Playing Hillsfar (NES)

Entry posted by Cybergoth June 7, 2010

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Hi there!

Let's have a look at another AD&D title for the NES:

Somehow Hillsfar for the NES is probably one of the weirdest games in existance.

The original home computer version this is based on was kinda supposed to bridge the waiting time between the releases of Pool of Radiance and Curse of the Azure Bonds. You could basically load single Pool of Radiance characters into Hillsfar and train them there. There's a series of quests to perform (3 for every class) and solving them would level the character up a bit, so your party was a bit stronger in CotAB.

Now this was ported to the NES, where export/import of characters is impossible and Curse didn't even come out :roll:

But well. If you ever wanted to create AD&D RPG characters on the NES from scratch just to train them some in an action game, Hillsfar is your best choice :lolblue:

Curious as ever, I tried it nevertheless. Navigating a Cleric through the first two quests tonight, I was even more disappointed though, as the game has little to no substance. E.g. there's no real item management or equipment and no spell casting either.

And while the quests have just been a mix of goto and fetch, I spent more time with the growingly annoying horse riding sequence (pictured above) then with anything else.

The rest is navigating in realtime through very simple and very small dungeons. (It feels a bit like Dark Chambers for the 2600, albeit with less action... :ponder: )

There's other action sequences, like arena fights or an archery contest, but unless one's in desperate need of money there's no point in doing them.

Well, let's see how the final quest for my cleric turns out tomorrow

Greetings,

Manuel

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Cybergoth 299

Posted June 9, 2010

The 3rd quest for my Cleric wasn't any more challenging than the other two, just twice as long. It took less than 2 hours to complete, so my Cleric is done now:

I don't feel like trying any of the other classes, since I think I've already done more than enough horse riding by now

Some future day the "Playing..." series may see another AD&D game in the form of "Curse of the Azure Bonds", but first it'll continue with something else.