It seems like most folks are buying this bundle for Menzoberranzan, which is fine - but don't overlook Dungeon Hack. Menzo is a lot of fun. It's more linear than the Ravenloft games that came before or after with it but also plays with the formula a bit more than those two games in other ways (there are characters in Menzo who will turn on the party or abandon it, etc.) I wish a couple more games had been done in this style, but the first person D&D games went out of vogue when Baldur's Gate came out and it's easy to forget there's only two and a half years or so between Stone Prophet (1995) and Baldur's Gate (1998). Dungeon Hack is a reminder that where D&D 5e hits you with a pillow, 2nd Edition came at you with a nailbat. This game shows no mercy, not even on the easy difficulty levels, and is a fun way to just proceed through a maze and click buttons... until you run into a level full of monsters that'll mop the floor with you. Anyway, I love both of these games. Either one of them would be worth this price alone.
Real talk, I'm enjoying the story in this game a lot. But the Crusade mechanic is getting in the way of the rest of the game. WoR uses an army battle mechanic almost identical to Heroes of Might and Magic/Age of Wonders - slightly simplified in some ways. But it also has the exact same problems those games did - you're left scrabbling for resources and can't put together armies fast enough to defend yourself, while the computer can spit tier-7 armies at you at will. I decided to take Lich path, and the mechanics that got put in place for it on the Crusade side don't work. You simply don't get enough skeletons and zombies per victory to make the recruitment nerf and additional cost for mercenaries workable. My armies have ground to a halt. This is a shame because I was having a lot of fun with that story and my Lich-Witch got a sick spellbook full of goodies when I took that Mythic path. Now, caveat, you CAN just turn crusade mode over to the Computer and play the game to your heart's content. However, it's obvious they don't want you to do that - there are things you lose out on if you do (that's bad game design, to give people an opt-out and punish them for taking it) and you can't even progress on the Lich Path if you do, since there are choices you need to make in crusade mode in order to progress that part of the story. So if you're thinking about taking the Lich Path, put a pin in that until they've done some rebalancing or until someone releases a mod that does it for them. The Crusade interface is clumsy - one common refrain I noticed is people trying to figure out how to combine armies. It's not hard once you know how to do it, but it isn't up-front obvious either. Menus aren't easy to sort through and aren't even easy to find sometimes. I guess I'll delete those save files and start again, and try Angel or Golden Dragon or something.
Man, before Baldur's Gate, D&D games came with almost no handholding. There's only 3 years between Stone Prophet and Baldur's Gate, reflecting a huge leap in graphics and a huge shift in game design and player aesthetic. But despite being more primitive, these games have atmosphere no Isometric RPG has been able to match, and they're absolutely worth your time. The first-person view of the games creates suspense, and tactical challenges all its own, such as enemies approaching your party from multiple sides, and needing to rapidly maneuver so that you can control monsters' access to the rear ranks of your party. The cluebooks for these games are both good, and there are some useful maps online - but the old fan walkthroughs tend to be incomplete, primitive, or just plain incorrect. Be aware! First of all, they'll tell you to play this game with multi-classed characters - some combination of Class/Mage and a Fighter/Cleric. You can do this but you don't have to. A single-classed character is always going to attain a higher level in a class than a multi-classed character. That means more spells, higher level spells, and more powerful abilities like turning undead. Second of all, the Stone Prophet guides will all tell you Piotra the Thief is useless. This is 100% incorrect. Piotra's ability to pick locks means you won't have to spend time hunting for keys. Second, as their levels go up Thieves can use most spell scrolls and magic items. If you don't bring a Wizard with you (there's no Wizard NPC in the game) there are a number of powerful scrolls and items ONLY Piotra can use. Between the two games, Strahd's Possession is harder, but it's worth playing through it at least partway to gain a few levels and obtain some powerful magic items like the Dagger of Throwing and the Paladin's longsword and dagger, then transfer your characters to Stone Prophet. IMO, the best combo of characters is a Paladin and a Single-Class Cleric.
