"Not since the infamous debut of Daikatana has the release of a single game generated so much incensed indignation from early buyers." Our review of Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor didn't hold back. The 2001 dungeon crawler contained, our review said, "A multitude of outrageous bugs," including ones that corrupted saves, made quest items disappear, and most infamously deleted system files when you uninstalled the game.

SNEG's rerelease, available now on Steam and GOG, doesn't have those issues. It adds widescreen, controller support, adjustable combat speed, tooltips, an action bar, and sharpened visuals. If, like me, you skipped this one back in the day because of its reputation for being a hassle to play—even with the eventual patches and community fixes—now it's smooth and problem-free. I've played the opening hours without a single key item vanishing or save file going corrupt.

Don't get the wrong idea, though. Ruins of Myth Drannor isn't Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines. This isn't an RPG masterpiece held back by its buggy release. It's a simplistic turn-based dungeon crawl that's mostly notable for being a spiritual successor to the first Gold Box D&D game, Pool of Radiance, and for adapting the then-new third edition of D&D's rules.

0 rules were a huge step forward at the time. Any character could choose any class, and Armor Class went up instead of down—you can't imagine how much of a drag it was explaining to new players that lower AC was better than high AC, and ideally you wanted a negative number.

Source link