History VideoGame / GoldBox

* NintendoHard: A few optional battles that can usually be avoided (such as the Kernen gate battle in ''Champions of Krynn'' and the Mulmaster Beholder Corps in ''Curse of the Azure Bonds''), and the aforementioned Shrine of the Dark Queen and Dave's Maze.

The SSI Gold Box games were a fondly remembered series of computer [=RPGs=] produced by SSI, based on the first edition ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' license. They were not the first D&D licensed games, but they were the first to appear in the 16 bit era, when home computers got sophisticated enough to implement substantial chunks of the game system. Their name comes from the distinctive gold-colored cardboard box that most of them came in, and plays on the ''D&D'' custom of referring to individual editions by their respective packaging colors (e.g. the very first one was the "white box", the second was the "blue box", etc.). The Gold Box itself was succeeded by SSI's "Black Box" series, better known as ''VideoGame/EyeOfTheBeholder''.

* YoungerThanTheyLook: In ''Curse of the Azure Bonds'' the character screen for the NPC Alias, a visibly adult human, claims her to be two years old. This is not explained in-game (and so some players might assume it to be a developer error), but it is actually based on her Literature/ForgottenRealms [[CloningBlues backstory]].

* ClueOfFewWords: In the game ''VideoGame/PoolOfRadiance'', when you first arrive at Sokol Keep you can find an elf skeleton that has the word "Lux".[[spoiler:This is the word to use to avoid battles with spectres, the leader of which is quite deadly.]]

* CutAndPasteComic: Many of the pictures of monsters that show up on the upper-left hand window prior to combat were directly copied from the 1e ''Monster Manual''. Note that since it was a licensed adapatation, they clearly had the ok from Creator/{{TSR}} to do this.

* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: The final bosses in each game tend to be the hardest fought encounters and for good reason, usually having AC well into the negatives and having strong weapons.

** Which led to some GoodBadBugs - for example, in the 1e D&D rules only clerics or magic-users could control a [[NegativeSpaceWedgie Sphere of Annihilation]]. If you choose to use a different class in the part of the game where you challenge an enemy wizard to control a sphere, [[LogicBomb the computer won't know how to handle it]] and continually pushes the sphere against the wizard, much to his sorrow.

* ComicStrip/BuckRogers series: (Lorraine Williams, owner of Creator/{{TSR}} at the time, inherited the rights to Buck Rogers, leading to a lot of promotion of Buck Rogers-based TSR products)

* RomanceSidequest: True to some extent with Siulajia/Jabarkas in ''Treasures of the Savage Frontier''.

* VendorTrash: Occasionally you'll find items like tapestries and braziers in treasure piles that can be picked up and sold (although generally not for a lot).

** ''Curse of the Azure Bonds'' (1989)

* Pool of Radiance series:

%%* FauxFirstPerson3D

* StandardStatusEffects: Some variants--poison kills you outright instead of regularly losing HP, but you can still get paralyzed, charmed, or blinded.

* AccidentallyUnwinnable: In ''Pool of Radiance'' one of the monster areas is barricaded behind a massive locked gate. To continue the main story ''requires'' you to unlock that gate, but thief lockpicking is ineffective to open it and the gate is too resistant to bash through even with 18/00 strength. The only option that works is the ''Knock'' spell which only magic-users can learn and ''only a a level-up option'' as there are no Knock scrolls anywhere in the game. Hope your magic-user picked that spell during a level up!

* EightiesHair/NinetiesHair: Just look at all the women's hair on the game covers. Most prominent examples are ''Curse of the Azure Bonds'', ''Pool of Darkness'', ''The Dark Queen of Krynn'' and ''Treasures of the Savage Frontier''.

* EightiesHair: Just look at all the women's hair on the game covers. Most prominent examples are ''Curse of the Azure Bonds'', ''Pool of Darkness'', ''The Dark Queen of Krynn'' and ''Treasures of the Savage Frontier''.