Champions of Krynn

             Reviewed by Julian Gregory (again)

Having returned from holiday and managed to find enough time from
work, I went back to Champions of Krynn to see if my initial
impressions of the game were correct.

Champions is the first in a trilogy; the others being Death
Knights of Krynn and Dark Queen of Krynn.  The story line (or the
excuse for killing almost everything else) is that you have been
asked to investigate the goings on in the World of Krynn. It seems
that the Dark Queen (to be met in the last part of the trilogy)
has found a way to turn dragons' eggs into draconians to act as
the special troops of the Dragon Highlords. With them she is
trying to overthrowing the forces of good.

As in any RPG a mix of characters is important. I found that the
more magic was required than in other such games I have tried.
Certainly it made most battles much easier to win, and some
battles were quite difficult, particularly towards the end.  The
only proviso to this is that you do need to have a Knight to
complete the task in Sir Dargaards's Tomb.

The stats for the initial team do not seem to be too important as
you can modify any player who has not yet begun. There were some
new (to me) races available, such as Silvanesti Elves and Kender.
These are a small people with a complete lack of fear and
insatiable curiosity.  Kenders are also the only race to be able
to use a Hoopak, a weapon which can be used in a melee or as a
ranged weapon.

The game itself allows you to move almost as you want around the
playing area. You will not be able to win some fights until your
experience has increased sufficiently to give you enough points.
You will quickly work out a rough order.

As in all such games the fights get progressively harder the
further you get into the game. The last one being against 3 Red
Dragons, the most feared of all dragons (it says in the book).

As I played this game from the compilation CD there was no printed
manual. But all the documentation is on the disk. I suppose this
is the only way to save money on the overall product, but it does
require a lot of paper. But don't think that you can avoid having
to print out the manual and the journal. Every time you load a
game or indeed start any game the protection system requires you
to type in a specific word from somewhere in one of the books.

Overall 50%. It is a good introduction into the Krynn series and I
hope to look at the other two in the months to come.








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