Crystals of Arborea - Simarils/Palace Software RRP œ24.99
               (RPG for ST, Amiga and PC)

    Let the buyer beware! A Caveat by Ron Rainbird after
     attempting to play the above game on an Amiga 500.

It is very rarely that I advise friends NOT to buy a computer
game. In fact, I cannot remember ever having done so before,
believing that one person's meat etc., but I must make an
exception in the case of "Crystals of Arborea" by Simarils. This
RPG was given very high ratings by reputable magazines such as CU
Amiga, ST Action and The One - 91%, 85% and 86% respectively and
it was the CU Amiga review which persuaded me to part with many
gold pieces for this game. I thought at first that maybe I was
over-critical, but having recently spoken to several RPG devotees,
all of whom declared this adventure to be "trash" (actually in
some instances, stronger expletives were used) and as I respected
the judgement of these people, I was relieved that my opinion was
justified.


The story outline of the game is simple, but then I never expect a
highly original plot outside of the SSI advanced D&D games. Four
Crystals are hidden in the land of Arborea. These have to be found
and restored to four Towers, Shrines or whatever when the usual
peace and harmony will once more reign.  So now we come to the
first let-down. The game includes no documentation in the way of
explanatory booklet, leaflet or guide to play. Such guide-lines
are contained on the disk itself and are accessed by clicking on
an "Exit" button. This takes about a minute before the required
details are shown and, unless you have a photographic memory or
are prepared to copy the various sections, this can be extremely
frustrating when you have to interrupt play in order to check on,
for example, mode of combat. Of course, after a few references to
these details, they can mainly be remembered because except in the
case of a few instances the instructions are very basic. Even so,
it would be much handier to have the instructions by your side.
This "Exit" button also has to be used whenever the statistics of
one of the party need to be viewed.

When forming the party of six, I encountered what was to me an
extremely frustrating character creation. For a start, I could not
give the members my own choice of name but had to accept those
given by the programmer - mundane names such as "Jon" and "Zach";
there was no swashbuckling feel to them. Then I found that only 3
classes were available - Fighter, Ranger and Magician and to the
Magician, only 9 spells comprised his repertoire for use in combat
only, and they are REALLY basic! Then came a further shock! When
viewing a character I discovered that no inventory was included,
so that no items found during the game (and there were very few)
were listed, nor were any weapons or armour shown. For all that I
know, the fighter/warrior was using an umbrella as a weapon. As an
example, in the course of my wanderings I found a parchment, for
what use I haven't the foggiest, and I was asked to whom should I
give this document. I chose the leader, "Jerel", but as it does
not show up on his Character Sheet, I don't know whether or not he
has it or has lost it.

Movement is painfully slow and is carried out by clicking on the
compass point, then waiting 2/3 seconds for the move to take
place. This may not sound much but when in normal RPGs such a move
is virtually instantaneous, it seems prehistoric to take at least
a minute to move 30 paces.

There are other minor annoyances - well, minor in comparison but
all adding to the frustration factor - but to go into details of
these would make this screed exceed manageable proportions. So are
there any good points to this RPG? Well, the graphics are good if
you like pretty forest scenes, except that when night falls and
you use infra-red vision, everything appears to be in a red mist
and looks like the negative of a photo. As the days are very short
in Arborea, I seemed to spend most of my time in this haze. The
caves are well drawn and I can only assume that it was the graphic
content that made the afore-mentioned magazines give this game
such high ratings. I find it hard to believe that the reviewers
played this game in depth. The "Save" method is adequate and by
clicking on a "Map" button an overhead view of Arborea is
displayed showing the position of your party. This map also
enables you to teleport to any accessible territory when your
magician gets the "Teleport" Spell, but it is not a facet worthy
of a high rating. Combat, carried out on what appears to be a
chess board is, to me, a mite confusing when trying to identify
which character is doing the attacking.

I have now travelled all over Arborea except for parts marked
"Impossible" and "Forbidden Territory" and have very little
information as to what to do. I found the first Crystal and also
the Tower in which to place it. I have also built my party up to
what I consider to be a high level, though for what good I just
don't know. Not being able to proceed any further it gave me a
good excuse to stick the game in the attic part marked "Disastrous
Purchases". Oh yes, I did telephone the London distributors of
"Crystals" for any help they might be able to give but they were
completely blank on the subject.

So, my advice to RPGers everywhere is to hastily by-pass this game
and instead (if you haven't already got it) buy "Champions of
Krynn". Now THAT is a Role Playing Game with a vengeance!