Advanced Dungeons & Dragons - Heroes of the Lance is one of those NES games that feels like it was made for book fans first, gamers second. If you've read the Dragonlance novels, you'll recognize the party members right away—Tanis, Raistlin, Sturm—but even if you haven't, the game throws you straight into classic D&D-style combat with swords, spells, and some seriously unforgiving difficulty.

You start by picking your party from the iconic characters, each with their own strengths (and weaknesses—good luck keeping Raistlin alive). The battles are turn-based but weirdly frantic for an NES game, with enemies swarming you almost immediately. The graphics are rough even for the era, but there's something charming about how it tries to cram an entire D&D campaign into a tiny cartridge.

Just don't expect it to hold your hand. This is the kind of game where you'll die a lot before figuring out which spells actually work and which are useless. If you're into old-school RPGs with more nostalgia than polish, it's a weird little time capsule.