Dragon Wars - Review @ The Escapist

At the end of of May Dragon Wars was re-released at GOG. Stew Shearer has reviewed the game:

One thing that I'm really interested in (especially after writing up the history of a whole bunch of them) is old school CRPGs. A lot of my curiosity comes from the fact that I haven't really played many of them. Setting aside the fact that I was born at the tail end of the genre's golden age, I just never had much interest in them when I was younger. After all, why would I waste when my PC time playing RPGs when I already had Final Fantasy on consoles? (Remind me to kick my 15 year old self.)

It makes me sad because, the more I learn about them, the more fascinating I find them and the era that produced them. It was a pioneering time where developers were striving not just to make products, but to adapt complex worlds and rules into gaming experiences unlike anything ever made before. The ambition of that period alone is something that I find to be inspiring. (...)

Luckily, Dragon Wars wound up being a fun and, in places, impressive RPG. Dropping the player into the world of Dilmun where magic has been outlawed, it begins with the player party being placed under arrest under suspicions of spell casting. Thrown into the prison slum of Purgatory, the player has to find a way to escape, bring peace to the land, and defeat the evil wizard Namtar. The story itself is pretty basic as far as fantasy titles go. You're the good guys and there's a baddie. Go forth and smite. That said, it's well-written and the text does a great job of illustrating the game's world where technical limitations prevented the graphics from doing so.(...)

What perhaps sets Dragon Wars apart from other RPGs of this era is just how much effort has gone into giving you choices as to how you proceed and complete the game. Take the opening section where you have to get out of Purgatory. Rather than forcing you into one set method of escape, the game gives you five completely different paths out of the slum that range from selling yourself into slavery to disguising your party as dead bodies to get tossed into the sea. The game, overall, does a great job of giving you moments where there's more than one solution to your problems. (...)