Original image located here. Accessed 24th August 2015
Boy has this been along time coming: I recall playing this over twenty years ago on my C64! True it was well and truly on the way out by then but I still played it and enjoyed it. After all, it was in the same series of the legendary Pool of Radiance so it has to be good, right?
This may sound strange but I compare Pool of Radiance to Super Mario Kart in that the first game introduced the concept and did it so well that the successive games haven't really done a lot to add to it. And that is the main problem I found with Curse of the Azure Bonds: It may have introduced two new classes, the Paladin and Ranger, as well as Dual Classing (keep in mind this was based on 2nd AD&D edition rules) but somehow it seems smaller then Pool of Radiance.
I recall Pool of Radiance being full of large areas to explore. In Curse however, the same area size is still present but there seems to be less of them. Also many of the areas are divided up. Case in point: The opening area, which is split between the city of Tilverton (where the PCs start the game) and the Thieves Guild. Now according to the background, Tilverton is a major city - it has a large temple and is visited by royalty. But for such a city it certainly seems small. And the Thieves Guild also seems small - especially when the thieves in question seem organized (one can imagine the thieves in Kovel Mansion in Pool of Radiance sniggering at these guys). True, Curse may have introduced an overworld map but the reduced areas somehow do take a lot of the immersion away from me.
Other things of note is the inclusion of Alias and Dragonbait from the original novel, Azure Bonds (for the unfamiliar, they're the two characters on the box art above). Sure they weren't much help but it was great to see them and have them join my party. It was also great to see Akabar, Olive, and Nameless too.
Also, the last battle was one tough nut to crack. It took me several attempts due to me being swamped by the Margoyles and the Priests of Bane. But when I finally managed to wipe them all out, the Big Bad, Tyranthraxus, turned out to be surprisingly easy to defeat. Anticlimax much?
Grumbling aside, I did enjoy Curse of the Azure Bonds. True it's part of the Gold Box series and I played those games a lot when I was a kid but seeing it now, it holds up surprisingly well. This goes to show that a well-designed game can outlast the march of time.
Also it's fun to see the same party I took all the way through Pool of Radiance return and go to even greater strengths.
Furthermore it's always pleasing to complete a game I started playing over twenty years ago :)
No comments:
Post a Comment