Lands of Lore: Guardians of Destiny

Westwood Studios, in addition to numerous war games (Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty, Command & Conquer series), actively participated in the development of the RPG genre. It is the programmers of this studio who owe the first two editions of the Eye of the Beholder cycle. In 1993 Brett W. Sperry and Louis Castle decided to create their own series of fantasy programs. This is how Lands of Lore's debut product, The Throne of Chaos, was born. Four years later it was decided to publish its official continuation.

Despite the technological abyss, the Lands of Lore: Guardians of Destiny draws on the achievements of its predecessor, especially when it comes to the story being told. The main protagonist of the struggle is a young man named Luther, who is de facto the son of Scotia - a nasty witch, well known from the first part of the cycle. During an attempt to defeat King Richard and turn the fortress in Gladstone into a perch, the witch accidentally began the process of summoning a powerful demon, the Belial. The burden of dealing with a hellish being falls on Luther. Considering that the evil mother is dead, the task seems to be extremely difficult. Like Scotia, Luther can transform his appearance into another character. Unfortunately, the witch did not manage to give his son the knowledge necessary for this purpose, so the young man has no control over what and when he will turn into.

In a game that mechanically refers to other RPGs from that period (a good example is The Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall), the program assesses how we deal with the accumulated difficulties. Individual tasks can be carried out in two variants: peaceful and aggressive. Depending on your choice of route, after the struggle in Lands of Lore: Guardians of Destiny we will see different films. The program abounds in elements characteristic of this type of production: development of characters, a large number of objects and the ability to fight a huge number of monsters and people.

The program is based on a simple three-dimensional engine, which also uses two-dimensional sprites. The authors were tempted by the huge number of film interludes, thanks to which the volume of the programme increased significantly - in total it takes up as many as four compact discs.

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Last updated on August 14, 2015