The Savage Frontier duology is another entry in SSI's fabled Gold Box series, usually one people play only after they've gone through every other Gold Box game. This is kind of backwards, as the first game, Gateway to the Savage Frontier, is probably the best entry point to them overall.

Difficulty is pretty low at first, but after that you get an epic scavenger hunt that offers a lot of content and just hits all the right AD&D adventure buttons.

The game is basically a grand tour of the Savage Frontier, a region of the Forgotten Realms, with each of the cities you visit acting as a mini-adventure, until you reach the big and satisfying finale. For me, that was the biggest draw of the game. It's not overly ambitious in terms of complex mechanics or storytelling, but it really captures the fun of a long-running RPG campaign that starts small and slowly ups the ante.

While Gateway showed that Stormfront Studios had a good grasp of the Gold Box engine, it's really the second game, Treasures of the Savage Frontier (1992), where they came into their own. It's where they really stretched their coding muscles and improved a lot of the series' various gameplay elements.

Treasures enhances the overworld map with weather effects (conveyed by text messages), different movement speeds and increased encounter rates based on the terrain type. Only roads and waterways are safe. The further along you get in the game, seasons change, with graphical changes to the overland map and inside cities. There are rudimentary side quests, while some of battles become more dynamic, with enemies getting reinforcements if you don't beat the main force fast enough.

Still, the most famous “improvement” to the gameplay is that, like Worlds of Ultima: The Savage Empire before it, Treasures contains a romance plot.