If you're after an epic Dungeons and Dragons tale with high level characters and titanic battles, then Dark Queen of Krynn is the game for you. I loved playing this game, and spent many an enjoyable hour battling monsters and beefing up my party with experience and powerful artifacts.
Dark Queen of Krynn is an adventure in the old SSI style, a la Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds and the like. It is the final installment in their Dragonlance trilogy, set after Champions of Krynn and Death Knights of Krynn.
The game-play style is the same, but with enhanced graphics and a truly grand plot that pits your party against countless hordes of Draconians, Dragons, and other fell beasts.
The plot begins some time after the end of Death Knights of Krynn, with a new quest for your party of fearless adventurers: explore a new continent where the Dark Queen Takhisis is building an unstoppable army. Your adventure will take you from the bottom of the oceans to the highest of towers, and even to the Void where gods walk abroad. Along the way there are cities and towns to explore, as well as dungeons and crypts.
This game is great fun. It allows you to generate your own characters or import them from the previous
Dragonlance games in the series. You may form a party of up to six characters, and recruit two non-player characters along the way. You will gradually improve in power and strength as your characters advance in level through the course of the game. By the time you reach the end of the game, your characters will be heroes of the highest order. Beyond the character progression side of things, the plot and detail in the world is enough to suck you in. With a wide range of creative locations to explore and varied characters to interact with, the game keeps you on your toes right to the end. I think I especially enjoyed the culminating show-down at the end of the game, with the feeling that your characters were at the centre of a last, desperate battle against overwhelming forces.
The graphics are VGA quality, which is an improvement over the previous EGA titles from SSI. While some of the characters and creatures look a little deformed, most of them have a more streamlined, detailed, natural look to them. The actual locations you explore certainly look much-improved, and do a good job of creating a "really there" kind of atmosphere.
Sound is fairly limited, with some effects coming across as weak or washed-out. This detracts from the overall atmosphere, but not enough to really lower my opinion of the game.
Overall, I think this game is great. It is straight-forward to learn how to play, and rewards with many enjoyable hours of exploration, fighting, treasure-hunting, and general heroism. Do yourself a favor and download it today!
