The BEST Old-School Dungeon Crawler | Lands of Lore: The Throne Chaos | Musings of an Idiot #9

Kieran swings faster, and it's governed in part by his rogue skill. Akshell gets the most HP, Micheal does the most DMG, spells or otherwise. And you're right, Conrad gets 0 bitches.

I believe due to a mistake in the code, Michael has the largest mana progression of all the heroes though it is incredibly slow to bring him from Mage level 1 to 2. He then leaves Ak'Shel on the spot.

SSI not dumbing down their 2e dnd game for future 5e gamers, is not their fault though. They couldn't predict just how dumb and useless gen z would end up.

The first 2 Eye of the Beholder are also amazing.

Wow the Pixel Art in this game is amazing

Lands of Lore really needs to be on Steam. I laughed when you said Victor is nice and trustworthy.

Sir Patrick, not Sir Stewart!

What is a “bitch,” exactly?

You should chack out Ultima Underworld
It stands out from the most fantasy d&d like games and stands way ahead of it's time only by the fact that it's not grid based with good controls

His name was Paulson

This is such a gorgeous looking game. I only ever played EOB1, back in the day, before I headed off for college and didn’t have time for video games anymore. I’m sorry I missed this. I just installed it on my vintage 486, today, so hopefully I have time to check it out.

One of my favorite games of all time. I just loved the gameplay and spells and battle system. I loved going through the Gorka swamp. Urbish Mines were probably my least favorite, but I loved the creepiness of the white tower, even though I hated those wraiths and the snake attack. Yvel is probably my favorite city and Baccata is my favorite character. God I wish I could play it again.

Never played this one but I loved Dungeon Master on my Amiga. I also played Chaos Strikes Back and Dungeon Master 2 as well as both Eye of the Beholder titles. I wonder how many hours I spent in these dungeons... :)

emerald blades rock the ivory tower

i loved lands of lore the 1st the second was nasty

I got stuck in the white tower back in the day...I am still trying to overcome the PTSD and try the game again :D

the comparison between games like this and the older dos games really makes me appreciate games like this. It's a simple game concept where all you do is move through a predetermined dungeon and fight things (i personally like team based and turn based random battles myself), but they are a lot easier to get into and just as engaging if not more. A Well build crawler has plenty of things to find and makes players want to explore everywhere even if there is nothing at the end of that long side path. For me, its just open enough to not feel like a straight hallway, but also not an open world where you can go anywhere but there is nothing in 90% of the map, just enough that i can get to the end of a dungeon in a decent amount of time without feeling lost.

Lol the Conrad hate is strong. I will say these games did not die off in the way you imply here, they simply stopped getting made by western companies and came out mostly on consoles. Turns out the Japanese game devs love first person dungeon crawlers and have made boat loads of them, like a ton of wizardry spin offs, etrian odyssey, the "Shining" games, etc.

Kieran is fast. You give him the firebolt arbalest, and he cleans up everything.

You could try Stonekeep!
Westwood made Dune 2.

Good review mate

One of my favourite games of all time. Kyrandia 1 and 2 included. You mentioned the art. Rick Parks was the wizard behind the signature look of Westwood games (warm keys, cool rim lights, a certain N.C. Wyeth lighting and colouring quality, etc). You can see his style in Kyrandia and the Eye of Beholder 2´s intro scene. He was active in the amiga art forums with his amazing pixel art. He passed away sadly in 1996. You can still see him on a small doc about westwood and a few pictures and website in the net. An unsung hero. Thank you for the amazing video. This game is one of many 90s games that led me to my career/profession. Brought back so many great memories.

It was nice to hear someone else talk about these issues. I'm always thinking it to but everyone always says "For the time period". If it is graphics then yea but a lot of awful gameplay comes down to something as simple as using the worst controls possible or giving the player no in game hints to a puzzle they couldn't possibly solve without. My biggest issue playing these games back in the day was simply the text size. Most peoples t.v.s were so bad you couldn't read text on screen back then. If I got stuck and couldn't go on without reading what the game said I would have to put it aside and wait till I went to someone elses house to see if there t.v. could display the text. Lots of the devs just don't consider the player enough and it doesn't require the modern era to do so.

I never played Lands of Lore, So I will check out GOG, I love Pools of Radiance and that whole series. You can't imagine what it was like to be a D&D player without a game and find PoR on the shelf. Dungeon and Dragon games just didn't exist prior to that and the ability to play on a battle map and have to very carefully try to measure out where a fireball would land and then watch the mobs drop one after the other. All written in Pascal, which I learned in highschool. I started playing games in 1978 on a mainframe at highschool and got my own computer with 16kb of ram in about 1980.

Yes still play it to this day

EOB2 was great. Lands of Lore was underwhelming. I bought it when it came out thinking it would be great. Now, Darkside of Xeen was awesome

Ultima Underworld I and II are also amazing! ❤

I love watching Kikoskia’s “Let’s Replay Lands of Lore”. It’s comfort food at this point.

After playing smt strange journey and etrian odyssey

I've been looking for more classic dungeon crawlers ever since.

Ahhh, a Kikoskia fan, a man of culture.

Just stumbled on to this video to see what the game is all about because it was suggested to med by GOG, something made me keep on watching and after 10 minutes I was starting to really appreciate your content, and when you when in with the cursed weapons - "speak-really-ironic-to-imply-stuff" - you had me! :D You got a sub and a like from me, great content :)

I was 17 at the time of Kikoskia's first LOL video. I'm so old :(
And yeah I actually saw his vids back in the day, since he played a lot of my favorite games before anyone else on YT.

Based Kikoskia reference, I miss the days of Necroscope as well...

please stonekeep review please omg also lands of lore 2 would be cool

You have excellent videos in your channel. Very informative, clear and sharp words. Could you make a video about these western-rpgs on old consoles?

Because there are some awesome console ports for 8-bit and 16-bit consoles, sometimes even better than computer originals.

Here's few examples.

* SMS (1990): Ultima IV - Quest of the Avatar, which was late port of the game. It has the best graphics of any original Ultima IV port, doesn't have the ugly wireframe 3d dungeons and more advanced combat mechanics. This is the best way to experience the classic.
* NES (1992): AD&D - Pool of Radiance, which is the arguable the best version of the game with excellent gameplay. This sold very well and is the only version with a complete soundtrack.
* PCE (1992): D&D - Order of the Griffon. This was developed by the famous Westwood Associates company and is a good old-style RPG.
* SMD (1992): D&D - Warriors of The Eternal Sun. Very interesting western RPG with awesome music, 3D dungeons and very original game setting of Hollow World campaign as well as original D&D 1st ruleset. Also developed by the famous Westwood Associates company.
* SNES (1993): Dungeon Master. Very accurate port and plays very well.
* SEGA-CD (1994): AD&D - Eye of The Beholder. Has CD-quality music from famous Yuzo Koshiro, good graphics and full gameplay of the PC original. Arguable the ultimate version of the famous D&D game.

And so on. But since most RPG gamers used PCs to play SSI/TSR games etc. these console ports often were neglected and forgotten. They shouldn't be.

i first found out about this game through kikoskia after i binged watched his playthrough of stonekeep probably 10-13 years ago, Im currently on GOG and noticed LOL 1 and 2 are on sale for 2$. great video, convinced me to be risky with my 2$ and buy it, im a real risk taker

Westwood wasn't a small gaming company back in 1994. It was a huge and successful company. It was already released Command & Conquare strategy game Series and it was already known with other games like Legend of the Kyrandia and of course the previous Eye of the Beholder and other Dungeons & Dragons games that might will not be so familiar to you. Also to hire Patrick Stewart back in those days was cheaper "No so cheap" but they paid many thousant dollars just for Patric to say few lines of document at the beginning of the game. Also Patric's voise wasn't exist in the initial version of Lands of Lore 1, that was released in 1994. The initial version weren't have any voice acting and the only voice was Scotia's that was generated with computer and was the one at the end. The white Label version was the one that Patrick Stewart was spoken and the voices were added somewhere in 1998 when Westwood studios already beeing a huge company with huge success and large funds from Dune, Command & Conquare, Red Alert, Nox, and many other games and they afford to pay few thousand dollars to Patric just to speak few times at the beginning of the game. Also you said was a conundrum how they spent so much money or managed to hire Patric for an old DOS game. $30000 weren't much among the millions they are earning. They have the capital to pay Patric, Patric accepts and they add his voice. You do not need anything special. Patric Stewart doesn't care what kind of game you have, he is an actor and he will be paid for his voice. You only need to have the money. And Yes. Lands of Lore 1 it is old for YOU today in 2023 but, back in 1994 the only gaming platform on PC was the DOS and even 1998 we had windows 98 that were fully compatible with DOS too. Even if it is conundrum for you. Lands of Lore 1 still can be played today even after almost 30 years. Westwood was at the peak of its success and then Electronic Arts arrived and they destroyed them. As Electronic Arts usually use to do.

I played it in late 1993/ early 1994 for a long time and got to a point i couldn't pass. I used to play it on a Packard Bell.

Damn you really deserve more subs.. Quality content.

Atari ST & AMIGA were a much better plattform to play on than DOS. VGA gfx of course helped make DOS dominant, but cost more than a complete Atari ST system with monitor.
Pool of Raddiance also had a bug. The number of random enxounters was much too high. SSI wasn't a very good dev. Dungeon Master was one of the best Dungen Crawler with real time fights. The best RPG of alk time is Ultima IV Quest for the Avatar. It had a story that developed with your advances and it didn't explain too much. Everything came from talking with NPCs and hints. There were secrets and even a baloon controlled by wind which had to be directed with spells. And D&D players who stole a beggars gold to be efficient would never see the end of the story, because their morals didn't make them a role model for others. No Codex of Ultimate Wissom for you!

I tried getting through it, a few months ago. Got stuck in the White Tower. Asked ChatGPT what some of the places in the game are, where you can get stuck. White Tower was one of them. Apparently, you can miss a key, that later becomes inaccessible. Not sure where it got that, because it's nowhere on the Internet. But at the same time, that DOES actually seem to be the case with my playthrough. I have no savegame at the start.

By the way... for the difficult White Tower, you need to use the Emerald Sword. I found 2, myself. Learned it from the internet. The game doesn't tell you this, but it works well against the wraiths.

Conrad is always my main. He's got the best stats, on average. Kieran also has a wiggling eyebrow.

I love this game, the version I played online for free seems to have removed Patrick Stewarts voice for some reason. The music is great as well as the level designs, especially the White Tower, the Alien level and Scotia's Castle.
Michael was my go to as a kid, and he ended up being almost as powerful a mage as Ash'kael on one of my recent playthroughs! Kieran is HORRIBLE, his only benefit is he can steal the Ruby of Truth in the swamp. Conrad is meh, couldn't find a benefit of using him. Ash'kael is a glass cannon and you run out of MP super fast, especially casting level 4 spells. so at end game, he sits there doing nothing after 2 casts. Michael all the way!

All those mouse controlled dungeon crawlers play wonderfully with MagicDosbox on android touch devices.
It's like they were created for touch controls. Lands of Lore included (since you have all those rock throwing, spellcasting and moving onscreen)
BTW I am such Anvil of Dawn Fan. Best FP Crawler I ever played.

Land of lore is a great game you know other good game ?

my first game a great game for me ,
one of the best games of all time, i played it in 1993 at the time in floppy version, now i use DosBox and i play it from time to time really a nugget, it is not known enough i find it unfortunate. timeless

I've been looking for a minute trying to figure out what this old dungeon crawler game was that I used to play at my friend's house.
I couldn't remember the story. Couldn't remember much. But I remember that opening with glass thing they put over the king with the little pyramid on top.
Great game. Used to go over to my friend's house who had a computer just to play it when I was ten or eleven.
Great video! And history of the game I had no clue of! And I forgot all about Piccard being the voice.of the king. Ah!

I-I am not sure if it was on purpose or a magical coincidence, but a lot of your lines were "in-sync" with the characters' mouth moves. It could be so badass as an Easter Egg, seriously. Obviously you talk way more than "the characters", but at least 95% of the time, character talking seemed to be put here and you wrapped your text on them, or you picked characters talking that matched your recorded lines.

Anyways, it was a cool thing to watch! (Even if sometimes I got lost in the meanings of your words, too much fascinated by my potential discovery and I was pleased each time they would oddly fit each other satisfyingly. It would prove your hardship as well as the game's dev team attention to details that gave those pixelated characters believable mouth animations. :}

The “they looked like THIS” fucking killed me lmao

The only dungeon crawle I spent some time on was Etrian Odysey for Nintendo ds. It was pretty fun. Now I feel like I should start playing this one.