Pool of Radiance Review

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(Originally posted by Darien)

Game Nation has posted this generally positive review of The Ruins of Myth Drannor, scoring the game at 87%. The reviewer's biggest negative is the games focus on combat over story. Not a big deal if you enjoy a good dungeon crawl.

Keeping track of the adventure is wonderfully easy. It's all mouse driven, with an on-screen interface that stays out of the way, leaving 90% of the screen for gameplay at any time. This works because the game uses drop down menus to serve up your options when you need them. During any situation in the game, you can right click on any character or object, summoning up a set of drop-down options that summarize all of your choices.

Playing Pool of Radiance is a constant process of clicking and deciding. You click on an area to have your party travel there and you click on an enemy to have them attack it. Each character has their own abilities and tricks and these you can activate simply by right-clicking and selecting them...

I'll warn you now, the adventures are HUGE. The first dungeon you'll enter stretches on forever and ever and in myriad set of twists and turns just the way a dungeon should, but it can be disorienting beyond belief. Thankfully you can chuck away the graph paper as the map mode is perfect. When you switch over to the map screen, you'll find a fully 3D map showing the areas you've explored as well as key items such as stairs and signposts through a set of icons. Your party is shown individually by their combat colour circles (so if one goes wondering off in a spell-induced daze, you'll know where). You can even drop little post-it flags throughout the map and attach important notes to yourself to them such as "Fountain of Healing here".

Read the full review.