Hero Quest II : Legacy of Soracil - Gremlin
           (Isometric RPG for PC, Amiga and ST?)

 Reviewed on an Amiga 1200 with 4 meg extra RAM and a hard drive
                         by Nigel Parker

Oh Gremlin. How could you do this to me? I spend a couple of
weeks carefully exploring the first five levels, avoiding the
traps, painstakingly searching all rooms for all available
treasure, buying and selling weapons and spells, not bothering to
map it out as the game automaps, and generally building up a
formidable group of adventurers. Then I find myself at The Sewers
of Koth. Quickly dispatching a couple of Guards I make my way to
one of the four available doors ..  . take a deep breath ...
slowly turn the handle ... when ... the game crashes and my Amiga
resets. No! This can't be happening! I don't believe it!

Keeping calm, I reset my Amiga, remembering to hold down both
mouse buttons, so I can change to the original chip set as the
game doesn't work otherwise. I start again and restore my saved
position just prior to The Sewers.  This time I decide to try one
of the other doors and it crashes again. I start again and try all
the doors but the same thing happens.

Reading through the Manual again, I notice a Helpline number. A
quick call and I'm told that my saved game has probably got
corrupted in some way, but if I send the disks back with a note
explaining my problem they will send replacements. Well, that's
alright then, isn't it? A couple of weeks of adventuring down the
pan! I decide to have one last try, loading my saved game previous
to The Sewers at The Khaz-Aldoth. I make my way through the level,
don't bother saving at the end and progress straight on to The
Sewers, thinking that if I save the game it might get upset again.
I approach the door and ... the game crashes again.

I decide to send the disks back, and after a week or so,
replacements arrive with an accompanying letter stating that
these ones are straight from the duplicators. The old version was
quickly deleted from my hard drive and the new one installed.

 This time I'm not so careful and precise in my explorations and a
couple of times I had to reload levels and start again, through
rushing things (the game only allows you to save games between
levels (a pet hate of mine)). But eventually, after a few days
play, I make it back to The Sewers AND THE SAME BLEEDING THING
HAPPENS AGAIN!! Well, that's it, I'm not sending off again, and
going through all that again. And I refuse to play it from
floppy.

So, if you want to play a lovely isometric RPG, with masses of
areas to explore, satisfying gameplay (similar to Sabre Team),
nice graphics ... BUT FATALLY FLAWED, then you're welcome to it.
I would so liked to have completed it as well.

@~Can anyone vouch for the PC (and ST?) versions?




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