Dungeons & Dragons Games Vol. 9: Gold Box - Curse of the Azure Bonds (MS-DOS) - Part 2

This week on Super Adventures, I feel like I should write a little more about Curse of the Azure Bonds. It's a big complicated RPG, so one article wasn't really doing it justice. You could argue that two isn't enough either and I should really finish it, but... I don't want to.

Like Pool of Radiance, the game was released on a ton of systems: IBM PC, Commodore 64, Commodore Amiga, the venerable Apple II, Apple Macintosh, NEC PC-98. Not the NES this time though; the Gold Box RPGs never returned to the console. And D&D was done with the Sharp X1 and PC-88 entirely by this point.

On the plus side, the Atari ST got a port this time! Their first and only Gold Box game. It's a shame that ST owners were left out after this, as it was one of the higher spec machines of the '80s and its weakness with scrolling backgrounds wasn't a problem for these turn based RPGs.

Alright, if you want to return to part one then CLICK HERE. If you want to see a list of all the Dungeons & Dragons games I've covered CLICK HERE. And if you want some Curse of the Azure Bonds spoilers then you're already in the right place.

Dungeons & Dragons Games Vol. 8: Gold Box - Curse of the Azure Bonds (MS-DOS) - Part 1

Developer:

SSI

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Release Date:

1989

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Systems:

DOS, C64, Apple II, Amiga, Mac, Atari ST, PC-98

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This week, it's my first Super Adventures game of 2026: Curse of the Azure Bonds! 

The game came out in 1989, which means I've still got three more years of Dungeons & Dragons games left to get through before I've finished the first decade. That doesn't sound so bad, but this is the point where they begin to get abundant.

Strategic Simulations Inc. had the licence at this point and their tactic to increase game sales was to give people more games to buy. They released an average of six D&D games a year, half of them proper Gold Box RPGs.

To make things more straightforward, or more confusing, the Gold Box games alternated between three different series. Well, three plus the Neverwinter Nights MMO. And the Buck Rogers games I suppose, but they're something else.

Anyway, this is A FORGOTTEN REALMS Fantasy Role-Playing Epic, Vol. II, which makes it the second volume of the Pool of Radiance saga. It's also a sequel to the novel Azure Bonds so there are two sagas intersecting here. Though you'd be forgiven for thinking it was an adaptation as it has basically the same name and the same cover. I know most/all the early D&D games used recycled art for their boxes, but they were taking the piss a bit with this one.

I'm going to play the game for a few hours, probably spoil a bunch of early twists for you, and show off screenshots. I won't be playing enough of the game to form a proper informed opinion (ie. all of it), but I'll try to hang in there long enough to get what it's doing.

Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss (MS-DOS)

Developer:

Blue Sky

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Release Date:

1992

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Systems:

DOS, FM Towns, PC-98, PlayStation

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This year on Super Adventures, I'm celebrating 10 years of the site by playing games that have earned their place on a 'top 10' list at some point. Maybe I found a game on a 'Top 10 Best Game Over Themes' list, or perhaps a 'Top 10 Most Underwhelming Sequels' list, it doesn't matter as long as they made it there.

In this case I'm playing Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss which I found at #5 on PC Gamer's 1994 'Top 100', and at #3 on PC Zone's October 2000 'all-time classics' list. You could probably find it all over the place though as it's a bit legendary. It's part of the foundations that some of the biggest franchises are built on, as series like Deus Ex and Elder Scrolls can trace their lineage right back here. Tomb Raider and Minecraft too actually. Though there's a more direct link with Looking Glass's System Shock series, seeing as this is the first game by Blue Sky Productions... later known as Looking Glass Studios.

I haven't played this myself yet though, even though it seemed like an obvious choice for Super Adventures, and the main reason for that is that it looks like an absolute bastard to write about, and I'd want to do it right. Plus I haven't really played the other Ultima games and I know nothing about the series!

I checked Wikipedia however, and it turns out that Underworld was released just before Ultima VII, in 1992, and the Ultima series was 11 years old at the time. So this was a bit of a Resident Evil 4 situation I suppose, as it's an inventive and influential successor released about a decade after the original. Except here it's a spin-off, not a change in direction for the franchise, so fans of the classic gameplay weren't faced with their series making a genre shift. In fact it wasn't even originally an Ultima game at all, and they had to rewrite it during development to fit the lore and really turn up the 'ye olde English' dial.

I should mention that I'm playing the GOG version, which is presumably the CD release, and I should also mention it may include cartoony low-res spiders.

Golden Axe (Genesis/Mega Drive)

Developer:

Sega

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Release Date:

1990 (1989 in Japan and Arcades)

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Systems:

Lots

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This week on Super Adventures, I'm playing the legendary arcade game Golden Axe! On the Mega Drive!

It might seem a bit strange that it's taken me like eight years to finally get around to Golden Axe as it's fairly well known. Maybe not Mario or Doom tier, but definitely Alex Kidd tier. Higher than Toki, lower than Tekken. Anyway, one of the reasons I haven't played it yet is because when I started this site I was only writing about games I hadn't seen before and knew nothing about, and this is one I know a bit about. In fact it's probably the first Mega Drive game I ever owned. I wasn't very good at it and I've never reached the ending, but I've seen those first few stages at least a half dozen times!

The other reason I've put off writing about it, is what am I going to write? You walk to the right and you hit things, there's not much else to it. I suppose I could mention that the arcade game was created by the team that made Altered Beast the year before. Also, they were apparently going to call the game Broad Axe, after they couldn't use their first choice, but then the president of Sega US noticed that the dwarf's axe in the game looked golden and decided that they were going have to change the title to Golden Axe or else they weren't going to sell it. That's what I've read anyway!

By the way, the kanji in the logo with all the weapons hidden in it, "戦斧", means 'battle axe', which is what they wanted to call the game in the first place. I think Golden Axe is a better name to be honest.

Super Panda Adventures (PC) - Guest Post

This week on Super Adventures, guest poster mecha-neko has returned to write about a game with the best title. It's literally 'Super Adventures', except with a panda in it! Now I just need to find a science fiction movie called Ray Hardgrit's Sci-Fi Cat Adventures so I can manipulate him into to writing my other site for me as well.

Also I realise that this was published on a Wednesday, not a Monday, but mecha-neko has a fondness for his banner and I didn't have the heart to tell him he couldn't use it. I guess you could read it on a Monday if that works better for you.

Hello everyone! I hope the new year is treating you well!

Hmm... hands up who'd like to see a brightly coloured platform game about a loveable panda!

Developer:

Paul Schneider, BlueEagle Productions

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Release Date:

23rd April 2013

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Systems:

Windows

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With a title like that, how could I possibly resist?

Kaze Kiri: Ninja Action (TurboGrafx-CD)

Developer:

Naxat Soft

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Release Date:

1994

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Systems:

PC Engine Super CD-ROM²

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This week on Super Adventures, a game called Kaze Kiri: Ninja Action that came out in Japan and nowhere else.

I'm not sure I've played a Naxat Soft game before so I've no idea what to expect. Maybe it'll be an incredibly slick showcase for what the humble PC Engine can do in the hands of experts, maybe it'll be an unplayable piece of crap, I can't even guess. It's a Super CD-ROM² game so it has the potential to be at least as good as Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, but I won't be getting my hopes up.

One thing I know for sure is that I hate how long it takes to get to the title screen. First you have to wait through a flickering five second movie countdown and then another ten for the title to form. C'mon game, I've got ninjas to kill or maybe play as!

Kid Klown in Crazy Chase (SNES)

Developer:

Kemco

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Release Date:

1995 (EU)

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Systems:

Super Nintendo, Game Boy Advance

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This week on Super Adventures I'm taking a quick look at Kid Klown in Crazy Chase, the second in Kemco's Kid Klown tetralogy. The name reminds me of cult classic 'Killer Klowns from Outer Space', which is interesting because I'd no idea I'd even heard of the film until now. How is this clown movie knowledge leaking into my brain? I'm fairly sure they're unrelated though.

I have to admit that I'm not a huge fan of clowns, but I love that title screen. It's got to be some of the best title art on the Super Nintendo. It's a shame there's a Kid Klown standing right in the middle of it, but squint your eyes a bit and he could be Kid Santa. The music's a bit clowny as well, though I've heard worse. So far so good, but let's see what happens when I select 'Option'.

Arabian Nights (Amiga)

Developer:

Krisalis

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Release Date:

1993

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Systems:

Amiga, CD32

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It's been exactly 30 years since the first Amigas hit stores, so today on Super Adventures I'll be celebrating by taking a look a classic Amiga exclusive! To be honest I only just learned about the Amiga's birthday from Twitter, so it's pure coincidence I'm playing this now (the game probably won't even run on an original A1000), but the timing worked out eerily well.

You can probably already tell from the title screen that Arabian Nights is all about managing your own 'One Thousand and One Nights' themed theme park! Actually no it's just another platformer from the golden age of running and jumping. That roller coaster is really a mine cart, the pirate ship ride is probably an actual pirate ship, and the guy floating around on a balloon likely didn't win it with his archery skill in a carnival game.

Despite the title, it's not an adaptation of any 'Arabian Nights' story in particular either, though if Scheherazade had gone on for a 1002nd night she might have gotten around to it. It's got that same kind of 'swords and flying carpet sorcery' fantasy setting. I know all this because I dug the game up from my hazy childhood memories, and I'm very familiar with it. Well, the first 20 minutes anyway (I didn't have much patience back then)... but I promise you I'll show you least three proper levels before I turn it off this time. Maybe more if it has continues!

Super Mario World (SNES)

Developer:

Nintendo

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Release Date:

1990 (JP)

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Systems:

SNES

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Today on Super Adventures I'm taking a brief look at Super Mario World (AKA. Super Mario Bros. 4: Super Mario World in Japan). After this the numbering gets a bit crazy though, as you've got Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, which presumably counts as Super Mario Bros. 5, and then it jumps right up to Super Mario 64! No 'Bros.' for that game though, as Mario decided to go solo that time.

Every Nintendo console but the Wii has had a Mario (or Luigi) game as a launch title, and this is the game that was relied upon to kick off the era of the Super Famicom in November 1990. This and Mode 7 racing game F-Zero, but don't expect to see that on the site any time soon as I am astoundingly terrible at it.

Amazingly for a series with such highly regarded soundtracks, in Japan this was the first of the Super Mario games to have music on the title screen (though the Western version of Super Mario Bros. 2 does have a tune.) Even more amazingly... I don't really like it all that much. It's twee and grating and sounds like it belongs more in a nursery rhyme than a Mario game. Here have a youtube link, listen for yourself.

Super Mario Land (GB)

Developer:

Nintendo

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Release Date:

1989

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Systems:

Game Boy

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Today on Super Adventures, Mario Marathon Month drags on even longer with Super Mario Land, for the Game Boy! There's our heroic plumber up there on the top of the sign in fact, shaking his fist at the sky and yelling at strangers to get off his Marioland.

This was the fourth Super Mario game in Japan and Europe, but the third to come out in America. It doesn't count as part of the main Super Mario Bros. series though because Luigi hasn't bothered to turn up this time. Can't give it the Bros. label without Mario's bro around.

Though if it was a Bros. game it would've been the first Mario Bros. produced by Gunpei Yokoi since Mario Bros., and the first created without the involvement of Shigeru Miyamoto. It's also the first developed for a proper cartridge-based handheld system, and if you're wondering where you've heard the name Gunpei Yokoi before, it's possible that you remember him as being the designer of the Game Boy itself. Super Mario Land was a launch title for the system and was originally intended to be the first pack-in title until Nintendo was persuaded that Tetris would have more universal appeal... because it's Tetris.

Can't really disagree with that logic, especially as 25 years later I still haven't even really played Super Mario Land yet, but it says that it's "his best adventure yet" on the box, so I'm pretty hyped.

Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES)

Developer:

Nintendo

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Release Date:

1988 (JP)

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Systems:

NES, SNES

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Today on Super Adventures my Mario Marathon Month continues with Super Mario Bros. 3, the final Super Mario for the NES! It's not the last game he showed up in on the console though, as he got his medical degree just before the SNES was released. Sadly his career as Dr. Mario lasted just four months and then it was all Yoshi games and edutainment after that.

I've timed this one better than most, as today is the game's 25th anniversary... in the US. It's not a particularly special date to me seeing as it came out 18 months later in Britain and a year or so earlier in Japan, but I'm being impatient considerate of my American readers. Whoa, I just did the math there: that's three years that we were left waiting for this, while Americans were already playing Super Mario World! I say 'we'... I didn't get a NES until something like 2001, so it's not like I was personally inconvenienced by any of this.

Super Mario Bros. 3 has actually appeared on Super Adventures before, about four years ago now, but I wasn't the person who played it and the guy who did absolutely hated it. Seriously, I found someone who dislikes Super Mario 3, how amazing is that? Uh, not that I'm implying that I like it, I'm not giving that away until the end, but I have definitely played it before and I have... opinions.

Super Mario Bros. 2 (NES)

Today on Super Adventures, my Mario Marathon Month continues with a tale of two Super Mario Bros. 2s.

Back on the Famicom and NES in the late 80s there was a bit of a trend for sequels to be radically different to the original. Zelda II: The Adventure of Link added RPG elements and swapped genres to become a platformer, Castlevania II: Simon's Quest evolved into more of an open world RPG with NPCs and a day/night cycle, Final Fantasy II encouraged players to beat up their own team-mates to level up skills etc. But Super Mario Bros. 2 managed to be both more of the same and a reinvention of the formula at the same time, by cheating and being two separate games:

The Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2 (AKA. Super Mario Bros. The Lost Levels in the West) is the next step on from Super Mario Bros. and arcade game VS. Super Mario Bros., with even more challenging levels and a badge on the box saying "For super players" to make sure that regular players realise that it's going to kick their ass.

The American Super Mario Bros. 2 (AKA. Super Mario USA in Japan) is a localisation of an entirely unrelated platformer, repurposed as a replacement Mario sequel due to the Japanese Mario 2's dated visuals and punishing difficulty level making it more likely to scare players away from the unproven NES than win the undying love that the Famicom was currently enjoying in Japan.

At least that's how I think it goes. I'll give each an hour or two and see how they play.

Super Mario Bros. (NES)

Developer:

Nintendo

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Release Date:

1985 (Japan)

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Systems:

NES

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It's always nice to have another 'Super' game on Super Adventures, even though Nintendo had to go and confuse me by releasing it on the Famicom/NES instead of waiting five more years to put it on the Super Nintendo. Fortunately they'd learned to match the title with the system by the time Super Mario 64 came out; they didn't end up calling it Super Mario Cube or something.

Super Mario Bros. is the second game I'll be playing for my Mario Marathon Month. It's also the something like the eighth game to ever feature Mario, the seventh in which he's playable, the fourth to have his name in the title, and the first to be developed exclusively for home consoles... I think (and that's not even counting the Game and Watch games). He's a busy guy, and it's hard to keep track of all the places he turns up.

While I'm throwing out numbers, this was something like game #64 for the two year old Famicom, but when the NES reached the US this was out at launch, and you can bet that it wasn't Gyromite and Duck Hunt that made the system such a massive success in the West, resurrecting the American console market after the 1983 video game crash. Super Mario Bros. was the best selling single platform exclusive for three decades... though that seems a bit less impressive somehow when you know that Wii Sports was the game that finally beat it.

Anyway I'm going to play it for an hour or two, show some screenshots and shout out everything that enters my mind as I go.

The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (N64) - Replay

Developer:

Nintendo

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Release Date:

2000

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Systems:

N64

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Super Adventures is teetering on the precipice of becoming four years old, and it's become a tradition for me to use each anniversary as an opportunity to look back at five or six of the games I played back in the earliest days of the site and give them another try. Traditions are boring though, so this year I'm only replaying a single game, the latest one, and I'm putting it up on the wrong day.

You could argue that I didn't really give Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask a fair chance last time, but I wouldn't bother because I'd only end up agreeing with you. I mean what could I say in my defence, that quitting before I'd even encountered the defining mechanic of the game was justified because I was bored?

It's a game about fighting through dungeons, earning masks, and rewinding time, and I didn't get far enough on my first try to do any of that. I played hide and seek and lost, and then a moon fell on me, the end. But I figured it'd be thematically appropriate to give it a second look, in the hope that we can both do better this time around. I was actually thinking of scheduling this for three days ago as well, but then that would've just been confusing.

Rocket Knight Adventures (Genesis/Mega Drive)

Today on Super Adventures I'm spending an hour or so playing Konami's Rocket Knight Adventures, released exclusively on the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive. This is the first game of a series, though Sparkster here wasn't really the most well loved mascot hero of his time. Sure three games is a lot better than many of his rivals managed during the Anthropomorphic Mascot Wars of the early 90s, but after 1994 he was left forgotten for sixteen years before landing his fourth (and possibly final) starring role in Rocket Knight.

I've seen his other games but I've never really had a go of this one before, so I can promise that I'm coming at this entirely unburdened by nostalgia or foreknowledge. Though I admit that I'm always going to be a little biased towards liking games with 'Super' or 'Adventures' in the title.

This is the final 'R' game I'll be looking at this year before I move on to the letter 'S', and to be honest it's one more than I'd originally planned to play. But it was requested, and I felt bad for not having one single 16-bit Sega game on the site since early February, so here's a bonus platformer for you. Though of course this does mean that one of the other letters is losing a game.

Neutopia (TurboGrafx-16)

"Neutopia" is the twentieth episode of the sixth season of the animated sitcom Futurama, and the premiere of Season 6-B. It is the twentieth episode of the sixth season in production order, and the 108th episode in broadcast order.

Actually ignore that, because the Neutopia I'm looking at here is a TurboGrafx game from Hudson Soft. I figured that my site could do with a few more of these around, especially after that run of modern 3D PC shooters I just played. The game's been described as 'a bit of a Zelda clone', so if this ends up being about stylish gunplay and gritty realism again then you can't blame me this time.

Speaking of Zelda clones, the way the logo has been skewered on a sword sure seems familiar. Though Nintendo didn't really start piercing its Zelda logos until Link to the Past two years later, so I'll let them off with that.

Kingdom: The Far Reaches / Thayer's Quest (MS-DOS)

I've been looking through my list of 'K' games and there sure are a whole lot of titles beginning with Knight, King and Kingdom in there, so whatever I end up going with I'll be seeing a lot of blokes with swords over the next two weeks. Today's game is Kingdom: The Far Reaches, AKA. Thayer's Quest or just Reaches, and it looks like I'll even get a castle or two in this one.

Kingdom has been sitting in my GOG.com library, taunting me, ever since I bought it in a pay what you want Interplay bundle two years ago. I've been putting off playing it though because at a glance it kind of looks a CD-I port. But no longer! Today you and I are going to find out what this game actually is, and hopefully figure out if it's any good while we're at it.

Dragon Warrior (NES)

Dragon Warrior may not be the first Japanese RPG ever made (not by a long shot), or even the first Japanese console RPG ever made, but it's the one that really set the template for the JRPG genre. Chunsoft grabbed the overhead view overworld adventuring from the Ultima games, the first person turn based battles from Wizardry, and fused them together with a Portopia Serial Murder Case style menu based interface to form a more accessible kind of RPG for a more mainstream audience.

Or so I've heard, I've never actually played the game. So I'm going to shut up, turn it on, and get myself educated about a piece of genuine videogame history.

Final Fantasy (NES) - Replay

Super Adventures in Gaming Replay 2013 - Game 2

This is a pretty terrible choice of game for me to replay really, considering that I didn't play it myself the first time around and the original guest post by Ocean is actually fine. Plus the game isn't exactly photogenic enough to be worth showing off a second time. Not that the art's bad, it's just that it's an 8-bit NES game and even at their best they don't tend to be eye candy.

This didn't even reach the West until 1990, well into the 16-bit era, so it must have looked pretty basic to Westerners even at the time. In fact the game didn't get a European release until 2003 as part of the Final Fantasy Origins compilation on the PlayStation. The first FF game released over here was actually Final Fantasy VII, which hit shops a full decade after the franchise began in Japan.

Uh, what was I even talking about again? Whatever, here's a quick absurdly long look at the original Final Fantasy on the NES.

Superfrog (Amiga)

Today I'm taking a look at classic Amiga platformer Superfrog, made by classic Amiga developer Team17. You may remember them from such games as Worms, Worms United, Worms 2, Worms Armageddon, Worms World Party, Worms 3D, Worms Blast, Worms Forts, Worms 4: Mayhem, Worms: Open Warfare, Worms: Open Warfare 2, Worms: A Space Oddity, Worms 2: Armageddon, Worms Reloaded, Worms: Battle Islands, Worms: Ultimate Mayhem, Worms: Revolution...

I have to admit, this isn't my first attempt at the game, as I used to play this when I was young. But I was even worse at games back then than I am now, so I probably didn't even make it past the first world.