I was looking around the RPGs available on gog.com, and found the Lands of Lore trilogy. That said, I have a couple questions about them. What is the story like? I mean strong/weak, small/in depth, etc. Also, what's the gameplay like? What pros/cons are there? Is this game recommended?

I'm currently getting back into gaming and old-school RPGs and I am playing the LOL games for the first time. I can't say much about the story, but the mechanics seem rather simple to me: you have no skills tree, no complex combination of races/classes, no schools of magic or specialisation of any kind as far as I can tell. You only have three skills and a short selection of pre-made characters to choose from. No points allocation, no rolls, nothing.

I was initially a bit put off by this, coming from pen and paper RPGs like GURPS and Rolemaster, where character planning and number crunching are part of the game, but I quickly forgot about all of it as soon as I started playing.
Instead of spending time planning, calculating and reading the manual multiple times, you just start playing and immerse yourself in the atmosphere of the game. I guess one could say about LOL that it "just works".

I believe this is where the series really shines. In addition to that, you get excellent graphics, informative and fun cut-scenes (no boring stuff) and good voice acting.

I've just finished Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos and I would say it's definitely worth playing. Please, keep in mind however that the game is dungeon crawler with all its advantages and disadvantages.

Some of screenshots may fool you that you'll explore some open world with forest full of creatures and secret paths. Well, nope. Most of time you'll crawl through the mines, caves, castles and labirynths with very specific game mechanics known from most of classic dungeon crawlers, i.e. traps, keys, pits, secret walls, levers, chests and a lot of monsters to be killed.

The game may not be hard (especially if you choose to play with "wimpy" enemies), but it still makes you worry about keeping the crucial items, using them in a proper order and not crossing some borders before all the tasks are done. It is possible to stuck in dead end here, unfortunatelly. This makes the game not recommended for most of today's players.

Regarding sound and graphics - the game looks IMO really nice (relatively, of course; we're talking about the game from early nineties), it's reach with a lot of NPCs, monsters and landscapes. Sound lag behind, to be honest. Especially midi music may be really irritating from time to time (White Tower!).

The story may sound boring (save the kingdom, chosen one!), but the plot provides some interesting twists and I would say it's really captivating with it's atmosphere. However, please, note that there is no real choices here and all quests are placed in the main story line - the game is perfectly linear.

I created a wiki for the series, if you find that helpful.
lands-of-lore.fandom.com/wiki/Lands_of_Lore_Wiki