Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes of the Lance

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Advanced Dungeons & Dragons:
Heroes of the Lance
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Heroes of the Lance Cover.png
NES box art
Developer(s) U.S. Gold
Natsume (NES/Famicom)[1]
Publisher(s) Strategic Simulations, Inc.
U.S. Gold
Pony Canyon (NES/Famicom)
Composer(s) Brian Howarth (computer versions)
Iku Mizutani (NES version)
Seiji Toda (MSX version)
Platforms Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Commodore 64, MS-DOS, MSX, NES, Sega Master System, ZX Spectrum
Release date(s) January 1988
Nintendo/Famciom
      Genre(s) Action-adventure game
      Mode(s) Single-player

      Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes of the Lance is a video game released in January 1988 for various home computer systems and consoles. The game is based on the first Dragonlance campaign module for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, Dragons of Despair, and the first Dragonlance novel Dragons of Autumn Twilight. Heroes of the Lance focuses on the journey of eight heroes through the ruined city of Xak Tsaroth, where they must face the ancient dragon Khisanth and retrieve the relic, the Disks of Mishakal.

      Gameplay

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      Heroes of the Lance is a side-scrolling action game.[2] The game uses actual Dungeons & Dragons statistics, with statistics for the characters exactly as they were in the rule books.[3] Eight heroes from the Dragonlance novels series must be assembled for the quest, and only one is visible on the screen at a time; when one on-screen hero dies, the next in line appears.[2]

      While Heroes of the Lance is a faithful representation of the books it is based on, it was a departure from the usual role-playing video game style of most Dungeons & Dragons games, with a gameplay interface which consists of using one character at a time in horizontally scrolling fighting. Each character has different types of attacks and spells making them more suited to fighting different enemies but they merely act as "lives" for the player as in more traditional fighting games, removing one of the main strategies of role-playing games from the game.[clarification needed]

      Plot

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      Characters

      The eight heroes that make up the party are:

      Development

      Heroes of the Lance was based on the Dragonlance novels by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman.[3] Heroes of the Lance was not part of the Gold Box series; the nickname for these other D&D titles were "Silver Box" games.[2] The NES version was developed by Natsume.

      Reception

      After reviewing a pre-production copy of the DOS version of Heroes of the Lance, G.M. The Independent Fantasy Roleplaying Magazine said that "it would undoubtedly go straight to the top of the computer games charts and stay there for several months. Its THAT good."[4] They specifically praised its graphics and audio, calling the latter "excellent".[4] Computer Gaming World gave the DOS version of the game a similarly positive review.[5] Electronic Gaming Monthly columnist Seanbaby listed the NES version as the 2nd worst NES game, and as the 11th worst video game.[6][7] Levi Buchanan, in a classic Dungeons & Dragons videogame retrospective for IGN, wrote that "If you don't plan well, you can lose a lot of heroes in a very short period of time. This offered a slight strategy angle, but D&D fans largely preferred the Pool of Radiance straight RPG approach."[2] According to GameSpy, "While the game was actually a fairly decent side-scroller for its time, the frustrating level of difficulty, along with the fact that you couldn't save the game, meant that most gamers gave this game a miss."[8]

      Legacy

      Two video games continued the storyline after this game, Dragons of Flame and Shadow Sorcerer.

      References

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      Sources

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      • Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. alternate html version of the review.
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      External links

      1. ↑ http://www.vgmpf.com/Wiki/index.php?title=Heroes_of_the_Lance_(NES)
      2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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        (expanded from an article written for Electronic Gaming Monthly #150)
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