance was probably the best in the series so I recommend starting with that.

 

[Cael]

The correct answer is Pools of Darkness, but to really enjoy what it does you should have played from Pool of Radiance to it (including the two Savage Frontier games, you can import your parties (except some stuff), which is kinda neat)

It's my favorite as well, but it's a tough slog for a beginner. The game is constructed to challenge longtime fans of the series, and a lot of the references will go over a new player's head (who is Sasha, and why do I care that she keeps getting kidnapped?)

Glad to see you mentioned the little-known Curse<-> Gateway and Pools <-> Treasures transitions. When transferring to Pools, be warned as the named items (Golden Battle Axe etc) will get corrupted names.

I wish that they kept the named items thing in DQK. Graphics-wise, it was a much better game, but it went back to the bland +x items for the most part. Treasures had just about every magic weapon/armour named and tagged.

 

[octavius]

Mostly fluff. I remember being disappointed that all those fancy helmets were just +2 Helmets with a cooler name, for example.

 

[Cael]

Mostly fluff. I remember being disappointed that all those fancy helmets were just +2 Helmets with a cooler name, for example.

There were a few. Redflame Armour +2 and Armour of the Glacier +1 had fire resistance. Sword of Stonecutting +3 did double damage vs stone creatures. The Northhelm +2 had cold resistance.

And then we had the rings. Rings of Electric Immunity, Cold Resistance, Fire Resistance.

You end up being far better protected against magic in Treasures than DQK :D

 

[Null Null]

Yup, and the Farrberjik Boots cast Dimension door. If you try to port them to POD, you get an item with a garbage name that casts Mirror Image.

 

[Cael]

Yup, and the Farrberjik Boots cast Dimension door. If you try to port them to POD, you get an item with a garbage name that casts Mirror Image.

Belt of Protection also helps free up a slot for more rings.