Warriors of the Eternal Sun

Another role-playing video game based on the Dungeons and Dragons rules, Warriors of the Eternal Sun was released for the Sega Genesis in 1992. The game was based on the D&D Hollow World setting, and took place in a totally contained, lost valley. It employed a fluid, top-down view for outdoor movement, including a turn-based scrolling screen for encounters. In the dungeons, the view changed to first person, with movement taking place in a square-by-square fashion, and combat switching to real-time.

Character classes were reminiscent of the Basic D&D rules, with Elf, Dwarf and Halfling being among the choices. Character development was kept at a slow pace, which kept the game challenging throughout. Mages could advance high enough to cast 6th level spells (including Disintegration) by the game's end, although it was quite typical to reach the finish before those spells were acquired.

Since the game was developed for a console, rather than a PC, the graphics, music and overall surroundings had a unique feel, even a smoothness, to them. This created a mini-world that the player could believe was really isolated from the rest of creation, which enhanced the setting tremendously. The inclusion of dinosaurs, Azcan temples and beastmen alongside traditional D&D monsters only added to the feel of a lost world.

One quick way for players to level up was to find a certain cave complex in the northwest portion of the map. One of the cave entrances housed a red dragon, which would immediately approach and attack the party. If a mage used a Web spell, they could trap the dragon for a few seconds, which was enough time for a well-equipped party to kill the beast. Whoever landed the fatal stroke would gain around 5,000 experience points. Since the monsters would respawn each time the dungeon was entered, the party could simply exit, rest, and then re-enter and defeat another dragon. A clever player might choose the same character to kill the dragon each time, thus amassing a large amount of experience points in just a few battles.

Another cave complex led the party off of the main world map and into a strange jungle-world containing a ziggurat-like temple. This Azcan temple was heavily guarded, and contained many traps inside, requiring the player to map out each level. On the temple's fifth level were rings of fire resistance, which would help the party defeat the red dragon mentioned above.

About the only drawback to Warriors of the Eternal Sun was that it was not terribly long, and the whole game could be completely explored and finished in 2-3 days.