Dungeons & Dragons: Warriors of the Eternal Sun

Dungeons & Dragons: Warriors of the Eternal Sun is a role-playing video game developed for the Sega Mega Drive in 1992 by Westwood Associates. The game chronicles the story of a party of adventurers who have been transported to an unknown world and must survive against its hostile inhabitants while learning about their new home. It is based on the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) game rules, and uses creatures, enemies and themes from the D&D Hollow World campaign setting, such as Blacklore elves, the war-mongering Azcans, beastmen, lizardmen, and dinosaurs.

Plot
The human army (composed of humans, elves, dwarves, and halflings) and the goblin army are at war. The goblins are making a final push into Duke Barrik's castle, and the Duke believes that they will overwhelm his castle. However, before the goblin attack begins, the ground begins to shake, the sky tears open and both armies are sucked into a void.

Duke Barrik's castle is transported to a valley enclosed with impossibly tall cliffs and a brilliant red sun overhead (the "Eternal Sun" of the title). The goblins are nowhere to be seen, and the humans appear to be stranded in this new world.

The Duke requests that the four player characters explore this strange environment in order to find allies. While they are adventuring, an unseen force is slowly turning the Duke's people against them. They grow increasingly insane and hostile throughout the course of the adventure. The player characters must unravel the mysteries of this new world and locate the creature known as the Burrower in order to survive.

Characters
The player controls a party of four player characters (PCs). The party of PCs can be made up of any combination of the following character types: cleric, fighter, magic-User, thief, dwarf, elf, and halfling. Fighters are the strongest in battle and are the most skilled with weapons. Dwarves share the talents of a fighter. Magic-users are the best at learning magic but they are the weakest fighters. Elves have a good balance between fighting and spellcasting, but do not excel in either. Clerics have healing and support-based magic spells and are reasonably competent in battle. Thieves are stealthy, can disarm traps and have minor magic capabilities. Halflings share the talents of a thief but don't have very good battle skills. The player can decide the name and gender of their characters and choose between four colours of clothing. These are cosmetic details that do not have any effect on actual gameplay. The abilities of the different character classes are based on the rules of the original Dungeons & Dragons game.

The characters' ability scores—strength, dexterity, constitution, intelligence, wisdom, and charisma—are determined during the character creation process via simulated dice rolls. The maximum ability score at the start of the game is eighteen. The ability scores affect gameplay. For example, characters with a high strength score can cause more damage in combat, and characters with a high constitution will receive more hit points.

Modes
There are three distinct styles of gameplay: outside adventure mode, outside combat mode, and dungeon mode.

In both outside modes, the player has an isometric view on their characters as they travel around the world map. The party is controlled as one, and each member will follow the lead character's movements.

In the outside adventure mode, the movements of the party are in real-time. When the party encounters random battles or set events (such as a Beastman camp or an ambush on a bridge), the game will switch into outside combat mode.

The outside combat mode is turn-based. A PC is highlighted with a white box when it is that PC's turn. This selected character can move a short distance, attack, or both as the player chooses. The combat system is based on an automated version of the D&D rules, so each character and enemy has hit points and an armor class rating. If the enemies are killed or flee, the party is awarded experience points and occasionally treasure. If the PCs are killed in battle, their tombstones will be displayed, and the game will end. The player can attempt to flee the battle by moving the characters away from the enemies.

The dungeon mode differs from the other modes, as it uses a first person view. The game switches to this mode when the party enters a cave or building. The screen displays what the party can see in the dungeon, along with a compass and textual information describing the surroundings. Encounters with enemies become real-time events in dungeon mode, moving the focus away from slow and strategic combat of the outside mode to a faster-paced style. In addition, weapons and spells can have different effects in this mode; for example, the lightning bolt spell will bounce off the dungeon walls and possibly backfire on the party. The party also needs to be cautious of traps and hidden doors while exploring the dungeons.

Development
Warriors of the Eternal Sun was the first and only official D&D product for the Sega Genesis. It features twenty-nine musical scores.

Reception
GameRankings has an aggregate ranking of 62.50% for Warriors of the Eternal Sun, based on two reviews. The game is rated as 'Average' on allgame.

According to GameSpy, "Warriors of the Eternal Sun would do little to entice console gamers away from the like of Phantasy Star or Final Fantasy".

In a 2008 retrospective on Dungeons & Dragons video games, IGN.com called Warriors of the Eternal Sun a "mixed bag", complimenting the battle system and graphical style, but calling it a "crib sheet" effort which was not preferable to other RPGs available at the time.