There was a time back in the mid-1980s when you could go round your mates' house to invite them down the pub, only to find them dressed up in Viking gear and throwing oddly-shaped lumps of plastic at each other. Worse, when you finally got them out for a pint, they spent the evening calling each other Derek the Destroyer and Elvis the Elven Eliminator.

The cause of this strange phenomenon was Dungeons 'n' Dragons, a series of role-playing board game adventures which spawned countless imitators on the Amiga, including Hero Quest, Legacy of Sorasil's predecessor.

This time you lead as many as four adventurers around nine scenarios which together form one campaign, the aim of which is to free the land of Rhia from the forces of evil. This you do by collecting two magic talismen, a healing amulet and an oracle stone.

Like Hero Quest, Sorasil simplifies the whole character generation process by giving each a set of attributes which you can customise to a limited extent on the Character Modification Screen.

Of the eight characters you can choose from to make up your band of four, each also has his or her own trade: ranger, warrior, and magician, for example, so you can get a good balance of abilities in your team.

The action is viewed in isometric perspective as you explore each section of landscape. Characters can use their skills to detect traps and doors, cast spells and fight opponents in each area, but are limited by the amount of moves and hit points they can take. The game also features a useful automapping function which shows the layout of a particular area and any hazards which lie in wait.

To be honest, your initial reaction to Legacy of Sorasil is likely to be distinctly muted. The graphics and sound effects hardly make the most of the Amiga's considerable capabilities and you feel as if you're playing something which was programmed four to five years ago.

But, this game is remarkably easy to get into and there are always plenty of surprises and fight sequences lying just around the corner.

Thankfully, Legacy also improves on Hero's Quest's occasionally cumbersome control system and, thanks to some imaginative programming, its characters never get stuck, or hidden by objects or walls.

It all adds up to a tremendously absorbing and surprisingly playable adventure which serves as a worthwhile introduction to an often unfathomable genre.

Sooner than anticipated, the next chapter in the ever unfolding tome of Gremlin software releases has been unleashed on a thoroughly expectant world. The game, as you'll already know from observation of the headline fanfare, is Legacy of Sorasil, a 3D-isometric view RPG romp.

The quest - should you choose to accept it, Mr Hero - is simple; rid the world of a despicable sorcerer who's been doing the nasty on an otherwise utopian world., as usual.

It is a time of war, pestilence, plague, perfidy and defilement of all that is good. A time where magnanimous deeds will be appreciated. A time where honour is respected. A time when cynicism is banished. A time when self-sacrifice is cherished and put on the mantlepiece for all to rest their eyes on and feel humbled. So bugger that. This is AMIGA POWER, after all. (Get back here. - Ed)

ABOUT TIME
But most of all, it is a time to start the review proper, for AP has a new publisher and if I don't make a good impression, it will be a time to walk involuntarily out of the door and never be seen again.

Legacy is basically a jauntier, more colourful, more diverse and more varied version of Hero Quest, it is the first of a promised series of Hero Quest Master series games.

Hero Quest first appeared on the Amiga around two and a half years ago and earned a perfectly respectable 80% in AP2, which older readers will recognise as the heyday of the Matt Bielby golden era, when men were men and heroes were heroes. They tell me.

A soon as you've booted up and selected the proper language, you initially select a party of four characters from a pool of eight. The usual choices are there: Rangers, Clerics, Paladins, magic Users, Barbarians etc. Just as with most RPGs, a well-balanced selection of brain and brawn is the best mix and the one most conducive to survival.

The order you place the character in on the selection screen is important. The character on the left leads the party, i.e. he moves first; he/she doesn't necessarily have to be the leader in a strictly regimental hierarchical militaristic sense (it could be a collective democracy after all). It's just that it's more sensible to have the faster moving characters at the front.

Each character has five attributes: body, combat, perception, strength and mind. After you have selected a party, you can tweak the individual attributes further. This is achieved through use of the character modification screen. Take a gander at the selection screen somewhere on these pages to get a better idea of what it looks like.

BOLDLY GO
Once through the character selection procedure, the land of Rhia awaits. Party movement and actions are accessed through a slick and competent control interface. Each character, unlike Hero Quest, has a set number of action points; 20 in all.

Movement points are limited depending on the character being controlled. This is more realistic, in RPG terms at least, because it makes sense for nimble footed Elves to be able to move further per turn than say a stunty bearded dwarf. Of course, if for example you chose to move the Elf his full complement of movement points and did the same for the dwarf, the dwarf will have more action points to play with at the end of his move. From this, you can plan simple strategies such as always having the dwarf, or whoever, search for traps and treasure in the same turn.

The control interface is slick and competent. You can choose to move characters from the compass or click on a destination on screen. Either way, the result's the same, although it's more convenient to point and click directly on screen. Actions are accessed by clicking on the various little action icons. Again, actions can be directly carried out by clicking on the icon with the right mouse button.

Okay, hopefully by now I've established that the control method is non-intrusive and, in fact, very helpful; that each character can travel independently of the partly (thus opening up the possibility of having some friends along to control individual characters; and finally that I like it. Time is cue some overbearingly slushy sentimental music.

Legacy reminds me of when when I used to play Dungeons & Dragons years and years ago. Computers were making an impact of the scene and firing everyone's imagination on all cylinders. The Amiga wasn't around at the time, and there was no software around that even came close t fulfilling the projected potential.

WAY BACK
That's where Legacy comes in. It's like the computer personification of the first dungeons I used to play in. You don't have to care too much about where you are at any particular time, because the locations and corridors are auto-mapped for you.

The map is constantly at hand and costs no action points whatsoever; very handy. The shop is also handy for the trading and upgrading of weapons, potions and miscellaneous etc.

There's a lot of playing time and lastabillity stuck I here as well. Apparently, even if you knew exactly what you were doing, the game would take at least ten solid hours of play to complete.

That's also where one of my main criticisms lies. You can only save and load after completion of a scenario. Now that isn't always going to be convenient. Say you've only got half an hour to kill and you want to kill it playing Legacy. What do you do when you have to switch off? You lose all your hard work, that's what you do.

A ROSE
Another criticism is the limitation of character choice. I like things to be personal. Especially with this type of game. Surely there could be some kind of character generation within the Cleric, Barbarian, Magic User framework. Even just the ability to change the names would be appreciated.

The music is nice in a mediaeval atmospheric kind of a way, although, like most computer music, it does tend to grate after a while.

So, er, it's summing up time. The best conclusion I can draw in this instance is to compare Legacy to a Morris Traveller (old-style car of quaint character - the one with all the wood on the outside). Thinking of Hero Quest as a standard model, consider the following for Legacy; the wood's been polished, the bodywork's had a good waxing, the chassis's been made more rigid and the engine's been re-bored and tuned. Overall, a more exciting game, but still a Morris Traveller in essence.

I like Morris Travellers and the same can be said for Legacy Of Sorasil.

I don't know about you, but I thought Heroquest was a really good game. Then again, I've always been a fan of that kind of small scale strategy adventures, going back to Laser Squad and back even further to games like Rebelstar Raiders on my ZX Spectrum.

Games where you can take control of huge armies are all well and good, but there's something about controlling single characters that gives the game a more personal touch, turning it almost, but not quite, into a role playing title. It was a very simple title, to be sure, and doubtless that had a lot to do with the fact that it was Gremlin's first boardgame conversion. Just take a look at Space Crusade to see how they improved their game system.

BIGGER, BETTER, FASTER!
For the past 18 months, though, those likely lads from the ex-steel capital of the world have been busying themselves with a sequel to that original game. The instructions were clear - find out everything that could be improved with the original, improve it and then make it bigger and better still. When you're working with a tried and tested formula, surely making it better can't be the easiest thing to do? Don't ask me how, but they've done it!

Despite your lengthy training session in Heroquest, the vile plague that sweeps the land of Rhiâ continues to sweep, leaving death and desolation in its trail. Even the Mystic Alamon, your lord and mentor, can do nothing about it. There is only one thing to do other than run away crying, and that's travel over the Shadow Mountains to the land of Kolchöth and collect two Talismans of Lore. Only these can save your once-delightful, now a bit of a desert, homeland.
OK, so it isn't the most inspired plot, but these things rarely are.

People already familiar with Heroquest will be mildly surprised by the layout of the game. Before, you were given your set and missions, and you could play them out in any order you wished. Legacy of Sorasil takes a more linear viewpoint, whereby you have to complete a set of missions before you can progress to the nest. For instance, to begin with only the first level, which is set in the lively location of the Barrow Mount of Yaserat, is available to you.

Complete that, and you are offered missions two, three and four. These can be played in any order, but all must be finished before you can progress to the next three, and so on until all nine are completed.

I WANT MORE!
My first thought on seeing the game design was that nine levels could never be enough. Perhaps I was spoilt by getting Heroquest complete with the Witch Mountain expansion, giving me a grand total of around 24 missions to play with. Once I'd actually played through half a level, I realised that nine is about all you need. They are huge; easily four times the size of the levels of the original game, and possibly larger.

Whereas the first level on Heroquest would take the average player 10 to 15 minutes to complete, I was wandering around the Barrow-mound of Yaserat for a full 45 minutes, and was still nowhere near the end. No, I'm not a lousy game player, that just shows you how huge the levels are.

One of the biggest improvements to the game is the introduction of more than four different character types. Instead of being lumbered with a dwarf, barbarian, a paladin and a wizard, you can now choose an elf, a cleric, a ranger and a mystic as well, giving you a total of eight different characters, from which you can pick up to four to take on your quest.

When you actually get into the game, seasoned Heroquest players will feel right at home. A similar set of icons lie at the bottom of the screen, and movement control works in exactly the same way as before - move to a point by either clicking on the square you want to move to, or by clicking on the direction arrows at the bottom of the screen.

ACTING LESSONS
Something that was always a little unclear in Heroquest was the difference between action points and movement points, which generally left you walking somewhere, doing an action such as a room search, and then finding that you couldn't move again. This time around, both are explained and both are displayed on screen.

Movement points simply relate to the number of squares you can cross in that turn, including walking. Every action uses up points, and as you move around, you'll see the action point clock ticking down.

Thankfully, you can now move, search and then move again, but only if you have enough points, that's the end of the turn, regardless of how many movement points are left. Item handling has changed drastically since the first game, as you now have an inventory to hold your weapons and treasure in.

Yes, the shop is still there at the end of the level, but this time you can sell to it as well as buy. You may wonder what the good in that is. Well, when you kill certain monsters, they will leave treasure and sometimes the weapons they were carrying.

These can be collected and sold for profit, or you can sell your old weapon and upgrade. Best of all, when one of your party dies, you can transfer the contents of their inventory to another player, so potions and weapons needn't go to waste.

One thing I always like about this sort of game is the ease with which you can slip into tactical play. In many games like this, you just seem to charge around in a large bunch, smacking hell out of anything you come across. Legacy of Sorasil just can't work like that.

For a start, there are too many routes through each level, so to get through you'll need to split up. Then you learn about defensive play (running away from heavy combat, in other words), along with constant security checks (looking for traps and treasure).

The simplicity makes it all the more involving. There's no need to refer to the manual once you've read it, so you can concentrate on what you're doing without intrusion from complicated game mechanics or obstructive menus and commands.

SEEING IS BELIEVING
The characters are bigger than before, and far more detailed with a lot more animation. Unfortunately, this has led to less of the surrounding area displayed on screen than before, but that doesn't matter because the whole thing scrolls! No more flipping between locations, and believe me when I say that this makes the whole thing a lot more playable.

I've really enjoyed it, and am currently looking forward to playing it a lot more. As a role playing game, I don't think it has the subtlety of something like Worlds Of Legend, and is far more fun played as a tactical strategy game.

If you're after an RPG, there are a lot better, but if you want challenging gameplay and a game that's going to last, you can't go far wrong with this.

There are companies that sign up huge licenses and make OK games with them. There are other companies that sign up less big licenses and make absolute dire games with them. And then there are companies like Gremlin, who sign up small licenses like Space Crusade and Heroquest, and make some really blinding games with them.

The original Heroquest, while being simple and a little too easy, was still a superb introduction to Role Playing Games (RPGs) for the masses, and I waited for this sequel with some anticipation. Sure, there was a sequel of sorts in the form of a data disk, but that was nothing more than an extension of the original. With Legacy Of Sorasil, Gremlin really went to town, taking note of all the good and bad points of the original, and building on them.

Instead of a series of small adventures which can be played in any sequence (a la Heroquest), Sorasil has nine large adventures which form part of a single campaign. Your eventual aim is to free your homeland of Rhia from the evil that binds it, but your short term aims are forever changing.

IT'S MY PARTY...
At the start of the game you have to create your party of four characters from a list of eight, ranging from the standard Wizards and Barbarians to less standard characters such as Rangers and Mystics. As usual, all have their own strengths and weaknesses, and finding the right balance of characters comes mainly from your own gaming style more than anything else. Still, once you have the set-up you are after, you can walk into the first adventure.

Like Space Crusade and the original Heroquest, the game is played out in turns, with each human controlled character being allotted a certain amount of 'action points' and the computer controlling everything else. This gives you plenty of time to think and work out your moves.

As an adventure, though, Heroquest is still very simple. The whoefully small amount of icons at the bottom of the screen only allow you to fight, cast a spell, search for treasures or traps, check the map, check your inventory or open/close a door. I'm all for simple control methods, but when there is this little you can do, essentially the puzzles that accompany it have to be quite simple as well, On the one hand, you can get into the game with no trouble at all, but on the other hand, you shouldn't really have all that much trouble completing it.

It looks OK, but the non-AGA graphics show up quite badly on a machine that can easily handle 256 colour displays. Sure, some of the locations are atmospheric enough, and most of the sprites are clear and easily recognisable, but it would have been nice to have seen a bit more in the way of animation. Practically all animations are limited to three or four frames, which is really unacceptable when you look at the size of the machine and the storage capacity of the medium.

MARS BARS
Sound has been used extremely well, with a rich atmospheric soundtrack and excellent use of voices for the spell chants whenever you cast a spell. Sadly though, even this can't save what, while being a good adventure and perfect for beginners and intermediate RPG fans, just isn't deep or wholesome enough to fully satisfy.