Back in the 80s, the PC had not yet taken hold as the definitive home computer system, and as a result game were often released cross-platform on many different systems than we generally see today. SSI (Strategic Simulations Inc.) released a whole series of titles based on the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons property and ruleset. Heroes of the Lance, one of these titles, was released in 1988 and ported to at least 9 different platforms. This sometimes resulted in wide variances in overall quality, even though gameplay often remained more or less unchanged between versions. Systems like the Commodore 64 possessed better graphics than the ZX Spectrum, and far better sound and music than most PCs at that time. Console ports like the Nintendo sometimes proved to be a middle-ground when dealing with titles ported from the home computer market. In the case of Heroes of the Lance this rings somewhat true: Character graphics are sharper than their pixelated C64 brethren, and yet not as detailed, large and colorful as their MS-DOS counterparts. Regardless, the look, especially of the dark, ruined city of Xak Tsaroth, remains much the same.
The game is based off of the first Dragonlance campaign module, "Dragons of Despair", and the first Dragonlance novel "Dragons of Autumn Twilight". You take a party of eight heroes into the ruins of Xak Tsaroth in search of the Disks of Mishakal, guarded by the dragon Khisanth.
Many of the AD&D games released by SSI were more traditional role playing games, but the Dragonlance series focused on action-adventure gameplay. Heroes of the Lance is a side-scrolling game. Your eight heroes are pre-selected and have their own weapons and statistics lifted directly from the AD&D rulebook, although in practice they play much the same apart from some having ranged attacks. You can switch between them at will, but only one will display onscreen at a time. If a hero dies, he or she is permanently dead, and the game ends when all of your heroes are killed. The home computer versions of Heroes of the Lance received much praise upon their release, but the NES version is often regarded as one of the worst titles on the console.
The reason for this may have more to do with expectations than with the actual game. Heroes of the Lance is challenging and at times frustrating, involves a certain amount of trial and error and it can be confusing to navigate (one peculiarity is that you encounter doors along your journey that you can enter on the top and bottom of the screen, but both top and bottom doors always lead to the same location). It's very easy to kill your characters and there is no way to save.
For my part, I enjoyed Heroes of the Lance. It did in fact feel much more like one of the early home computer games than what you would expect out of a typical NES title, but growing up with a Commodore 64 I couldn't find fault in this aspect. It just feels different...perhaps it is the slower pace, not sure. The empty, colorless ruins of the city, often blasted for not having any variety or interest, served only to feed my imagination. There were subtle changes here and there, and the dark, old-world architecture of the place made me feel like I really was wandering through an abandoned, expansive city, filled with dark shadows, evil spirits and history. This is, really, part of the reason I play games: to seek out new worlds and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before (if I may borrow from Captain Kirk). One needs an escape from the real world with its workday drudgery and stress, and taking a stroll through the Mushroom Kingdom, questing through the land of Hyrule or, in Heroes of the Lance, stalking cautiously through the dark, empty ruins of Xak Tsaroth is a welcome journey.
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