Treasures of the Savage Frontier - PC (MS-DOS) - 1992

Treasures of the Savage Frontier marks the end of the road for SSI's Gold Box engine.  It has given good service over the nine AD&D (and two Buck Rogers) games starting with Pool of Radiance in 1988.  There have been a couple of hiccups along the way, but for the most part the series has been very good.

This game is the follow up to Gateway to the Savage Frontier released the previous year.  The main things I remember about Gateway was the step backwards the Gold Box engine took and the contrived ending.  This time I am playing the DOS version as the VGA graphics are a big improvement over the 16 colours displayed on the Amiga.  Things got off to an inauspicious start when I had to create my party using the awkward character designer.  Picking the icons was so much easier in The Dark Queen of Krynn.

I can't say I'm sorry to see the back of this.

Indeed, it seems like Treasures of the Savage Frontier used a Gold Box engine several versions older than the last couple of games:-

1. You have to press (M)ove to enter a move mode and then (E)xit before you can perform any other actions.  In most of the games you can simply use the cursor keys or the mouse to move.
2. You have to quit the game and restart in order to load a saved game.
3. It's not so easy to move around with the mouse - the cursor no longer changes to show your intended direction in the 3D window.
4. The graphics aren't as good as The Dark Queen of Krynn which was also released in 1992.
5. This last point affects all Gold Box games - what is described is not what you see in the first person view.

Description vs reality.

The manual says that Amanitas has magically transported your party, the Heroes of Ascore, to the city of Llorkh.  Zhentarim survivors from the last game are battling the resident dwarves for control of the city.  You have been summoned to aid the dwarves in defeating the Zhentarim and are then to visit Amanitas in Secomber.

Amanitus was the mage in Gateway to the Savage Frontier  who told us where to go next.  He does this again but this time we can communicate with him via a magic crown so we don't need to travel to Secomber each time we complete a task.

As the game goes on it is revealed that the Zhentarim, Hosttower Mages and the Kraken society have joined forces with the goal of taking over the region.  The Lord's Alliance is made up of a dozen cities who have grouped together to combat common threats in the area.  The evil union is intent on breaking up the Alliance using kidnapping, deception and subterfuge to set the cities against one another.  They have also framed the Heroes of Ascore as traitors.

Miscellaneous notes...

• Combat has been tweaked by occasionally adding fresh opponents or friendly NPCs to a battle already in progress.  This can make the fights a little more interesting.

• Some higher level items of magic equipment have been given names such as Sword of Stalking +4, Squid Shield +2 and Redflame Armour +2.  I'm not sure if they are imbued with extra abilities.

• I kept picking up loads of Lucky Papers during the game.  Without knowing what they were for I didn't want to throw them away...

• It turned out you can read them with three coloured crystals, one each from a Zhentil Lord, a Hosttower Sorceress and a Kraken Master.  If you meet them in battle and kill one of the enemies you can pick up their crystal. The remaining opponents smash theirs.  To collect them all you have to ensure you kill a different type of opponent first.  Lucky papers show the enemy objectives in each town.  I guess you can use these if you want to complete any city quest out of order.  I didn't.

• There is a cheesy romance between the main character and a recruited NPC.  It doesn't detract from the plot but doesn't really add anything either.

*barf*

• There were at least a couple magic stores that sold the whole gamut of +1 weapons and armour.  I don't recall seeing one in any of the other gold box games apart from the occasional store that sold wands, potions and scrolls.

After completing quests in all the cities it was off to Mirabar to meet with the Councilors of the Lord's Alliance and to prove our innocence.  This brought up the usual end game screens with pages of reading...

What came next seemed disconnected from the main quest and felt like it was tacked on afterwards.  We were tasked with retrieving a magical gem from the hoard of a long dead (yeah, right) dragon.  This was to be found in Ice Peak in the far north of the overworld map.

The dragon's lair was located in a maze-like area on the far side of a one way door - once in you can't get out.

Alas, I was unable to finish the game due to an impossible penultimate battle.  You are attacked by three groups made up of blackrobed mages, spies and masters.  The blackrobed mages and blackrobed spies always get the jump on you and have a propensity for casting hold monster and hold person spells.  The blackrobed masters finish off held characters and disrupt my mages spells.  I'm lucky if I can get through the first round with half my party able to move.  Having a hasted party, invisible characters, and even turning the level down to Novice makes no difference to the outcome.  After many failed attempts I watched a couple of 'Let's Plays' on YouTube to see how it was done.  The videos showed the players being attacked by two groups of four and one group of five.  I had this...

Thirteen opponents would have been doable, twenty-five were not.  If anyone has any ideas please let me know*.

Although I couldn't complete the game I did like it.  Contemporary reviews weren't very kind calling it more of the same.  This is fine by me as I like the series.  Also, I found Treasures of the Savage Frontier was refreshing as it took us back to where Hold Person and Stinking Cloud spells still worked and my starting characters couldn't yet cast Fireballs. 

It was not quite the fitting end to the series I had hoped for but I still enjoyed it.  Here's hoping SSI's Dark Sun engine games are just as good.









*Addendum

After finishing writing this entry I did go on to complete the game.  I needed to load up my final save just to confirm the names of the enemies in the 'unwinnable' battle so I didn't bother buffing.  I decided to have a go anyway and was lucky enough to get off two fireballs before the enemy started to cast, so disrupting most of their spellcasters.  Their first volley of 'holds' only affected a couple of my party.  Some friendly dwarves and extra enemies turned up and I eventually won with only three dead characters.  The end game....

Having no chance to rest or heal we were thrown into a battle against Freezefire.  This was an ancient dragon that once terrorised the realm.  After the last battle it was disappointingly easy.  Although it had a -8 AC, it only had 56 hit points and was not immune to magic.  It went down within two rounds managing to hit only one accompanying dwarf with some kind of cold attack.

"You do realise this game doesn't have a sequel don't you?"

The End

 

The Dark Queen of Krynn - PC (MS-DOS) - 1992

As I've said before, the longer the Gold Box series of games have gone on, the weaker they seem to have become.  They certainly started well enough with Pool of Radiance and Curse of the Azure Bonds, but none of the subsequent games have managed to match them.  Maybe the developers got lazy (it certainly seems so with Secret of the Silver Blades).  Maybe it's more rewarding finding your first +1 sword, being able to afford your first set of plate mail, or casting your first fireball than it is to start a game with god-like warriors.  Whatever the reason, my initial interest in the series has certainly gone off the boil. This culminated in Pools of Darkness which I could not bring myself to finish.  Combat was eminently frustrating and mainly decided on which side cast the first spell.  As my mages had a dexterity of less than 18, I lost out on initiative most of the time.  Having to get rid of your best weapons to cross the planes was the final straw.  I knocked that game on the head.

With the Forgotten Realms games out of the way it's time to return to the Dragonlance setting for the final game in the Krynn series.  In The Dark Queen of Krynn the combat is still challenging but a lot fairer than Pools.  Your characters will be turned to stone, disintegrated and level drained on a regular basis.  They will often be sliced and diced by blade barriers and barbecued by a barrage of delayed blast fireballs.  Even so, the enemy still feels beatable in fights where you are not first off the mark.  And you can keep your good gear.

In a change of format I am playing this game on the PC.  Where there is not much to choose between the sound (what little there is), the PC graphics are displayed in 256 colour VGA.  The Amiga is stuck with 16 colour graphics.

You can show me your wares anytime, love.

To this end I recreated my party from the last game using the modify function to replicate their stats.  For the first time in a Gold Box game you do not have the option to create a custom avatar.  Instead you are given a selection of 49 pre-drawn characters to choose from.

The manual starts with a letter from General Lauralanthalasa summoning you to the city of Palanthas.  This is a menu town where you can go straight to the palace or visit the temple, training hall, shop, inn or bar.

At the palace the General says there have been reports of Draconians gathering in the south.  She urges you to travel to Caergoth to see if the reports are true (won't be much of a game if they're not).

You arrive to find Caergoth a smouldering pile of rubble.  Evidence points to the attack being carried out by draconians and blue dragons.  Indeed, the first encounter is with two blue and one green dragon.  The draconians have already departed taking Crysia, the sister of a sea captain, with them.  You set sail with Captain Daenor in hot pursuit.  I don't remember there being an option to return to Palanthas to report your findings to the General.

I will note my thoughts below.....

• While chasing the draconians and Crysia your ship is wrecked in a storm.  You wind up in a city of Sea Elves as it is under attack from various sea monsters.  This offers an interesting twist in combats as your movement is slowed, missile weapons are unusable and some spells (such as fireballs) won't work.  The most reliable spell is magic missile which doesn't always affect Sea Dragons.

Underwater combat requires a change of tactics

• As with all Gold Box games the economy is broken.  From the outset you can pick up pocketfuls of coins, gems and jewellery but there is simply nowhere to spend it.  Inns are free, training is free, and most shops sell items no better than those you start with.

There is more treasure in this one haul than I spent in the entire game.

• I don't know why they bothered to include the Area command.  It only worked in a few places at the beginning of the game.

• I had to consult a map a couple of times.  The first was after I spent hours fighting gorgons, beholders, iron golems and countless giant spiders to get to the top of the Luminari Lighthouse.  Once there I was confronted with a dead end.  The map showed a teleporter deviously hidden behind a false wall at the bottom of the tower.  I'm not even sure the Lighthouse was necessary to complete the main quest anyway, even though the plot pointed you in that direction.

• The 3D window contains more detailed graphics than ever before.  However, mapping takes longer as it's not always clear which way passages go from a distance.
  

• I encountered an annoying situation/bug in Hawkbluff Tower.  I got into a random battle with enemies behind a wall with no way to reach them.  Grunschka, an NPC that I can mostly control, was played automatically so it took ages for the battle to resolve itself even after I had made the rest of the party flee.

• Go to spells in this game were Delayed Blast Fireballs and Haste.  Haste ages your characters by a year each time it is cast.  By the end of the game Crockett and Lumley were 64 years old, while Carraway and Hazel were 383.  It didn't seem to hamper them in combat. 

• Another strange thing happened when exploring Hawkbluff Tower.  While mapping the maze-like levels the game displayed an unexpected message after finding book...

It may not appear strange but I hadn't met anyone called Davik.  I marked the location on my map and reloaded in case this message was a game breaker.  I later found Davik in the dungeons.  A similar thing happened in Champions of Krynn where the game expected me to do things in a certain order.

• There is a large overworld map covering two screens.  Two places you need to visit are not marked (one I stumbled across, the other I had to look up).  Another location I couldn't get to as I was beaten back by hidden bowmen.

• I would have needed a dictionary to play this back in the day.  Lissome?  Fule?  Immolate?

• Invisibility doesn't seem to work.  Casting Mass Invisibility on your party seems to have no effect.  Even characters wearing a Ring of Invisibility are targeted as if they were in full sight.

• As mentioned, combat is a lot more difficult in this game (although not as bad as Pools of Darkness).  The Draconians have been made much more powerful since Champions of Krynn. For example, below is the start of one of the tougher fights.

o   The Enchanted Kapak Draconians are the least powerful and just leave some pools of acid behind when they are killed.  The acid damages both the party and other Draconians.

o   Enchanted Sivak Draconians like to get in close and explode when killed.  Any party member within two squares take a lot of damage.  Other Draconians are not harmed.

o  The green Enchanted Bozaks ‘zap’ anyone who hits them with a melee weapon.  Hasted characters can take a lot of damage this way.  When they die they explode harming any non-draconian within two squares.  They can also cast magic spells such as Lightning Bolts.

o   Enchanted Auraks seem to have two lives.  The first time their Hit Points reach zero they ‘Go mad’.  This causes them to ‘immolate’, sometimes damaging nearby party members.  The second time they lose their Hit Points they 'Rise in a new form' and continue to ‘immolate’ but are unable to move.  After a couple more rounds they explode harming any adjacent PC.  They can also cast spells, favouring Delayed Blast Fireballs.

On top of this, Draconians are somewhat immune to magic.  On average an area effect spell such as Delayed Blast Fireball damages only about 50% of them.  Targeted spells such as Magic Missiles do not always work.   This particular battle took a few reloads.  My best result was one dead character, one unconscious character and one surviving Gnome out of six.  It didn't help that my spellcasters started closest to the enemy.  Long before this fight most of my party were ready for levelling with no training hall in sight.

As the plot moves on you come to realise that the various cities are being infiltrated by Draconians, with the shape-shifters replacing each King with one of their own.  Liberating the Gnomish city of Aldinanchru allowed us to use their windships to cross the lava sea to reach the Draconian power base - The Tower of Flame.

When traversing the Tower of Flame the game likes to tell you which level you are on and prompts you to press return every step.  Every. Single. Step.  

This isn't going to get annoying.

At the end of the Tower of Flame are two consecutive battles (no chance to save or rest between).  The battles are tough and after the second one you step into the Abyss.  Why?  I don't know - I didn't have a choice.

Thank you.

The Abyss appears to be empty in all directions and I encountered some tough monsters.  It took a couple of reloads to work out where I was supposed to go which was a square building.  I found some dude called Raistlin Majere chained up and there was another combat.  This time magic did not work and enemies included Enchanted Sivak and Bozak Draconians.  Going toe to toe would have been suicide so I kept moving away (risking their free hits) and peppered them with my meagre supply of missile weapons.  Raistlin explained that the evil god Takhisis had created a portal between the Abyss and Krynn in order to wreak havoc.  The portal could only be used once and would then close.  Again it was out into the emptiness and with no clue which way to go I headed north.  After a while Raistlin (un)helpfully said I should I should go east.  I got there just in time to see Takhisis disappearing into the portal.

A right little ray of sunshine you are.

The second attempt didn't end too well either.  I took a wrong option somewhere.  Takhisis saw us and killed our arses.

I finally managed to get through the portal but took a lot of damage on the way.  I thought now we had trapped Takhisis in the Abyss the game would end but not so.  I was a bit confused over what happened next.  We met a bunch of gnomes standing around the 'Grathanich' (whatever that is).  They said they would guard us while we rested but they ran off after the Grathanich when it sunk through the floor.  Meanwhile we were left facing a five-headed dragon.  Tahkisis intended to to use the dragon to receive her spirit when she came to Krynn.  It went down quite easily due to the Dragonlance that Crockett was wielding.

After winning that battle I was stuck as to what to do.  After wandering around aimlessly for a while I came across some Draconians communicating with Takhisis via a mirror.

After wandering around some more I gave up and looked at a walkthrough. It seems the Grathanich doesn't re-appear until triggered by an encounter with another bunch of Draconians in a specific place, which doesn't make sense to me.  Where was it in the meantime?  

Anyhow, you encounter the Draconians trying to encase the Grathanich in an iron ball.

 
After three consecutive battles against Draconians and Dragons, the Grathanich ends up lost at the bottom of the lava sea.

You are then whisked back to Aldinanachru where it's time to paaartay.

Unfortunately it gets crashed by some dragons we helped earlier.

Another battle ensues against a dozen or so dragons.  Although Hazel had died at the Tower of Flame and couldn't be resurrected I managed to beat them on my second go.  Just two characters were (barely) left standing and the game was won. 

    

The Dark Queen of Krynn has been criticised for being buggy and a combat-centric hack n’ slash affair.  Personally I didn’t encounter any game breaking bugs and the turn-based combat is one of the series strong points.  There is a varied array of enemies from Black Puddings to Zombie Mintotaurs and whole bunch in between.  Having underwater combat and fights with no magic helps mix things up.  Some fights were difficult (especially towards the end), but the outcome didn’t necessarily rely on who had the initiative which was the main issue I had with Pools of Darkness.  The plot is pretty mundane and there is some padding (eg. Luminari Lighthouse, Hulderfolk Wood, consecutive battles) but overall I liked this game a lot.  A fitting climax to the Krynn series.