Some genius played Breakout or Arkanoid and thought, "Hey, RPG?" It works! Occasionally the ball will go horizontally for a maddening amount of time, but that's my only gripe. I played for four hours the first session and didn't even know it.
If you play these with Gold Box Companion, add one star to my rating. The Gold Box games suffer from the dead weight that is 1980's D&D adapted to the computer instead of coming up with a system that's better suited to the medium. The good ones (maybe two?) figure out how to make a good game despite this, like Pool of Radiance's thrilling low level dungeon hack or the Buck Rogers D20 games making missions that play more to your party's skills and not just their lasers. Krynn could have been good too, but this series tells a baffling story if you don't know the novels, frustrates with obscure rules that ruin characters, and uses just a few enemies repetitively. The games ended up overstaying their welcome for me with each successive game. My rating of the games is mixed: Champions of Krynn: B+, due to its fun low level gameplay and tight dungeons and plot. Worth the price of admission if you're into retro RPGs. Death Knights of Krynn: B-, because of its creative maps and Ravenloft-esque setting, tempered by extremely repetitive enemy selections and grindy mid-level combat. Cool soundtrack though, especially the Japanese PC98 one. Dark Queen of Krynn: D-, because it's a game that upgrades the engine but thinks its combat is way more fun than it is at high level, conjures no treasure you'll pick up, and doubles or triples the size of its dungeons. All pain, no gain.
