Pool of Radiance
Finished!
I didn't have much game left, but the final area was a bit more expansive than I thought it would be. There were actually enough unique encounters there to get my two fighters to maximum level, but I fell just short of getting an additional thief level for my fighter/thief.
The final battle was a joke even with my honestly-rolled party, and much easier than either the vampire in Valhingen Graveyard or the consecutive chain of battles in the Kobold Caves. I was surprised to find that both Hold Person and Stinking Cloud work fine on the enemies in the penultimate battle, which meant I entered the final battle nearly at full health. After a single Haste spell and a couple of Potions of Giant Strength quaffed by my fighters, Tyranthraxus went down in just a couple of rounds.
The ending was somewhat disappointing but at least I got a nice EGA cutscene out of it. It dropped me back to town with enough experience to level my fighter/thief up once in each class, and now I'm ready to transfer to Curse of the Azure Bonds. First, though, I am gonna read the novel and I might take my fighter/thief through Hillsfar as well.
I may discard my two fighters and replace them with a paladin and ranger created anew in Curse. We'll see!
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This was a seriously awesome game!
Much like Wizardry I and Might & Magic I, playing Pool of Radiance feels like playing something from the future when you consider when it was released, because it's so much better than anything else that came out around the same time. While playing through it I was constantly impressed with the exploration, sense of advancement, and its excellent tactical combat. What I didn't realize was how much actual role-playing there is in this game. I looked through the clue book after I completed the game and was very surprised to find that all the choices I had made in the game actually have meaning. What other game in 1988 was doing this? Your actions even affect things in other areas—for example, I had saved a group of lizard men in one area and they gave me a password. Hours later, I used that password when I discovered their settlement to ally with the old leader against the an upstart challenger. This meant I could solve the quest simply by winning a duel with the upstart. The clue book tells me that, without the password, you would just have to clear the area by slaughtering the entire lizard man army! Or how about the fact that if you have any Evil hirelings in your party they will turn on you and ally with the enemy during the final battle? Simply unbelievable in 1988 or even now in 2020.
The thing that most surprised me about this game was that it never wastes your time. It never annoys you with trash mazes or trash combat, instead every map is full of interesting things to find (and also to kill). There are only two areas in the game where I faced large armies of "easy" enemies: the massive orc battle in Sokal Keep and the Kobold Caves. These aren't trash combats; instead, they are ways to take enemies that are individually very weak but make them a threat for a comparatively powerful party. I loved it, these were a blast to figure out.
I loved how you gained most of your experience from finding treasures and completing missions. The reward for winning battles (besides the enjoyable combat engine) was finding powerful magic equipment, and that's fine with me!
Overall, 10/10 game. I know the Gold Box series remains anywhere from decent to great from here on out, but it's a bit sad to finish such an awesome game knowing that nothing else reaches its heights. Even so, I suspect it will be like Wizardry I-III where even a comparatively poor Wizardry game is so far ahead of everything else out there that it's a pleasure to play.
