Story Setup and Thoughts

The story begins with our heroes returning to the city of Phlan, the city from Pool of Radiance. After your efforts in each game, your party is well known and respected in the region. As you enter the city at the docks, you are greeted by Rolf who will guide your party through a tour of the city. Everything should be pretty familiar but with new detailed graphics this time around. This opening at the city of Phlan is a nice callback to the first game and allows the player to ease into the game with a safe and familiar location. You can train at the guild hall for free, visit the temples, shop at the market, and interact with the locals.

Eventually you must visit the town hall and seek the council. Here you meet Sasha, the council clerk from Curse of Azure Bonds, who gives your party a mission to meet her forces at Kuto's Gate. Your party makes their way over there when they are ready and right when you think this game will play out similarly to the previous games, an unforeseen event occurs. Your party follows Sasha up the mountains away from the town, when all of a sudden a storm arises and you hear the booming voice of Bane. Bane is here to reclaim this region and eventually the entire realm as his own. Apparently, he's the one that's been behind the scenes through each game up to this point. He bound your party with the azure bonds, sent them to face the Dreadlord, and now, has sent his new entourage of lieutenants after them.

Then suddenly, a portal appears and your party is sucked in. They awake in another dimension where they meet Elminster. This plane of limbo as he calls it, is what Bane uses to travel across the realm. Elminster has attempted to catch him, but the constant shifting madness makes it hard to find his way. This plane of limbo, is connected through the pools, as you interact with a pool, it will send your party through limbo where Elminster will be there to open the way. He must stay in limbo to keep it open for you, otherwise Bane will rule over limbo as well. Elminster sends your party to the darkened plains, which is a small region enclosed by Bane's storm. Within here, is a large valley with various locations in which you can explore. Your goal is to find and kill each of Bane's lieutenants.

This was a great introduction that introduced a new villain, new mechanics, and begins in a familiar location. It's cool that you start in Phlan and can revisit this old town again, however, I wasn't aware that once I talked to Sasha at the gates, I would be entering a point of no return and unable to go back to Phlan. Luckily, having imported my party from Secret of the Silver Blades, my party was already equipped with decent gear and I trained at the hall and rested prior. Had I not done so, I would be pulled into a new region with enemies and no shops in sight completely unprepared. I definitely recommend exploring Phlan thoroughly first and get your party equipped and ready. There is also a group of ettins you can fight which may increase your party a level or 2. This is especially important if you didn't import your party from the last game.

Compared to Secret of the Silver Blades, Pools of Darkness really throws you into the fire at the start. Aside from the nice opening at Phlan, which is very brief and doesn't have much to do, you are thrown straight into a new and dangerous region with no safe town, shop, or training hall in sight. Even if you leave Phlan prepared, you will still find it a struggle to get through the darkened plains searching for a town or somewhere safe. Silver Blades at least lets you return to the starting town whenever you want and even has a convenient teleport system across the whole game, enabling easy and quick passage to and from the town. Pools of Darkness on the other hand, definitely doesn't mess around. Being the final game in the series though, it makes sense for it to be more unforgiving.

Side Quests

Once your set loose in the realms dimension, you are free to explore and visit any locations that you come across. Most locations are rather small and have their own unique mini storyline involved. Some of these storylines or side quests are pretty involved with characters to meet and different actions needed to be taken within the environment. For example, right near the start of the realms dimension, you may come across the Temple of Tyr. The side quest related here involves helping the troops outside clear out the temple of undead and kill the lead vampire. Then once that's done, you must find the spirit of Brimwulf who will give you your tasks. You must then complete the tests and acquire the lamp. With that you can light the braziers and ring the bell. Thus finally cleansing the Temple. This location was quite fun and satisfying to complete. Most other locations are not as intricately designed however. They usually come down to fighting your way through some bad guys until you get to the leader and defeat him. Or just clear out the area of hostiles. These locations are still worth exploring as they will provide valuable items and experience. Even if many of these locations are minor in scope, this is made up for with the main locations which lead you to the other dimensions where you will face one of Bane's Lieutenants.

Even though many of the side areas are inconsequential and straightforward, they are still an improvement to the optional locations in Curse of the Azure Bonds. That game had most of the side areas consisting of the same looking menu towns and a small cavern to explore on the outskirts that consisted of nothing more than enemies to fight and some loot to find. At least in Pools of Darkness, there is a story involved in each area and they are all unique.

NPCs

Sometimes, you will meet characters who can join your party. They will be added as an additional slot so you don't have to drop anyone to bring them along, unlike in Baldur's Gate for example. This is nice because while they aren't always the most helpful, it doesn't hurt to have one extra character during a fight that can do some additional damage. One important thing to make note about these extra characters, you sometimes have the option to give them items. Be warned that you can't move any items from their inventory to other characters in your party. I learned that the hard way. When in the Temple of Tyr, I found a ring of protection +4, one of the only few in the game. I foolishly gave it to Priam, the NPC, and it was lost forever. My last save was at the beginning of the Temple and I had already gone so far, I didn't think it was worth reloading just for the ring. It seems like a huge oversight from the developers to not allow you to move items from NPCs. I don't recall if that was possible in the previous games, but if it was then that makes it even worse.

Role-Playing

You are given a choice to intervene and stop the wedding or to leave it be

As far as role-playing goes in this game and series, there isn't really much to be had. NPC interactions are pretty basic. Sometimes you're given options on how to deal with a particular encounter. Like whether you attack, or talk, or wait. Most of these interactions lead to the same result anyway. There is also the plot and of which there isn't any way to alter how events play out in Pools of Darkness. Your goal is to find and kill each of Bane's Lieutenants and that is what you will do. There is no way to convince any of them to help you or turn them against Bane, you just have to kill them. Now we are still a far ways away from Fallout or Planescape Torment and I don't expect Pools of Darkness to pull anything on that level. Especially considering none of the other games in the series gave you options to influence the plot, except for Pool of Radiance letting you join Tyranthraxus as an evil party. Other than that, no other game in the series has given the player such a choice. At the end of the day I didn't expect much role-playing in Pools of Darkness and this is not the series to play if that's the most important thing to you in an RPG. It's really about replicating the old school AD&D experience on a computer, which mostly consists of rolling your party and fighting monsters.

Over-World and Exploration

As I previously mentioned, the explorable over-world of POR and CotAB is back. The view is much more zoomed out this time than in POR. Like in Curse, you can see the entire map and move around with a little white dot representing your party's location. This is a big improvement over POR which had the view much more zoomed in, making it very difficult to tell where you were going or where any unique locations were. Having a full view of the map at the start makes navigation much more clear and lets you see a good lay of the land. Locations are still hidden, so you must wander until you come close enough to a location in order to find it, but it is often easy to see where the locations are due to the landmarks drawn on the map.

The realms dimension is where you'll spend most of your time, but it's not the only realm in the game. This dimension connects to other realms through portals. When you find each of these portals, they will take you to limbo where you can store your equipment, rest, train, and heal. From here, you can move onward to another realm. Some of these realms contain not just one dungeon, but an entire over-world map of its own to explore. These additional realms are not as big or as involved as the main dimension in which most of your traveling takes place. They do however, contain various locations to explore and have some small quests of their own to complete.

When you enter Kaleste's realm, you end up in the Drow underworld. Throughout this realm, obsidian black lands stretch across the horizon, while deep veins of lava run through its cracks and ravines. In here, you face Drow, spiders, and Kalistes' pets. When you enter Kaliste's realm, you must reach Kalistes Parlor, the large castle located at the end across the ravine of lava. Before you can get in, you must obtain the amulets and ward of passage. You can rush in without them, but you're going to have a much more difficult time. This area is very difficult, especially since you can't bring any equipment with you between realms. That's right, you must leave all of your gear behind and go into the realm basically naked. This really sucks since within these realms, you fight each lieutenant which are the toughest fights in the game. You can find more loot when inside the realms, but you're still not going to have your best gear, especially if you transferred your party from Silver Blades and had +5 weapons. Luckily, when entering Kalistes Realm, Drow equipment can be brought over. So when in the Drow stronghold, you should grab as many of the +3 Drow chain and Drow longswords as you need because that's all you're going to have for most of your time in the realm.

The fight against Kalistes at the end, is very difficult. You are placed in a large room surrounded by three large groups of enemies. Each group contains Drow and Kalistes' pets. The one group closest to you contains Kalistes herself. The Drow and Kalistes can cast a magic damaging AOE spell. Ice Storm I believe it's called, it can do up to 30 damage to each character in the blast. They also have hold person, confusion, flamestrike, and fireball. The best thing to do is spread your party out as soon as possible. If you're lucky, one of your mage characters gets the initiative and you can command him first. Delayed blast fireball and hold monsters were my go-to spells. Each has near infinite range and are very overpowered. You will also want to pre-buff your party first of course. I recommend you cast protection against evil, prayer, bless, globe of invulnerability, and haste. With that, it really comes down to luck and trying to scatter your party as best you can. Also, in an earlier location before reaching Kalistes' Parlor, you can find a Dwarf named Storm who will join your party. He is a level 12 fighter and a decent addition to the party. Having the extra help will definitely make things a little easier.

Fighting within the fleshy walls of Moander

Kaliste's Realm is not the only large explorable realm that you will visit. Later on, after scaling up the Red Tower, another pool will be awaiting. This pool connects to the realm of Moander himself. He is a massive sleeping god floating in what appears to be just empty space. Within Moander's realm, you traverse across his body and each dungeon is located in different limbs and extremities. The final area where you reach Tanetal is in the heart. This dungeon is designed based on the anatomy of an actual human heart. It is split among the left and right ventricles and has arteries running across. As you navigate through the arteries, a message will display at set intervals that will say lub or dub. Depending on which artery you are in, the lub or dub will send you swimming straight down to the end of the corridor. These arteries can be entered and exited through any side which leads into the muscle and flesh of the heart. So, as you're progressing through the artery, you must pay attention to how many steps you can take until the next lub or dub and make a swift exit into the muscle while you wait a turn for the blood flow to pass. Navigating through this area can be quite confusing but it's not very big and most of your time will be going around in one big circle and revisiting previous areas as you look for the watcher. This person, called the watcher, is necessary in order to locate the next of Bane's Lieutenant, Tanetal. As you're exploring this maze of veins and arteries, you will come across encounters with fake versions of Tanetal. These fights can be pretty tough as you will have to deal with many bits of Moander as well as Tanetal himself. Even though this is a fake version, he is just as tough as the real version. Tougher actually. Interestingly, these fights are actually more difficult than the real fight, which has less bits of Moander to defend him and only a couple banite clerics. The combat encounters aren't the real challenge of this final dungeon though, it's navigating through the dang thing and finding the watcher. You have to encounter the watcher multiple times, while also fetching a few items for her. Luckily, she gives you some things that make your navigation a little easier. Still, it is rather tricky to navigate the area. Overall, I really enjoyed this realm because of its originality and creative level design. There are only two large explorable realms in the game, aside from the main realm in which most of your navigation and the plot takes place. These two outside realms though are both unique and memorable, while also providing a deeper challenge than most of the rest of the game.

Combat Encounter and Dungeon Design

I didn't take many screenshots from the dungeon exploration screens, which is what you will be seeing most of the time. This is the Drow Stronghold

The combat is more of the same quality that you would expect at this point. Pools of Darkness is still working with AD&D 1st edition, so the same level of complexity and rules carry across. The enemy encounters are done quite well here. There isn't as much variety in the types of enemies as there was in Silver Blades, but Pools of Darkness has many different themed locations which contain different types of enemies. Within the Realms Dimension, there is a lot of variety of the different locations which contain specific kinds of enemies. As you get further in and closer to the City of Mulmaster, enemy encounters get higher level and more difficult.

The combat encounters are mostly balanced, but there are a few difficulty spikes. The most difficult areas for me were Dragon Arie, Zhentil Keep, and Gothmene's palace in Bane's Dimension. Dragon Arie was difficult because of the constant Dragon fights, which could either be a walk in the park, or a party wipe in seconds depending on if they get the initiative. Zhentil Keep however, is a long and grueling dungeon crawl which has multiple levels. There's the upper floors to reach Manshoon at the top of the tower and the lower level with the Drow Stronghold and slave pits. This whole area is packed with Drow who have a lot of hit points and almost all of them can cast spells. Gothmene's Palace was particularly difficult because of the blue minions of bane, Kaliste's pets, beholders, and dragoliches. These are some of the toughest enemies in the game and they are what the majority of enemy encounters in this dungeon consist of. The worst part of this dungeon though is the final battles that take place back to back before facing Gothmenes himself. This section was ridiculously difficult with no way to rest in between fights. I had to lower the difficulty down to novice to be able to get through it, which leads me to the first time mentioning the difficulty options. This is the first game to introduce difficulty options, unless I just didn't notice them before. I never messed with them however until this final battle, but having the new setting is definitely appreciated. There are five difficulty levels; Novice, squire, veteran, adept, and champion. From what I can tell, the difficulty determines the hitpoints of enemies as well as the amount of damage they do. It also potentially adjusts your chances at a successful saving throw, but I am unsure about that. I was playing on the veteran difficulty for almost the entirety of the game, aside from the final battle against Gothmenes, which is the default difficulty.

Then of course there are the other realms where you meet each of Bane's Lieutenants. These areas are also all themed with specific types of enemies to deal with. Overall, I think Pools of Darkness does a good job with keeping combat challenging even with your party being very high level. The enemy variety is a bit lacking, as it feels like the enemies you will be fighting the most are dragons, drow, spiders, and bits of Moander. However, each of these enemies, for the most part, are all concentrated in their specific zones and realms within the game world, which is the main part of this game's theme. Hence the name Pools of Darkness.

As far as the dungeon design, it is nothing super creative but it gets the job done. There are some very unique areas, especially within Moander's realm due to the nature of its location as I previously talked about. Other than that though, nothing else will surprise you if you played the previous goldbox games. One thing I noticed however, Pools of Darkness is very generous with its safe locations for resting. Within each floor of every dungeon, you can pretty much guarantee that there will be at least one room that is safe to rest. I don't remember if the previous games were quite this generous, but I definitely appreciate this gesture from Pools of Darkness. Don't get me wrong though, this is still a very difficult game at times. Also, within the outer realms, resting locations become few and far between. Though you can always return to the portal to Limbo and rest there. Even within these areas, you can always rest somewhere in the final dungeon where you fight the Lieutenant. Though, it is not always clear where a safe resting spot is, but like with the previous games, there is usually some note that appears that will say something that will give a hint that it is safe. Then the only way to know for sure is to rest and hope you don't get interrupted. Also, most places won't even let you rest or give the option for the fix command, so if you do see the option, then it is possibly safe to rest, but not guaranteed.

Conclusion

Pools of Darkness is completed and thus the entire series as well. This was a long journey for me, playing these games on and off for about a year and a half. I enjoyed this entry quite a lot and it really felt like the whole series went full circle by returning to Phlan again. This was also the biggest and most ambitious game in the series. It has the most variety in locations and the biggest game world to explore. It is also possibly the highest level campaign in any D&D CRPG, with a level cap of 40. It is hard to say if it is the best in the series, since they all play very similarly. I intend to compare each game and try to break down what each game does well and what are their weakest aspects in the next section of this review.

Anyway, I bid farewell to Pools of Darkness and the Forgotten Realms Goldbox series for now. I do however intend to go back and replay Pool of Radiance at some point. The reason I don't currently have a review for Pool of Radiance is because my original review was poorly written and needed to be redone. However, I was already going through the series and wanted to finish playing and reviewing the other games first. Now that I have finished, I want to go back and give Pool of Radiance the proper review that such a legendary game deserves. It will be a while until I get to that however, so many games and not enough time.

Having played all four games in the quadrilogy, it would be interesting to compare them. The problem however, is that there is quite a long gap between each of my playthroughs. I have been playing through this series on and off over the course of about a year and a half. Due to this, my memory is a bit fuzzy about some things in the previous games, especially in Pool of Radiance and Curse of Azure Bonds. Utilizing what I do remember and the information from my previous reviews, I will try my best to be accurate with my comparisons.

Story and Roleplaying	Let's start with the least interesting and least developed aspects of the games. The story of each game is pretty straightforward, as I have repeated many times. The one with the most interesting premise would be either Curse of The Azure Bonds or Pools of Darkness. Curse is interesting because you are dealing with the consequences of the previous game. After defeating Tyranthraxous, he curses your party with bonds that are able to control you. The main goal is to defeat each of his underlings in order to remove the bonds and then defeat him again once and for all. The story is not about saving the world, and rather about saving yourselves. It's more of a personal journey for the player. Pools of Darkness also has a very interesting premise. The stakes are the highest, as you would expect with the last game in the series. Also the inclusion of Elminster helping you and the high level campaign, makes you feel like you came a long way since Pool of Radiance.
Progression and Gear	The progression of your characters becoming more powerful in both levels and gear was done best in Pool of Radiance and Curse of Azure Bonds, unsurprisingly. In the first two games, your party is still at the early stages and is making their way from wannabe adventures to full blown heroes. Every increase in level you make, especially in Pool of Radiance, matters and makes a big difference in the gameplay. The first time you get a magic +1 weapon is huge. These moments become fewer and further between as the series goes on and your party is higher level. Especially if you're importing your party into each game. By Silver Blades, there are still some powerful weapons to acquire, such as the few only +5 weapons that exist in the whole series, but most of the excitement of gaining power is gone. In Pools of Darkness, despite it being the highest level campaign with a level cap at 40 and having some of the toughest combat encounters, it is pretty lacking in powerful gear. If you imported your party from Silver Blades, it also imports all of your equipment as well. So at the start of the game, you already have some of the best equipment. The only weapons to really look forward to is the sling +4 and the vorpal long sword which has a chance to decapitate enemies, instantly killing them. Pools of Darkness does try to balance this by not allowing you to bring magical items across the different realms. You can still store your old stuff in the main Realm Dimension, but in the other realms you must scavenge for new equipment. This mechanic does keep things interesting and gives you a reason to actually pick up new equipment rather than just sticking with the same stuff throughout the whole game. So in the end, if you are importing your party through each game from Pool of Radiance to Pools of Darkness, then naturally, the sense of progression will slowly become less impactful. However, if you start a new fresh party each time, then your experience would probably be quite different. I imported my party through each game though, as I imagine most people do when playing through the series in order, so I kind of miss that fresh beginning of starting at level 1. Although at the same time, I kind of don't miss it. I still remember the tedium of fighting 50 hobgoblins in Pool of Radiance at level 1 and having 10+ thac0 for most of the game. While missing 70% of my attacks. It can be torture, but it's worth it in the end.
World Design	Each game in the series is set in different areas within the Moonsea region of Faerun. Pool of Radiance takes place in the city of Phlan and the surrounding area from Zhentil Keep in the West, to the Dragonspine Mountains in the North, and all the way to the Galena Mountains in the East. Along with Phlan which is split between multiple districts, you are free to explore this outdoor region however you wish. Curse of The Azure Bonds is set in the woods of Cormanthor, South of Phlan. Within this area, a trail runs along the perimeter connecting each town and keep. You can travel along this trail in any direction and visit each of these locations. There is less freedom in how you explore in Curse compared to Pool, but you are less likely to get lost. There are still plenty of interesting locations to explore, but most optional areas result in a similar looking menu town without much to do. Sometimes these can lead to a cave to explore outside of the town, but these are pretty uneventful. Next is Secret of The Silver Blades. In this game you spend your time within the city of New Verdigris and the ruins deep within the glacier of the Dragonspire Mountains. These ruins run deep and connect to every main location. Since Silver Blades takes place mostly underground and near the city, there is no overworld map to explore like the other games. Getting back to New Verdigris and to any explored location is easy thanks to the teleporters in the Well of Knowledge, so that alleviates much of the time spent traversing through the ruins. The world design is much more simple and smaller in scale in Silver Blades compared to the rest. It is definitely the weakest entry in this aspect, in my opinion. Lastly, Pools of Darkness, which takes place in the land that surrounds the Moonsea itself. From the Gelena Mountains in the East, to Zhentil Keep to the West. Then South and along the coast of the Cormanthor Woods all the way to the city of Mulmaster. You will also encounter various pools which act as portals that lead to limbo. Here, Elminster can send you to different realms and two of these realms contain their own region to explore as well. There is Kaleste's Realm which looks to be the Underdark where the Drow live and Moander's Realm which is where Moander resides. Moander's Realm is Moander himself and you traverse his body and visit different parts of his body as their own locations. Having these different realms in addition to the large portion of the Moonsea region makes Pools of Darkness the largest and most varied world to explore of the entire series. This is most assuredly a big improvement from Silver Blades and the most ambitious game world of the series by far.