Oof. It's coming back to me now: an unwelcome thing in these gold box games: instant death from poison.

It's true to the game, but constantly having to restart because important characters get killed isn't much fun. Might be time to edit in a few Neutralize Poison scrolls. ;)

Yeah, it's fixable, but the part of the game where I am you can't get to a temple (it's inside a dungeon) in time to save those characters. You have to keep reloading until you can get your characters into a tactically advantageous position before any of them get killed. Which is kind of tedious. It's a reminder that those early games were not for players who grew attached to their characters! :)

It has to do with the changing economics of video games, I think. Back in 1988 when POR came out, the games were supposed to be tough. There were a lot fewer games out there back then, so you expected one you bought to last you a while. If it was too easy, it was over too soon and you felt ripped off.