AD&D: Pool of Radiance Game Sample - NES/FC
0Original Air Date: August 24th, 2009
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Pool of Radiance is a game you'll either love or hate. Adapted from the popular computer game and obviously based on the popular AD&D franchise, these kinds of games rarely translated very well to consoles, but PoR is one of the exceptions... however, just because it's a good version doesn't mean you'll enjoy it. This game takes a lot of time and requires a lot of patience and can bore you to tears, and the NES version is simplified from the complicated computer game.
Like many games of its kind, you create your characters and determine their race and stats, as well as their gender (though this game wasn't fully prepared for females... you'll see this through the game's numerous typographical errors regarding his/her). This game is fun due to its relatively low learning curve and good instructions, but the game is mostly about taking commissions and exploring. You'll need to use your own common sense and ethics to determine what you want to do. There are plenty of mystical items and magic missiles to go around.
The area of the game that will frustrate is the fighting. Unlike normal RPGs, fights in this game can take a long time to finish, and running from enemies is rare unless they don't notice you. Memorizing spells every time you use them can get old, and this game can be cruel with the number of enemies you have to face (which is actually less than in the PC games). A good basic strategy is to have many multi-class characters and one or two pure characters, carry around spells like Sleep, Hold Person, Stink Cloud and Fireball, and save often.
This game has way too many aspects to get into detail here, so you should look up an FAQ or guide if you want to learn more. For what it's worth, I enjoyed this game. I have more than one copy of the game so I could have more than one save file, but the only copy I had quick access to is the one shown in this video. I had a pretty strange group of characters with some choice names... Santa... Celes... Nympho... lol. This video just shows a little bit of the town (New Phlan), map, a quest, and a battle sample. This game has great music. Enjoy.