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
Note: We may earn an affiliate commission on purchases made via eBay or Amazon links (prices updated 3/28 7:27 AM )

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)

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

A fascinating Eye of the Beholder-style game.

The Good
When I first tried out it, I almost "fell in love" with it. Beautiful, hand-drawn characters, colorful items, nice backgrounds. FMVs (actually, not full-motion) are great, just like in any other Westwood title. In-game spell effects are spectacular. The enemies vary, there are usually more types of them on one level.

The music is dashing, full of life; I can enjoy it in itself. Voice acting is pretty good! They're professionals. (At least Patrick Stewart)

The scenes are different enough: mines, forests, a city, dungeons.

Interface can't be simpler: one-click fighting, two-click casting, and cursor keys for movement. Found items can effortlessly be put in the invertory; while sorting items or equipping PCs the game pauses. World-objects in the view-port can easily be operated. Practically everything is logical. Auto-mapping makes the life easier, especially in the large levels.

Clever puzzles; you'll need to observe everything carefully, or else your progress will be harder. E.g. there is a hint in the King's library that ghosts cannot stand emerald. (So, ghosts on the top of the White Tower or the Castle can be defeated quickly using emerald blades)

The Bad
Nothing important. There are only some minor bugs in the CD version.

On the castle levels are a number of items i couldn't use for anything and a number of doors I couldn't open. It's not bad, but exasperating.

At the completion, the game generates a LANDS.SAV file, just like at the end of EOB2 (FINALE.SAV). I'm sure it was meant to be imported in the next game. It's a shame it eventually didn't make it to LOL2.

The Bottom Line
Consider it a technologically improved EOB or Dungeon Master; outdoor levels, better graphics, animation, music, storyline. Wonderful.

DOS · by ^LutheR^ (117) · 2005

I wish my sound would work on my old PC so I could play it again

The Good
Simple interface. This game got the interface right. Casting magic and attacking with two weapons are both easy. Ranged weapons are also do-able.

Graphics are superb, and when you move from one square to the next, it's really smooth - no jumping, no skipping. Graphical effects to magic were fantastic. No wimpy "lightning bolt", no, when you cast this puppy, anything within several hundred yards probably heard it!

Background music and sound effects are also really good. Bonus with Patrick Stewart as the King (although you only get to hear him at the beginning and end of the game).

Good story line and lots of different locations. There was also some creative use of foreshadowing, but it wasn't so obvious.

The game was very well balanced. Just when you thought you had a huge advantage with a more powerful weapon, armor, or spell, you were shown wrong. It might be an advantage, but it wasn't a show-stopper.

The Bad
I don't think there was anything glaringly annoying about the game, but some of the puzzles were a little much.

The game itself was actually kind of long, and not too easy to finish, but I made it through without cheating or getting a walkthrough.

If you want to get really picky, you could say that there weren't many weapon, armor, or spell choices.

The Bottom Line
A really good game. Mind if I play a little? :P

DOS · by Cyric (50) · 2001

[ 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

Analytics

MobyPro Early Access

Upgrade to MobyPro to view research rankings!

Related Games

Lands of Lore: Guardians of Destiny
Released 1997 on DOS, Windows
Lands of Lore III
Released 1999 on Windows
Dragon Lore: The Legend Begins
Released 1994 on DOS, 1995 on 3DO, Windows...
Dragon Lore II: The Heart of the Dragon Man
Released 1996 on DOS, Windows
Rising Lands
Released 1997 on Windows
Gray Lands
Released 2014 on Windows, Macintosh, Ouya
Fabled Lands: The War Torn Kingdom
Released 2011 on iPad, iPhone
Twisted Lands: Shadow Town
Released 2010 on Windows, Macintosh, iPhone...
Lost Lands: Redemption
Released 2020 on Macintosh, Windows Apps, Windows

Related Sites +

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 846
  • [ Please login / register to view all identifiers ]

Contribute

Are you familiar with this game? Help document and preserve this entry in video game history! If your contribution is approved, you will earn points and be credited as a contributor.

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.