Pool of Radiance

aka: Pool of Radiance: A Forgotten Realms Fantasy Role-Playing Epic, Vol. I
Moby ID: 502
DOS Specs
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Description official descriptions

Located on the northern shore of the Moonsea in Forgotten Realms, Phlan was once a flourishing trade city. However, lately monsters began settling in it, gradually turning whole districts into ruins. Only New Phlan remained under human control, but its inhabitants are afraid to venture into the monster-infested areas. In order to clean the nearby Barren River and rebuild Phlan, local authorities spread rumors about alleged riches hidden somewhere in the city. A party of adventurers, attracted by these news, sails towards Phlan and accepts the quest.

Pool of Radiance is the first adaptation of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons role-playing system in a computer game format. In the beginning of the game the player can use a pre-made party of six characters or create each of them from scratch. Six races (human, elf, dwarf, gnome, halfling, and half-elf) and four classes (fighter, cleric, wizard, and thief) are available. The player can tweak the attributes of the characters and assign a moral alignment to each one.

Exploration of the town and hostile areas (dungeons) is viewed from a first-person perspective in a pseudo-3D world. Enemy encounters are random and take place on separate isometric combat screens, where player-controlled party and enemies take turns fighting each other. Experience points are awarded for defeating enemies, and characters level up after having accumulated set amounts. Fighters gain more attacks, thieves become proficient in backstabbing, while clerics and wizards can memorize more spells to cast before they need to rest. Non-human characters can also "multi-class" (learn the abilities of another class) when leveling up.

The NES version was substantially different from other versions. It removed references to the Adventure's Journal and some of the more complex features of the computer versions, like different currency units. Battles were significantly reduced in size, the graphics were overhauled and redesigned so that the game could be controlled with a control pad, and music was written for it. A randomly generated dungeon feature was also removed.

Spellings

  • プール・オブ・レイディアンス - Japanese spelling
  • 光芒之池 - Chinese spelling (simplified)

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Credits (DOS version)

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Scenario created by TSR, Inc.
Game Created by
  • SSI Special Projects Group
Programmers
Additional Programming
Artists
Additional Art by
Music
Sound Effects
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 78% (based on 24 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.6 out of 5 (based on 99 ratings with 9 reviews)

Probably the best AD&D game of the classic era of any platform.

The Good
In the 80s, TSR's Dungeons & Dragons game hit its high point in pop culture. The RPG was riding high on its popular Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance settings which were spun into popular book settings. Plus with a cartoon series, toy line and even a mention in the begining of the movie E.T., D&D had never been so mainstream.

Pool of Radiance was the first serious AD&D computer adaption, several video games had been made on early systems like the Intellivison but none were really faithful to the rules or had much in the way of RPG aspects to the games. It also was set in the most popular AD&D setting, the Forgotten Realms, so the game flew of the shelves in the late 80s and for good reason, this is an excellent game.

In it you start off with a 6 player party (up to 8 with NPCs) of your standard D&D classes who are out to seek their fortune in the rebuilding of the city of Phlan. Which was once a great city state before being sacked by the army of Tyranthaxus decades earlier.

The game revolves around a series of 'commisions' given to you by the council of New Phlan to do various deeds for them, usually the clearing of blocks of the monster infested city. You have the choice of following up on these commisions or setting out on your own to do your own thing. This non-linear aspect of the game is one of its strongest appeals for me.

The game takes place mainly in city blocks using the standard 1st person perspective of the time popular in other RPGs like Bards Tale or Might & Magic. There is a small wilderness area to explore too, which is traveled in a top down view of the map. Combat was an attempt to simulate the use of metal minatures that could be used with the paper and dice game. It was quite an improvment over other combat systems of the time with many tactical aspects. You'd move your characters around the combat area, performing flanking manouvers and defending bottlenecks or setting up an safe area for your archers to attack. Combat was the usual way to solve problems but there was the occasional option to complete objects non-violently or at least use stealth before you butchered your enemies.

The game also has a good plot as you unravel the mystery of who is "The Boss"? As you explore the city you will find scraps of information on him and the history of the city and the strength of his realm. That mystery aspect really enhanced what was your standard "kill Foozle" RPG plot.

The Bad
As much as I love this game, it is not without its flaws. The biggest one was how some battles involved your party fighting a virtual army of bad guys. Often dozens and dozens of orcs and goblins came at you. This made for many very long battles. I recently played the NES version of this game and they appeared to have cut down the numbers in it to make the battles less time consuming. The NES version also eliminated the multiple units of coins making it all gold, with the computer versions dealing with piles of coppers, silvers, gold and platinums is a bit unneccessary.

Being faithful to the D&D rules meant that spell casters were useless for a long time as they could only memorize a few spells and had a limited selection to use, most people got around this by making them multi-classed fighter-magic users.

Another beef with the faithful rules is how in order to determine which items are magic you have to cast a detect magic spell, if you didn't have the spell ready then you had to haul around a lot of gear or risk losing a precious magic item.

There is also a rather deadly battle with Trolls and Ogres in the early part of the game which is very challenging for new party. Be sure to stand on the squares of the fallen trolls or they will regenerate.

Do the limitations of the time, much of the plot in the game is propelled by text read in a seperate manual. While I don't have a problem with those old paragraph books, a cut scene or two would really have enhanced the movement of the story.

The Bottom Line
While not the best old school RPG, it is definatly the best of the batch AD&D games by SSI, and definatly worth playing after all these years. Despite its flaws, some of my favorite CRPG moments come from this game.

DOS · by woods01 (129) · 2001

Criminally unknown NES gem

The Good
Pool of Radiance offers fantastic, challenging game play. It's one of the best AD&D games, and, along with Baldur's Gate, was instrumental in the development of Western RPGs. With a large number of quests and a large world to explore, you can easily sink many hours into this game, but unlike many Japanese-style RPGs, it never becomes a mindless grind-fest.

Once you clear the Keep, you can take a boat out into the overworld and the game becomes very non-linear. The story progresses through quests assigned to you from City Hall, and many of these are pretty interesting. They usually go well beyond fetch quests and may have multiple ways to complete them.

Dungeons are in 1st person, like Wizardry, must most areas have an Area map (use the Area command) that will make things much easier. In a few tricky areas, you'll need to break out the graph paper. Battles take place in 3rd person on a tile-based board. There's actually considerable strategy to how you fight. Hold spells like Sleep and Hold can be used to swing the battle in your favour.

This version feels more streamlined than its PC counterparts. Battles are smaller and more manageable and the addition of music adds to the experience. The menus and controls have been mapped very well to the NES's controller and you'll hardly know that this was originally a PC game. This is certainly a port done right, taking advantage of the system's strengths and modifying the game to address its weaknesses.

The Bad
There are a few spells that are buggy or don't seem to do anything. Some parts of the game are notoriously difficult until you gain some levels and get more powerful weapons. Since you can save anywhere, this invites the player to save before difficult battles and reset after poor level-ups, getting slain, level-drains, etc.

Randomly generated creature dungeons on the world map were removed in this version due to space constrains. The quest journal, a physical book that came with the PC game and was referred to in the game, was not utilized (though a few parts of the game erroneously refer to it)

The Bottom Line
An excellent Western-style RPG and one of the few on a retro console. This version is more accessible than it's PC counterparts, but missing a few features. If you take the time to understand a few AD&D concepts (such lower = better for many stats), you'll be rewarded with one of the best roleplaying experiences on the NES. On a platform where RPG usually meant "grind-fest" Pool of Radiance really stands out as a unique, one-of-a-kind adventure.

NES · by Scribblemacher (195) · 2012

A good adaptation of the computer game

The Good
Pool Of Radiance is based on the game made by SSI for personal computers. Although the graphics for the NES version are not as stunning and colorful, the gameplay is much the same as the computer game. The adventure unfolds as you complete the various quests, though not all of them are essential to your success, but you do gain treasure and experience as you complete these quests, which is vital to your success. Also, the battles are turn-based, giving you time to plan your strategy.

The Bad
One problem with the game is advancing in level. Unlike most RPGs, you can only advance in level at the Training Hall, and doing so costs a not insignificant amount of money (1,000 gold, to be precise), which can be a problem early on in the game when your party may be short on cash. Also, the game doesn't tell you when you can level up--if you don't have the game manual (which I didn't), you just have to ask to train and hope for the best.

Although the turn-based battle style is nice, the larger battles later in the game can be somewhat tedious, especially when your party gets confused/charmed/drained or what-have-you, and can only stand around and look cute while getting pummeled by monsters.

As mentioned before, the graphics are somewhat poor, seeming mostly to be in shades of olive green. We know even an 8-bit system can do better than that, but apparently the designers of this cart didn't. More color would have been helpful.

The Bottom Line
If you are interested in an epic RPG that is less battle-oriented than Final Fantasy, then this is a good choice. This game is more or less adventure/puzzle, with quite a few interesting plot twists. Not the highest-ranked game on the list, but better than most people give it credit for.

NES · by Christopher Sutler (6) · 2004

[ View all 9 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Are you sure there's a PC-88 version of this game? RetroArchives.fr (709) Jan 26, 2022
CCS64 loading Ossie1972 Jul 20, 2010
Manual? SharkD (425) Feb 23, 2010

Trivia

Adaption

This was the first Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (AD&D) game ever created by the software developer Strategic Simulations, Inc. (SSI). AD&D was originally a popular fantasy role playing game system developed by a company called TSR, Inc.. SSI adapted this role playing system to the PC in 1988. Pool of Radiance was also first of the many AD&D games to follow that are set within the Forgotten Realms. The game was so successful that it caused TSR to write a novel based on the story in the book.

In the same year, SSI released two more of these newly developed AD&D PC games: Heroes of the Lance and Dungeon Masters Assistant Volume 1: Encounters.

Copy protection

This game used 2 forms of copy protection: Code Wheel lookup at start-up and a Journal to read important text passages.

Cover art

The game box's cover features a painting by artist Clyde Caldwell, also used as the front cover to the 1989 novel of the same name as well as to the 1988 RPG module "Ruins of Adventure" inspiring both.

Monster portraits

Many of the monster illustrations of the Macintosh version can be found in one of the AD&D 2nd edition accessories, the Monstrous Compendium Volume One.

Other ports

An Atari ST conversion was advertised, but is generally considered vaporware, the strongest indication probably being the lack of an import option of Pool of Radiance characters in the sequel (Curse of the Azure Bonds) which the other versions offer.

A port for the Apple IIGS was also advertised, solid evidence that it was released has yet to emerge.

Awards

  • GameStar (Germany)
    • Issue 12/1999 - #49 in the "100 Most Important PC Games of the Nineties" ranking

Information also contributed by Indra was here, Pseudo_Intellectual, William Muir and Yakumo .

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Tony Van.

PC-88 added by Trypticon. Commodore 64, Amiga added by Rebound Boy. Macintosh added by Andy Voss. Apple II, PC-98 added by Terok Nor. NES, Sharp X1 added by Unicorn Lynx.

Additional contributors: Unicorn Lynx, Indra was here, Jeanne, Trypticon, Patrick Bregger, Rik Hideto, ZeTomes.

Game added December 1, 1999. Last modified March 12, 2024.