Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes of the Lance is a video game released in 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.

Gameplay

thumb|left|Screenshot from the Amiga version

Heroes of the Lance is a side-scrolling action game. Heroes of the Lance was not part of the Gold Box series; the nickname for these other D&D titles were "Silver Box" games.

| award1Pub = Your Sinclair

| award1 = YS Megagame

Heroes of the Lance was very successful for SSI, with 88,808 copies sold for computers in North America. After reviewing a pre-production copy of the DOS version of Heroes of the Lance, the magazine G.M. praised its graphics and "excellent" audio and said that "it would undoubtedly go straight to the top of the computer games charts and stay there for several months. It's that good". Computer Gaming World gave the DOS version of the game a similarly positive review. Jim Trunzo reviewed Heroes of the Lance in White Wolf, rating it a 4 out of 5 and stated that "Graphically, the product is inspirational, regardless of the machine on which it is being played. Full-figured characters and monsters and detailed backgrounds make the game a joy to look at as well as play."

Electronic Gaming Monthly columnist Seanbaby listed the NES version as the 2nd worst NES game, and as the 11th worst video game.

Levi Buchanan, in a classic Dungeons & Dragons videogame retrospective for IGN, wrote that if the players don't plan well, they can lose a lot of heroes in a very short period of time. He added that this offered a slight strategy angle, but D&D fans largely preferred the Pool of Radiance straight RPG approach. Pool of Radiance sales were triple that of Heroes of the Lance. According to GameSpy, although the game was a fairly decent side-scroller for its time, it was also known for it frustrating level of difficulty, and its inability to save the game.

Legacy

The storyline for this game continued in two subsequent video games, Dragons of Flame and Shadow Sorcerer.

References

Sources

  • alternate html version of the review.
  • Images of Heroes of the Lance package, manual and screen