Download/HomepageThe Yendorian Tales series is one of the few that elapses on the same land, which means that both "Yendorian Tales Book 1" and "Yendorian Tales Chapter 2" take place on the Isle of Yendor. This isle has became somewhat famous for the Shareware success that was "Chapter 2". I'll try to explain why "Book 1" did not attain the same success. "Book 1" has great ideas: it has a bird's eye perspective like "Ultima 7", but the graphics a bit smaller, although there's a registration opportunity for a 640x400 256c SVGA version which, I'm sure, must look much better. There's an average character creation, good amount of NPCs and cities to interact with, monsters to fight and quests to fulfill. So what's missing? Unfortunately, I believe the non-registered version wasn't "cured" enough: The EGA graphics flicker annoyingly and the mouse seems to jump around now-and-then. The conversation window is too small, the inventory system is somewhat impractical and the combat system is boring (old "Ultima" style), not to mention the PC Speaker sound, knowing that the game hasn't any implementation for any soundboard.
CONCLUSION: The registered version should be better than the downloadable one. "Book 1" is good enough to give it a try, but if it weren't for the reputation of Smithware ("Chapter 2" was really good), I'd say it could be a risk registering it.
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