Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor: Prima's Official Strategy Guide

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Companion to the game.
Review: I am a fan to Prima's strategy guides. They are indepth and thorough. Some of the games that are out now are huge, and sometimes you need some help. Look no further. Prima has you covered.

Rating:
Summary: So helpful!
Review: I was having trouble with Pool of Radiance because there is SO much to do and everything is so spread out. I like to do all the quests and see and experience as much as possible. I got the book for the maps, so I could make sure I got to everything in the game. The book is incredibly useful for that - it has extremely detailed maps and tells you about every single creature/quest/item there is to find and experience in each section of the game.

It also does a pretty good job of describing the characters/skills/traits/etc... but I'm not much of a min-maxer, I just like to play the game. I give it five stars because it did exactly what I wanted it to do - gave me a map and some direction for playing.

Rating:
Summary: This guide could use some improvement
Review: While I agree with everything the other reviewers said about the description of character classes and the easy-to-read maps with great descriptions of the areas and details of exactly what you will find there, this hint book has two very serious flaws I found.

The first is that in all the "walkthrough" descriptions, in many of the places they tell you what to do to get through the area ONCE YOU GET INTO IT. But they do NOT say, for instance, "before you can get into this area you have to complete such and such quest." I thought I was at a serious impasse early in the game because the book described in the main halls that the word of the dragon was required to open one of the doors, and you had to talk to some creatures there to get the right word. When i first went there, THERE WERE NO CREATURES THERE. They did not make any mention of the need to complete previous quests that would activate the creatures in the area. This is not the only section of the book with this flaw. You can't walk through the areas as they are presented in the book, step by step...there are still a lot of things to figure out and finding the right hint can get very confusing.

The second bad flaw this book had was the incomplete index. For instance, I found something called a "stronghold key" that I could not figure out which door to get open. If you want to ask "what is the stronghold key and which door does it open" the "stronghold key" does not appear in the index, nor does "key, stronghold". Again, this makes finding the right hint you want very difficult...unless you know exactly the area you are in and look up the hint IMMEDIATELY after you find something new, the book is just a pain to search through for the correct hint.

If you just want a general overview of the game and area descriptions, and some good maps to follow, this is a good book to get. If you're looking for an answer to a specific problem, this book will only help you if you are willing to spend a bit of time searching through it...it can take time to find the right solution...very disorganized in that sense.