Champions of Krynn

The Good
As far as the storyline goes, this one is awesome and is reminiscent of the DragonLance chronicles paperback books. This is shortly after the War of the Lance, and your party picks up the pieces, meeting even some of the book characters (Tanis, Caramon, Tasslehoff) along the way, battle draconians, pilot flying citadels, and even find a DragonLance! This game introduced me to gold box games and AD&D computer games in general and will always have a special place in my heart.

The Bad
Well, it's a gold box game. You either like them or you don't.

The Bottom Line
This was the "in-between" period of the Gold Box games - the early kinks were already worked out from Pool of Radiance (eg. the Fix command was implemented and the goofy copy protection wheel was dropped), but it still had EGA graphics and not yet the additional features of Pools of Darkness or Dark Queen of Krynn.

Get this game if you plan to play the Krynn story arc (Champions, Death Knights, Dark Queen) and transfer your characters. At least in this arc your characters keep their items and don't get wimped (unlike the Pools storyline where your characters get completely stripped of anything in between Curze of the Azure Bonds and Secret of the Silver Blades). Well worth a look if you can forgive the outdated graphics and sound.

The Good
- The first Title of SSI-RPGs using the same engine, that was also the Base of "Champions of Krynn" was "Pools of Radiance". It was a great breakthrough in ComputerRPG-Gaming: Good use of the AD&D-Licence, Nice graphics (at least for the time it was released) and mainly the still challenging tactical-combat system. "Champions of Krynn" has all of this and more: A very nice story that drives the player to continue, fascinating places to explore and, because of this, a lot of atmosphere.

The Bad
There has always been some limitations to the "goldbox"-games by SSI: The player has to accept, that acting freedom is a bit limited in some spots. Of course the graphics arent good anymore.

The Bottom Line
Classic RPG released by SSI in 1990 containing a good character and a great combat-system.

The Good
Champions of Krynn was my first entry into the Dragonlance world. It was also one of my first Gold Box games. Even though I didn't have prior Dragonlance experience, the game got me RIGHT into the world, enough so that when I did get around to reading the Dragonlance novels, I kept thinking "Hey, they took this from Champions of Krynn. Er, wait." The included manual and rulebook were superb.

The real meat of the game is very nicely balanced, I never had a really difficult area where I had to pass in order to progress the game. The characters can be fairly detailed and some parts of the game allow the character to have their own encounters, such as a Knight Of Solomnia meeting the ghost of an ancient knight, or a elven character meeting kin. This adds a lot of character to the game, as well as spark the imagination. Also included is the chance to meet characters from the novels, not just as cardboard-cutouts, but as actors in the same grand quest.

The storyline is quite good, if a little formulaic, and well-fleshed out throughout the entire game - each step (and corresponding city) is original and different from the others, so that each one is a great experience and a joy to play through.

The engine used is fairly powerful, with good menu-driven options in most areas that don't interfere with what you're trying to do at the moment. Combat is, for such a combat-heavy game, surprisingly fun. Even random encounters were resolved fairly quickly and enjoyably.

The Bad
The storyline to follow is rather linear, as opposed to the select-a-quest system in Pool of Radiance. This can be a little restrictive at times, but as I said, the storyline is quite well-rounded.

My only other quibble with Champions of Krynn is that some areas simply threw random encounter after random encounter at the player, which bogged down play and can make one very easily frustrated with trying to make progress in the story.

The Bottom Line
I knew, maybe halfway through Champions of Krynn, that I would love it forever. And I was right. It's the kind of game that immediately becomes a classic, with oodles of character and Dragonlance elements, plus an epic story that kept you guessing, and when you were done, got you to play it all over again.