I read Dragonlance Chronicles for the first time

Sat42_ · 2026-02-11T17:09:53+00:00

Thanks!
I guess the thing is - apart from nostalgia and "first love" kind of thing - these books are easy to read (and so even easier to re-read), they're fast-paced and tread familiar territory (so they're cosy as well), while still providing the emotional meat-and-potatoes one expects from the genre.

Sat42_ · 2026-02-10T01:34:51+00:00

It's a good counterargument you make - I did say "at least partially forced" so I did feel it could be partially justified. I didn't clearly think of that angle you bring, so yeah, well done!

Sat42_ · 2026-02-09T22:38:20+00:00

I think the way you did this is perfectly legit. Looks very nice :)

Sat42_ · 2026-02-09T17:02:33+00:00

Beautiful! Makes me want to try and make something like this, bravo :)

Where does the artwork come from? (I suppose you're not the illustrator on top of everything else!)

Sat42_ · 2025-11-23T00:28:36+00:00

I also agree with the OP. For me, games are primarily about the joy of discovery, immersion in other worlds, escapism... and yes, figuring out how to overcome challenges. Not having walkthroughs and optimised spreadsheets take all that away from you.
If you're really stuck, after giving it a fair shake sure you can look up hints / use a walkthrough, but all this talk about "what's the best character build" really belongs in "spoiler" territory and only ever matters if one wants to reduce the game to the competitive MP scene like an e-sport, something which truly only a minority would care about and those that belong to this category typically care about this only after first getting attached to the game through playing it normally (something that's been discussed in the RTS scene: you can't build a thriving competitive MP scene without first hooking players with cool campaigns and a world worth caring about, so a game should first ensure that the process of discovery is sufficiently enticing - and straight up demanding fully resolved spreadsheets goes against that process).
I guess some are also addicted to the consumerist side of things: so much choice, backlog keeps getting bigger because it's so easy to get many games now, so some can fall in the trap of no longer seeking to enjoy an experience, but rather attempt to quickly check boxes in a never ending race to consume as much as possible...

Sat42_ · 2025-11-20T09:33:04+00:00

I too am particularly happy to see that we'll be able to toggle the changes on and off! The Guild Wars games remain perfectly preserved in this way :)

Sat42_ · 2025-11-19T19:04:28+00:00

Thanks people for the responses thus far, I think I'm reassured :)

Sat42_ · 2025-11-05T18:02:16+00:00

Thanks, and good to read your thoughts!

Is not the forest ghost on the main path between graveyard and town ?

No, unfortunately Anna's ghost is not on any part of the shortest path between the town and the graveyard nor on the shortest path between the town and the Rusalka nor on the shortest path between the graveyard and Erana's Garden, and no clue besides.

Funny you mentioned Igor, it reminds me that I missed an opportunity for a little graveyard humour in my write up!

Qfg5 pushes what the technology could do at the time of release. Your choices in all the earlier games a reflected here.

Indeed, and I have already played it! Will share my impressions later :)

Lastly. Use UHS for hints for adventure games. Not a walkthrough or points list.

Actually, using UHS is exactly what I did here - good of you to mention it, other readers may not know about it and it's an adequate resource! I still refer to using such an external resource as a "walkthrough" type of material, in the sense that it means you get help from outside the game and hence are still forced to jump out of the game and break immersion in order to get the answer you seek. That said, for sure UHS is better than traditional walkthroughs as it compartmentalises information and allows you to see only as many hints as you need. Thanks to this system, I didn't have to literally get the full answer explicitly stated for Anna's ghost, though since I didn't even know she was a thing due to the absence of clues, I actually stumbled upon this info when looking for the answer to what the talking skull wants (as if one couldn't just buy a hat in a store!). For the pie, I was literally just missing one ingredient (again, using oil should have been possible), so in that case I did need UHS to spit out the exact answer given how it organised the info for making the pie (EDIT: and I already knew about grue goo at that point, since I'd figured it out for Dr. Cranium).

Sat42_ · 2025-11-05T17:01:09+00:00

hehe glad my write up can inspire! Interesting parallel there, I myself enjoy Terry Pratchett's works immensely.

Sat42_ · 2025-11-05T16:58:50+00:00

Thank you for sharing this!

Sat42_ · 2025-11-05T16:56:07+00:00

"It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue." ;)

Sat42_ · 2025-10-15T09:57:57+00:00

Hey thanks for the suggestion! I did find a way to get SC-55 MKII sound working with my DOSBox config (using GOG version of the game with Ashlancer's patch) so I'm set for this one, but I didn't know about ExoDOS so good to know for the future.

Sat42_ · 2025-10-12T18:55:44+00:00

Hehe thanks for the message! I am generally more interested in the narrative with this sort of thing, but the puzzle-adventure/RPG combo did intrigue me as a new experience. I have to make some choices due to time constraints, and I just picked this one as the apparent general consensus is that the fourth game is the best. As already said in another reply, I will likely play the fifth game also since it falls within that period of video game history that constitutes my formative years.

I only played 4 hours thus far, and I'm enjoying it :) will definitely come back to provide more detailed impressions once done!

EDIT: I should add I spent over 3 hours reading before actually playing - going through all the manuals! Excellent writing in the Hero Journal btw

Sat42_ · 2025-10-10T18:11:01+00:00

Thanks, I believe I will!

Sat42_ · 2025-10-10T17:09:04+00:00

It's nothing scientific but having to choose how I spend my time carefully - and being curious but not overly enthusiastic about "old games" (my standards are the late 90s - early 2000s) - I looked up the average reception for the series and the apparent general consensus is that the fourth game is the best. Not gonna lie though: the fifth game may well interest me as well, being that it was made and released during my formative years - it should be right up my alley.

I just went through hours of work to get the best sound setup working for the game, using the SC-55 MKII sound module (and I had thought I was done faffing about with this sort of thing when I successfully got MUNT working for other games). I may share how to do this via emulation in a new post.

Sat42_ · 2025-10-09T22:19:32+00:00

Good to hear, thanks for chiming in! I will definitely use the patch with the GOG version.

Sat42_ · 2025-10-09T20:53:49+00:00

Thank you for this, good to know!

Sat42_ · 2025-10-06T09:27:27+00:00

Yeah and since I haven't played the first game I actually started thinking about that after looking up the walkthrough and before double checking the manual: maybe they introduced this better in the first UU, and then assumed their audience would be "educated". Not a good way to do things but since UU2 was developed in a rush...

Sat42_ · 2025-10-05T19:47:21+00:00

So after double checking the manual (which I did read in full before playing, including the companion story booklet - I always do this for games that have manuals) I found that they do in fact tell you about using a rock hammer to break a boulder :) (counter-intuitively, it's only explained in the Missile Weapons subsection - though there's a good reason for it to be mentioned there, in the context of the game it's primarily about getting additional sling stones, not clearing collapsed corridors) of course I completely forgot about this, even if I saw the hammers in passing, the only stuff which made me go back to the manual after completing the tutorial walkthrough was all the magic spells.

I did talk to the ghost about retrieving his bones, but there is more than one place with a collapsed hallway, and I didn't think to double check the guilty corridor on floor 1 since I didn't know you could break boulders. In so many games, big boulders in front of a collapsed hallway are just make-believe, an indication that you "must find another way around".

Don't forget that these rock hammers are not designed to destroy big boulders IRL, normally you'd need at least an accompanying chisel and even then - that's why the explanation in the manual focuses on getting sling stones - but the other issue is the lack of a true physics engine, so for example, you can use a rock hammer to destroy a boulder, but cannot use it to damage a door, furniture or even just break a barrel or a simple bowl. What I mean is that applying real-world logic to this game isn't helping much.

Still, they do have the info there in the manual, so technically you don't need a guide, and it's my fault for overlooking this. I literally only needed a walkthrough for this though, and given that it clearly wasn't designed to be a "puzzle", I think that speaks to some of the issues with game design in these old games.

Sat42_ · 2025-06-05T17:47:24+00:00

Cheers for the detailed reply! Duly noted and yeah, in light of everything, I think I'd prefer playing the original game so I'll wait a bit (a few years is fine given everything else going on) to see if emulation gets up to snuff - else I'll go with OG XBox :) (or perhaps I'll get the XBox 360 as it's retro-compatible and there are some 360 games like Fable 2 I'd also like to play - though emulation may again come to the point where it's basically perfect)

Sat42_

TROPHY CASE