Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos

aka: Lands of Lore: Chaos Na Tronie, Lands of Lore: Kaosu no Gyokuza
Moby ID: 846
DOS Specs
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Description official descriptions

The Dark Army is on the move again, led by the evil sorceress Scotia. Her goal is obvious: to destroy Gladstone Keep and its ruler King Richard. Scotia herself has recently become more powerful after acquiring "the Mask" from the Urban Mines, gaining the ability to shape-shift. She is virtually unstoppable and able to infiltrate Gladstone Keep, poisoning King Richard. If it were not for the intervention of Sorceress Dawn, the monarch would surely be dead. In order to find a cure for the King's illness, a band of heroes must set out on an adventure, and keep themselves alive from the Dark Army forces.

Lands of Lore: Throne of Chaos is a real-time dungeon-crawling role-playing game viewed from a first-person perspective. Players begin by choosing one of the four available protagonists: the Dracoid Ak'shel (high magic power), the Huline Kieran (high speed), and two humans: Michael (high strength) and Conrad (balanced character). Each has his weaknesses and strengths, but all abilities in the game can be eventually upgraded.

Much of the game consists of exploring pseudo-3D maze-like dungeons. Most of them contain secret areas and it is sometimes necessary to solve puzzles to advance. Real-time combat involves clicking on either the attack or magic icon for each character. Depending on their speed attribute they will need a certain amount of cooldown time before the player can activate them again. The point-and-click interface allows interaction with some background objects, sometimes eliciting comments from the protagonist or his companions.

The game does not feature manual character development, introducing instead a semi-automatic form of leveling up, where skills of the hero and the companions are divided into Fighting, Magic and Rogue skills. Each skill level will increase when killing enemies using a particular type of attack: melee weapons increase the Fighting skills, magic increases the Magic skill, and ranged weapons increase the Rogue skills. In the course of the game players will form a party of up to three heroes in the quest for the cure. The player is able to equip these characters with new weapons and armor in a "paper doll" styled interface. The CD version includes full speech.

Spellings

  • ランズオブロア - Japanese spelling
  • 黑暗王座 - Traditional Chinese spelling

Groups +

Screenshots

Promos

Credits (DOS version)

68 People (64 developers, 4 thanks) · View all

Design
Programming
Music
Sound
German Voices
Acting / Voiceovers
Executive Producer
Producer
Production Coordinator
Lead Programming
Lead Artist
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 86% (based on 20 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.1 out of 5 (based on 106 ratings with 8 reviews)

An adventuress, spine tingling game with many creatures and puzzles.

The Good
I love this game. I've had it for the past 10 years and I never get sick of playing it. I put it away for a few years and then come back to it. Time seems to fly by because there is always something to figure out. I like the mazes and the puzzles that are in the came. Fantastic.

The Bad
The only thing I don't like about the game is getting stuck. It can be hard figuring out what I've done wrong to find a path for a key or object. It could also be a bit brighter in the caves and caverns even when using the lantern. Just not bright enough to see down the path very far.

The Bottom Line
I would describe this game as exciting. Like I stated before in what I liked about the game. Trying to figure out the paths and where the keys and objects are to get to the next level keep the game interesting and unique. There's adventure in every land. The game keeps you on the edge of your seat and I quite enjoy that. Bravo Westwood Studio's and Virgin Games.

DOS · by Jess Private (1) · 2007

A very well designed RPG that lacks proper atmosphere and gameplay rules

The Good
The team who developed it is the same who did the eye of the beholder series, so the same graphical detail is applied here but this time with much better ingame animations and animated cutscenes compared to the EOB series. The game is rich in cutscenes and plot changes through the game and sometimes it reminds me of an epic adventure game rather than a typical dungeon crawling RPG. That's a great plus!

Being able not only to crawl through dungeons but moving in a palace, through woods, visiting inns and a great variety of places like a city, a swamp, some mines or a castle, buying or selling stuff or clicking on things and see what happens makes it's world quite more interesting and varied than older games of it's kind. There are a lot of surprises and new stuff to discover each time you play it again from the start.

The music is also much better than in the EOB series. There is a different MIDI tune for each dungeon out there, some of which are quite good and remind me of music from other Westwood titles. Although, some of the musics kinda destroy the atmosphere in certain places, which the EOB series implied with their pure silence.

The Bad
It seems that the gameplay and RPG rules were simplified to the extreme point, maybe because the designers wanted to make the game far too easy for anyone who hasn't played an RPG before.

  • First of all there are no D&D rules but that's ok for me since an RPG is allowed to carry it's own preferred rules.

  • There is no character creation, you just choose from four faces who bear different characteristics as might, speed or magic. The characters can be both fighters, cast magic and have rogue skills at a different rate according to the character you choose.

  • There are some extreme oversimplifications that totally kills the feeling that this is an RPG where you are actually challenged to survive. If one character loses all of his energy then you can either use the healing spell or drink a healing potion to revive him. There is no such a thing as truly dead that needs to be raised by a cleric or something. The game only ends if all two or three characters have lost their energy. Also if a character is poisoned, you just wait till he loses all energy by poison and healing him would also make all the effects from poison disappear.

  • Automap is good. But not when it automatically reveals you all switches you might have not seen and secret walls you might have not passed through. Just move in a room and bring on the automap and you can see blocks marked with a big S for secret walls. But what is the point of secret walls if the automap reveals them to you before you happen to hit air trying to bump into an illusionary wall?

  • Using a bow or throwing stars, they come with unlimited ammo that you never have to pick up from the ground. I know that in other RPGs like eye of the beholder it was truly annoying to have to pick up all projectiles you have used after every small or big fight but what is happening in lands of lore kills all realism and so the atmosphere.

Except from the rules, other things that I didn't like is how fast some monsters are killing you, also that there are no clues of where some special objects are needed to be used (like in certain areas on monsters that cannot be killed otherwise or how to bean the final witch).

The Bottom Line
Some people describe it as what Eye of the Beholder 3 should be. It's not exactly that. While it's much better visually than the EOB series and while it's more varied in places and plot, there is something wrong with it's gameplay and roleplaying rules. It's maybe the fact that the developers tried to cut-off and simplify the gameplay for people who haven't played an RPG before. Which might be disappointing for those who have played the EOB series or any other D&D based games. Several simplifications in the gameplay kill the atmosphere too. Great visually, not so great in terms of gameplay.

DOS · by Optimus (75) · 2009

Finally, on their own grounds

The Good
Westwood reached out to brilliance with their Eye of the Beholder games while working under SSI's surveillance, and soon after they became independent game developer on their own, they decided to give it baby one more try! Aha! And this time with noone but their own team, and hence Lands of Lore was born. Superior to EotB in everything but nostalgic factor, this game casted vast outdoors as well as indoors upon the player. The detail level was simply amazing, and you could now hop through shots or slide to create more real movement feeling. Frank Klepacki did brilliant soundtrack to emphasize the atmosphere of this game, whose only lack was it that it wasn't released as soundtrack itself as well. But hey, at least we got one for the sequel, so woo-jolly-hoo!

Unlike the floppy version (haven't seen that one, but I think there was one), CD-ROM version featured full voice-acting, and not only that, this game was the prelude to Westwood's later known actor acting in various C&C games, and for this one they picked none other but Jean-Luc Picard... or should I say, Patrick Stewart who did the voice of King of Gladstone, and the one to set you on this quest to face the evil old hag, Scotia... who I just happen to like for some peculiar and unknown reason. Must be 'cos she made me laugh a couple of times... and I really loved the sequel, where you play her son, DUN DUN!!

This game is long, has a huge variety of settings, music for each place, lots of characters, and even some neat and unexpected twists and turns in the plot. If I should judge it by how quality this game looks and feels, there'd be none of its kind to match its strength. It's a solid overture to EotB and a first in a proud trilogy to experience. And forget not, this game has a fully automated mapping system, so no more sketching yer own maps.

The Bad
As much as this game really was something, I can't say it was that fun to play, because let's face it, games in EotB style are not fun to play... to me, anyway. Especially when this long. But on the quality level, nothing beats it, and all those beautiful cinematics you'll encounter, it's a real jewel, I don't think there are two games of its kind, so this one's rather unique.

The Bottom Line
First in the trilogy, doesn't boost up the story, but shows you how it all began, creates a certain universe so you can easier take on the sequels, and has one helluva soundtrack. A part of what is probably the best RPG franchise ever created.

DOS · by MAT (240759) · 2012

[ View all 8 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
win 3.x? eXo (346) Feb 13, 2015
MIDI music with Soundblaster effects? fooziex (2906) Dec 6, 2010
Unicorn statue vedder (70685) Dec 1, 2010

Trivia

Versions

Both a floppy disk and a CD-ROM version were released where only the latter features voice-acting. The CD-ROM version also contains "Lore of the Lands" - an extra feature that introduces the player to the legend of Lands of Lore, presented with black and white pictures narrated by King Richard (voice-over by Patrick Stewart).

Awards

  • Computer Gaming World
    • June 1994 (Issue #119) – Best Male Voice-Over Acting (for Patrick Stewart for his role as King Richard)
  • GameStar (Germany)
    • Issue 12/1999 - #68 in the "100 Most Important PC Games of the Nineties" ranking

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  • MobyGames ID: 846
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Chris Martin.

FM Towns, PC-98 added by Terok Nor.

Additional contributors: MAT, Jeanne, Игги Друге, jsparky, Paulus18950, Cantillon, Patrick Bregger, mailmanppa.

Game added February 10, 2000. Last modified January 29, 2024.