Curse of the Azure Bonds - In-depth Written Amiga Review With Pics
Curse of the Azure BondsAmiga, 1990 (Original C64/DOS 1989)
SSI/Micro Magic
$49.95
*Alphabetical list of writings
*Game shown on its designed NTSC hardware, pics of 4:3 CRT screen
*Game shown on its designed NTSC hardware, pics of 4:3 CRT screen
How do you prefer your story? Do you see a group of friends at your side, the dungeon master sitting at the kitchen table while downing some Jolt and waiting on a pizza? If wanting to roll some dice with fellow nerds at your side, TSR had you covered. Perchance you're an old fashioned type, wanting nothing more than to sit comfortably in a chair, book in your hands, near a focused light. If reading from hundreds of pages of gripping fantasy was your jam, TSR had you covered. Maybe you'd rather see that story through the phosphorescence glow of a monitor, your every step heard through your speakers, to invoke your very own lightning bolts. If wanting to play those stories through a computer, TSR (with the help of SSI) had you covered.
What if you wished to do all of the above? It is now commonplace to see licensed stories turn out multiple iterations through games, books, even movies. Often cash grabs, they're unlikely to win over all that many fans, let alone receive critical recognition. Curse of the Azure Bonds started as the book Azure Bonds, following the tribulations of Alias as she seeks those responsible for placing controlling sigils on her arm. Friends were made, a god was fought, and some rather shocking revelations came to light. Devoured in under a week, I can state that the book which inspired the others has a similar premise, with details vastly different, and your enjoyment for one will only enhance another. While unable to speak personally of the quality of the paper/pencil module, I will note it was a runner up for the best role playing adventure of 1989, and would not be surprised if it was similarly riveting.
^Intro, getting things in order, first combat
The second in the line of many "Gold Box" computer titles, Curse of the Azure bonds is less an adaption of the original book, and more a continuation. With many of the books characters interacting with you throughout this game, it continues their story. With the ability to transfer characters from Pool of Radiance and the action adventure Hillsfar, you will be continuing your own characters stories as well. There's a fairly good benefit in doing so as your experience, hit points, and spells will have carried over from the other games. Upon completing Curse your characters can again move to the next installment.
A fresh party of newly created characters shouldn't be too difficult to pull through the game either, more so than many of the Gold Box line. I feel Curse is weighted more toward the newly created party rather than those returning. This means it's a good time to think about tweaking your party even if you have come from Pool of Radiance, in order to make room for the new classes. Rangers and Paladins have been added to your choices of classes. Rangers being excellent fighters which inflict great damage on giant creatures, and they will gain some magic user spells later on. Paladins fight as good as the ranger but lack their abilities against giants. In its place they have a constant protection from evil spell around them. Paladins can use their hands to heal a party member once per day, and eventually gain the ability to cast some clerical spells. For my party I dropped a fighter from the first game and added a paladin in his place.
Much like the beautiful Alias from the book, we start our adventure confused and dazed in a hotel room. Like all of the Gold Box titles, your manual will provide both essential reading material for your quest, as well as enjoyable background information on the surrounding lands lore. We find ourselves in Tilverton, on the border of the Dalelands and Cormyr, imprinted with five azure symbols. We are bereft of arms, and will need to purchase new equipment from a local shop. Much like Pool of Radiance, the economy in-game is again awful. While shops are essential for identifying magical items, most sell nothing but the most basic equipment.
^Sewers of Tilverton
I feel there is an attempt from SSI to deal with the economic issues by limiting the amount of treasure you receive through much of the game. Slowly but surely the platinum pieces will still add up. Other than one magical shop with some powerful wands, as well as your usual training, you'll be unlikely to find much use for it all. Due to the game featuring an encumbrance system that slows your characters down based on how much they're holding, dumping your riches will become your only viable option. If only to act as a personal high score it would have been nice not needing to throw it all away, but the lack of quality items to buy will always be the largest criticism I can chuck toward these games.
Scripted battles is where the cool stuff is at! While there were no shortage of planned battles in the original game, I feel Curse adds more to the mix. While these will feed your thirst for story, the valuables tend to come from boss battles or hidden treasures stashes. The act of slowly procuring those armor upgrades, the excitement of gaining that +3 frost brand sword and shifting your +1 flame tongue down the line is the stuff RPGs are made of. I would have preferred more variations to the games magical equipment, as is you're likely to be using the exact same armaments in the final battle as I did. The chance to have picked up something slightly less or perhaps more stacked could have made for more interesting progression, though you'd only notice this on repeat playthroughs.
Equally important will be your arsenal of spells. Harking back to Pool, your magical users are going to be what get you through the initial areas. Stuck with basic equipment again, your fighters aren't all that much more useful with a regular sword than they were in the first game. Sifting our way through the muck of the Tilverton sewers, our chances to hit are actually reduced while the monsters are increased, explained in-game through the slippery footing. Memorize those stinking clouds, throw out those AOE fireballs, and strategically line up for a blast of lightning!
^Reaching the outside world, shocking the monkey
Some formally useful spells like sleep may face retirement in your personal casting book, though others like magic missile seem to grow stronger with age. You'll gain access to fifth level cleric and magic user spells, which includes adding more offensive oriented spells to your healers arsenal, as well as the ever confusing cone of cold for your sorcerer. Since this is not a spell points based system, it can be difficult to work out how a certain spell works, and what creatures you'd do best to target it with. My personal feeling is that Curse was unexciting in terms of the new spells available, and that I was primarily continuing to use spells which had been available in the first game. You'll probably use your new levels to raise the number of fireballs you have available to you throughout much of the game, though hopefully when you're nearing the end your memorization allotment will allow for more experimentation with the few that are new.
Square by square we make our way through a unique world of maps. Where as practically every area of Pool of Radiance packed an entire 16x16 grid to the brim, Curse has a number of areas which split or extend your given location. Tilverton for example only fills up an 8x16 grid, the thieves guild is technically the other half of that grid. The sewers below the guild are made up of two separate 5x16 grids and one 6x16 grid. Maps which have been extended past 16x16 are mostly confined to the games optional locations. The Voonlar Ruins is made up of winding dead-end corridors that twist around a 14x41 grid, and it looks rather nice on paper. I enjoyed the maps which had been split as they gave me a feeling of getting somewhere, at the same time I was disappointed at the overall length of the game which was at least in part due to some of these shorter sectors.
At first I found myself somewhat ticked off at the games choice of not allowing you to know your coordinates on the map. I found less than a handful of areas in the entirety of the game which showed them, and by extension also allowed use of the games built in area map. Your starting location in Tilverton shows these cords on screen, as does the thieves guild as it is technically a part of that same map. After that you'll find yourself largely on your own. I noticed a certain event inside of the beholder's cave to bring back the cords for that area. Reaching this point will lead you to a journal entry showing a map of that cave. At that point the cords show up on your screen, and will also allow the use of the area command. That's actually kind of cool how the game is aware of that entry, but also shows that it was fully intentional to have every other area a complete unknown to you.
^Exploring, notice the descriptions, my hand maps
Is it realistic that you wouldn't know these locations? To some extent of course, still when you enter a city with walls shouldn't you have an idea of the direction you entered and at least understand where one corner of a city should stop? It's such a waste of paper to require the user to start their mapping in the middle of the graph paper, which often means there will be no room for another location. If they had just given me the cords I could have easily mapped four locations on one sheet of paper, eight if I used the other side! It should be a common courtesy to ensure to a person hand mapping that they are where they think they are.
While I would never recommend the use of the Gold Box games area command to navigate, it is at least useful for getting your bearings at times while you're mapping. The fact that it even remains an option while practically all areas refuse its use is kind of ridiculous. Certainly not a critique you'd hear all too often these days, as most people are looking off to the side, cheating with clue books or maps found online. Since I've long noted how much more enjoyable these games are when you hand map them, I wish it had been made easier for people in this instance. That being said the game was designed for you to map. I had a blast doing it and feel it's essential to the overall pacing of the game.
Our quest to be rid of these markings is rather dungeon crawly. Pool often took place in outdoor sections of Phlan. We still entered plenty of buildings there, but by comparison you'll be seeing little sunlight in Curse. After a failed attempt to assassinate the king (through our bonds), we find ourselves in a thieves guild, followed by the cities sewers. It marks a stark change compared to Pool with this more linear setup. Where we start in Tilverton there's only one way to go, to the guild. From there to the sewers. We get rid of our first bond and finally see the light of day via the overworld. At this point we have two directions we could take, but either one will end up pointing you toward the easiest location to tackle next. We can ignore those suggestions and proceed however we please, but there's no escaping the fact that we're being pointed along in a fairly linear path.
^Party member gets in on the story, difficult battles, outdoor map
Pool of Radiance featured a quite detailed and zoomed-in look to a vast over-world. Most of that massive area was rather empty in terms of locations to visit, and necessitated mapping with multiple sheets of paper. Despite that being my favorite over-world in the entire series, I can see how it may have received complaints. Curse of the Azure Bonds follows up with a geographic map look. You are a square on the map, and travel through the use of text menus. Will you explore your current location, or travel to another? Will you take the well traveled trail, or sneak through the wilderness? Either way you're likely to face a scripted battle with the creatures of the Forgotten Realms. At that point they become mostly safe with the chance of random encounters.
This overall style of using a geographic map of the world is what would become the default for the slight majority of the rest of the fantasy Gold Box line. All of the DragonLance games would have this look, as would the final game in this Forgotten Realms saga, Pools of Darkness. The difference with those games is that they allowed you to have full control over the square that represents your party. This was perhaps a great compromise of systems, as it would let many people ignore hand mapping, but would reward those who did. I don't dislike the look, but prefer the over-worlds of Pool and the Savage Frontier games more, and would rather have full control of where I'm going.
The point of most of the map locations is to allow for rest and training in-between the main quest settings. Towns are largely simple menu based screens allowing quick access to your typical needs. They include a safe place to rest, heal, identify your items, and hear local gossip. The game features incredibly few side quests. I can think of an area in the sewers where some Otyugh's offer a trade if you get an item elsewhere, as well as the Dark Elf Silk wanting some dragon eggs, but I noted a distinct absence of optional side quests. Every location on the map actually has an optional area present, but there's little point to them other than the exploration and experience. For the first time while playing I decided to take these areas on. While I may have found a couple decent magical items, I walked away feeling I had wasted my time. There were no journal entries, no NPCs that made an impression, there was no point.
^Beholders, oh my!
The exception to the optional areas would be the Mullmaster Beholder Group. Here lies the most difficult fight in the entire game, where you'll face off against fifteen beholders, ten dark elf lords, ten high priests, and eight rakshasa. This battle allowed me to use the most powerful item in the game for the first time ever, the dust of disappearance. These games weren't always the best with explaining what certain items did, so although I found the dust in the past, I either didn't use it or had wasted it. Using this causes your entire party to become invisible to all creatures except those adjacent to you. Without it you're likely to get torn to shreds nearly instantly, and even with the dust I still managed to lose once! This encounter was certainly a memorable challenge, though it would have been nicer if even the smallest of quests had pointed to it.
With the first game there's nothing but levels and equipment stopping you from heading straight to the final boss at the beginning of the game. You'd have no idea where that location is or why you're doing it, and you'd be slaughtered unless you cheated in your party, but you could do it. There's one main quest, get rid of the bad guy. Everything else are medium or small side quests. It's this journey of helping out the city of Phlan in big and small ways which eventually leads you to discover the evils at hand. With Curse the five sigils on your arm represent your five quests for the entirety of the game. We're to be rid of them one by one, any greater good we do is but a side effect of our singular goal.
It's a very focused plot, and a well written story. The story is perhaps the greatest strength of Curse of the Azure Bonds. It's almost a text adventure in the paragraphs it throws your way. They'll be descriptions galore, as our steps echo off the sides of these dank caverns with which we make our way through. Marvel at the artistic embellishment the otyugh's make to a pile of excrement. Laugh, or perhaps cry as a dog piddles on your leg. Pictures are often times not needed, our minds doing the descriptions full justice. Many scripted battles add just a tiny bit more to the story as you chase your wrongdoers down a wizard's tower to a climactic boss battle in its courtyard.
^Alias helps us against the god Moander, the streets of Zhentil Keep
You won't be completely alone through this journey, NPCs will pop up along the way. A number of characters featured in the book will cross your path. Main characters Akabar, Ruskettle, Dragonbait, and Alias will all join up with you at various legs of your quest, with several minor characters making brief appearances as well. I believe these cameos will greatly enhance your enjoyment of both the game and book, though much of it will go right over your head if you're unfamiliar with the novel. Alias adds the most to the game, chiming in dialogue every few steps as you attempt to thwart the god Moander, a major antagonist from the novel. She'll even give you a fairly good synopsis of the book via a journal entry.
Unfortunately due to their focus on the Azure Bonds novel, SSI appear to have forgotten this is the second in a line of games. Other than your party itself (should you have transferred characters), and the main antagonist Tyranthraxus, no characters from Pool of Radiance (the game or novel) find their way into this game. The city of Phlan can be traveled to in Curse, but it's one of those basic menu driven towns with no plot. Zhentil Keep from the first game is treated a little better, at least being a major setting for one of our bond quests. Should you read all of the journal entries in the manual, there's actually an interesting diversion they had for those reading ahead. Council member Cadorna from the first game makes various named and unnamed appearances in the journal, designed to appear like he was the main antagonist for this game. These are red herrings as he never shows up, but it was nice to see that connection with the original game present in the journal.
Getting greater attention in this game are the actual members of your party, thankfully. While still rare, one of my fondest memories of the game were the various times the story pointed to my cleric, Stygian. At one point we're approached by a dark elf who claims to be a member of the Swanmays, a group of adventurers from the novel. If you choose to work with her she'll ask for a female member of your group to be branded with a stylized swan. This has the effect of helping you out in a variety of situations going forward, but more than that inserts your party into the actual story. A commander in Yulash is more likely to be friendly to you should he see that tattoo. Alias, shocked to see the symbal of a group she thought she belonged to, will ask where you received it. Finally a ghost in Myth Drannor will say that you're lucky to have this member in your party, using the name you gave that character. It's one of those little touches that go so far in connecting you personally with the story.
^Tyranthraxus returns, death in battle
While the story may be the greatest strength of Curse, the battle system was the most revolutionary element of the Gold Box games as a whole. Often demeaned as "hack and slash" by people who obviously had no idea what a role playing game was, the system never got the critical respect it deserved. These games are really the ultimate hybrids. Text adventure in their story, role playing in their leveling systems, and strategy in their combat. It's chess, but more fun. You can go head to head with your fighters if you choose, or you can maneuver around the pack, coming in from behind. Maybe swap out your sword for a crossbow and whittle the enemy down before they can get to you. Move your mage so the enemy forms a line, and watch as your lightning bolt goes through them one at a time! Have you been held or poisoned by an enemy spell caster? Move your cleric to the fallen and cast dispel magic or slow poison, putting that member back into the fight!
The enemies are not exactly what you would call smart, but they'll often prove a match for you with numbers on their side. Despite believing this to be one of the easier Gold Box titles, I still outright lost several battles, and was forced to reset others once I knew I couldn't survive. The boss battle at the red wizards tower had me sending a buffed fighter straight in while I played the stealth game with the others. Keep in mind your battlefield is not random, the walls you see are an exact copy of the adventuring map area. Splitting a section of my party off we traveled through adjacent rooms. Coming out at the enemies side, we sent lightning bolts to the main group, and managed to split off others to divide and conquer. This was my third attempt at winning this battle, and it felt quite rewarding. While occasionally crossing the tedious line, there's simply nothing in the RPG turn based realm with combat as tactical, fun, and rewarding.
Due to their 8-bit Commodore 64 origins, the graphics in the Gold Box games were never going to blow socks off. While made prettier for the 16-bits, you're only going to change things so much when adapting. The quality of the Amiga versions in particular vary depending on who ported the individual game. Technically speaking, Curse is a downgrade in graphics compared to the Amiga version of Pool of Radiance. Ubi-soft, who handled that port, completely redrew most of the graphics and used 32 colors, making it obviously the best version of the game. SSI would handle several of the Amiga conversions themselves, and while basing them off the DOS graphics, always made them prettier with added colors. MicroMagic handled the port of Curse to the Amiga, basing it off the DOS graphics and holding the game to only 16 colors. However, it was still not a completely straight port. Colors have been tweaked here and there, and notably the flesh tones have been changed from red in DOS to peach on the Amiga. There's a comparison with DOS at this point in my video review, and while not overwhelming better, I still consider the Amiga to have the definitive version of this game.
^Rakshasa are the worst, meeting an old friend, portrait animation
Some would actually believe the graphics are better in Curse, even compared to the Amiga version of Pool. This is understandable as there's more detail put into any individual picture in this game. Even the 3D adventuring screen's walls have quite a lot of pixel alterations, where as in Pool they had been mostly filled with solid colors. Take a look at a beholder on the battle screen and you'll notice numerous lines throughout his body, where again the battle screen monsters in Pool were drawn simpler with solid colors. Dithering is used to great effect in Curse, so while the game only uses 16 colors on the Amiga, the art of dithering can easily make things appear to be using more. The art was based off of official TSR material, and certainly qualifies as pretty, even if it won't win any graphical awards for use of 16-bit hardware.
Sounds are mediocre and sparse, but are effective where they're used. There's a decent musical intro on the Amiga, based off the Commodore 64 intro to both Pool and Curse (The Amiga version of Pool had a different track). While I have heard a PC speaker based rendition of this song played in DOS online, I will note my official DOS release features no intro music, and I wonder if it wasn't hacked in later. Of course the Amiga sounds crush anything coming out of the bleep/bloop/fart PC.
There are some quality of life improvements to Curse of the Azure Bonds, notably the "fix" option when you're camping. In Pool of Radiance, the slow decline of your parties health was always a major concern. Stuck with low level healing spells, you were forced to heal, re-memorize spells, rest, and repeat. Random encounters, along with the repetitive nature of this process, could become frustrating. By using "fix" in Curse, your party will usually emerge fully healed instantly. The intended reasoning is that your party has cast their spells, memorized, and rested automatically. This is not implemented correctly unfortunately, or perhaps thankfully. Attempt to do things the old way in a dungeon and it becomes clear you're far more likely to get into random encounters when resting compared to fixing. There's no spells being cast, strip your party of all their healing and they'll still be healed, no time passes at all. Fix does not always fully heal your party, and it can still lead to an occasional random encounter, but it's obviously playing by its own rules.
^Tyranthraxus "destroyed"
Speaking of rules, Curse is primarily working with the first edition of the D&D rule-set. I believe there are a couple examples of using either the second edition rules, or just making up their own for the game world. Personally I wish they had done a little more on their own, as the official stuff does not always translate to this medium correctly. While not a big deal for this second installment, class limitations of all races except humans become major factors moving forward through the series. Encumbrance issues mentioned earlier, which necessitate leaving behind most of your richess, certainly could have done for a rule alternation. But honestly the faithfulness to TSR is likely one of those reasons these games sold so well. Curse itself would sell nearly 180,000 copies, Pool sold more than 264,000, and even the action adventure Hillsfar received a respectable 80,000. Count all the Gold Box titles up and you're certainly surpassing the million units mark for $50 computer games. That kind of success for computers certainly owed some thanks to the many fans happy to see these rules incorporated with integrity.
I felt the final battle with Tyranthraxus was fairly well constructed, though not quite as difficult as his dragon form in Pool of Radiance. I've beaten this game multiple times over the years without the dust of disappearance, and he always manages to kill off my party two or three times before I finally figure out a winning strategy. Even when I got him out of the picture quickly, dealing with all his margoyle and clerical friends managed to be nail biting. When the battle ceases, the end sequence begins. You destroy another pool of radiance, and with it Tyranthraxus itself, apparently. I'm sure we'll never see him again... Fireworks greet you in Shadowdale and while not a spectacular ending, I found it respectable, and better than the ending of Pool. At this point you can do nothing but save your characters for the next game, a point which angered Computer Gaming World's Scorpia, as she felt she had more she wanted to do in the world. I could agree with this point if applied to Champions of Krynn, where you found yourself forcefully taken to that games final area with no warning once hitting a certain checkpoint. However it couldn't have been made more obvious in this game that you were approaching the end. It's fairly blatant and all you have to do is heed that warning and finish up what you've put off, not that any optional areas mean anything in this game...
Magazines of the era varied in their feelings, and went from thinking the game was excellent or good, to having mixed opinions. In America Info gave the Amiga version four out of five stars, calling it the most playable AD&D game yet. Dragon Magazine credited Curse with five out of five stars, and said tearing yourself away will be the most difficult decision of all. Scorpia through Computer Gaming World called it a standard follow up, saying it was better than Pool in some ways, but lamenting that combat still predominates. Her review prompted a direct response from SSI, a not so uncommon occurrence for her. I found Curse rating as high as the fourth best game as rated by the readers of CGW for the DOS and C64 versions, and number fifty-four during a time it was out for the Amiga. A sales chart from CGW had it listed as the eighteenth best selling game across all formats when it was brand new on the Amiga. Curse would win the 1989 Origin's Award for best fantasy or science fiction computer game, up against Dragon Wars, MechWarrior, Sword of the Samurai, and War of the Lance. Compute gave it a "best of the rest" award for the C64 version.
In Europe it was a mostly mixed bag. Amiga Action gave the game 72%, calling it both decidedly average, but also a fine product which fans of SSI should consider purchasing. Curse would rank number nine through Amiga Action in a readers pole for RPGs. ST User called the AtariST version worth every penny, but only gave it a 79%. ST Format said you couldn't go wrong with it, but apparently that's only worth a 74% rating. Zapp64 covered the Amiga version and gave it a 72%, wishing SSI would forget about their old titles and release prompt Amiga versions, yet they called it well designed, with imaginative opponents, and saying it will keep you on the edge of your chair. Perhaps you can deduce why I refuse to give out percentages, stars, or grades in my reviews. Don't let ratings reduce the value of your words.
I'd call Curse of the Azure Bonds a wonderfully different game. Don't let the Gold Boxes or the game engine fool you, each one of these babies is their own separate entity. Personally I prefer quite a few others in the series to this one, though I recognize Curse to be the favorite of many. Things like the game being easier, more linear, and shorter may not be liked by me, but could very well be loved by another. You shouldn't go from one installment expecting another, because you're not going to get it! In that sense I adore the change of pace, I soak in every bit of story, have a blast with the combat, and see it as the essential second piece in this legendary series. The Origin's Award speaks profoundly for this game and all the others, because it won based on the people's votes, not critics. These are the RPGs of the people. They were bought, loved, and never got the respect they deserved.
I hope you'll check out my video review, where any magazines mentioned here will be read from and opined on. There's a very interesting interview with SSI's Joel Billings discussing the Amiga which I show off. I'll also be reading from some of the fantastic story featured in the manual, check out the games box, and show how I improved the Amiga's title screen by adding color! They'll be a comparison with the DOS version, and even a bit of an investigation to find out the release date on Amiga. On a personal note this happens to be my 100th overall review, and the start of my 7th year making these; Thanks to all who've come along on this journey of mediocrity! Readers of this article may also enjoy my looks at Pool of Radiance, Hillsfar, Champions of Krynn, Eye of the Beholder, or Might and Magic IV. My party members are more than just names, they're the people I happen to love watching on YouTube. There's Lactobacillus Prime, Maximum RD, The Shadow's Nose, Stygian Phoenix, and Polaventris. Perhaps you can check them out, maybe you'll love them too.
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