More Gameplay

Snail's pace

Combat in Pool or Radiance is turn-based, just like the pen and paper game. There are a ton of great turn-based games (X-Com, Civilization) so there's nothing inherently wrong with that. In PoR however, the turn-based system is just too slow. Enemies take a long time to complete their turn - they all walk very slowly (undead take forever), and they pause for a few seconds before every action. A battle can take over 20 minutes and by they end you're screaming at the computer to hurry up and get on with it. Combat would be much better if they took out the pauses and sped up movement rates.

Dungeon crawling is a staple to every fantasy RPG. Unfortunately, in Pool of Raidance the game is basically two gigantic dungeon crawls. In the beginning, you find out that you need to find a ring to open the way to the city of Myth Drannor. The ring is somewhere in a dungeon - but they fail to mention that the dungeon is four levels deep and the size of Montana. Well, maybe not that big, but each level takes about 10 minutes to run from corner to corner. Add in the turn-based combat around every corner and it can take over ten hours to explore one level. I can see how some people may appreciate the constant dungeon hacking, but I tend to favor story and character development in RPGs.

Arraccats are everywhere

Liches don't mess around

Cone of Cold

What's going on?

Pool of Radiance doesn't go anywhere. You can play for several hours without leveling your characters or progressing the plot. You're in a dungeon, and you have a vague notion that you need to find stairs to the next level, but no real guidance. The journal keeps track of the sidequests, but the messages are cryptic and give no direction. A lot of times I stumbled into a room, found an item, and finished a sidequest without having the quest assigned to me in the first place. The main plot is just as bad. There's no distinction between the main story and the sidequests. Sometimes you'll find an item or kill a monster that you think is part of a sidequest, but is actually an integral part of the main story. In general, PoR needs more focus in the main plot and clarity in the sidequests.

Much of the game's focus could have been cleared up with the minimap. The map automatically transcribes the layout of each level for you. This is nice, but the levels are so huge and there are so many locked doors that it's damn near impossible to remember everything you need to do on your own. You can keep notes on the map with flags but it's confusing as to what you need to keep notes on. A map that automatically notes locked doors, directions of stairways, and important areas would have been a great addition to this game.

A sidequest, I think

It sings if you're nice

The Hall of Wizards

Difficulty

This game is tough! Battles take a lot of planning and lucky dice rolls. Near the end of the game it's common to see groups of 14d12 monsters with 25+ AC. Your characters are always a few levels below the enemies you fight (with a level cap of 16), which makes it even harder. I don't mind difficult games, but in PoR it does two things: 1) You're forced to reload saved games often, increasing the time it takes to play, and 2) Your party is forced to rest every few battles. I don't like RPGs that force you to rest often. In "real life" it would be equivalent to fighting for five minutes then resting for eight hours constantly. This never happens in any D&D books so I don't see why it should happen in games.