Game 546: Warriors of Legend (1993)

Fortunately, the Hyborian Age is too early for them to have been knights.

       

Warriors of Legend

United States

Synergistic Software (developer); Virgin Games (publisher)

Released 1993 for DOS

Date Started: 27 March 2025 

     

We reach the end of an era with Warriors of Legend. It isn't the last Synergistic game, nor the last game designed by Robert Clardy, but it is the last RPG using the "World Builder" engine, which debuted in 1988 with War in Middle Earth and featured in Spirit of Excalibur (1990), Vengeance of Excalibur (1991), and Conan: The Cimmerian (1991). I haven't always liked it, but it's offered something different than the typical Wizardry, Ultima, or Dungeon Master clone. 

    

It takes place in a kingdom called Lemuria, which enjoyed peace for centuries, until it was visited by sorcerers from across the desert in Lortai, "a fabled realm of sorcery and mystery." The visitors were at first welcomed for their exotic nature, strange tales, and "feats of magic," but it soon became clear that they were up to something insidious. Leaders of Lemuria disappeared mysteriously or changed their personalities overnight, "killing and pillaging in their own kingdoms." Before long, the Black Circle, Lortai's "coven of sorcerers," had completely seized power. King Osric the Great learned that the Circle planned to break an ancient artifact called the Chaos Key, opening a gateway between Lemuria and the Realm of Chaos.

    

The kingdom was later known as Madagascar.

    

Osric put out a call for heroes, but only four showed up. They were immediately ambushed by agents of Moc Madure, the Dragon Lord, and taken to Madure's fortress. They were about to be executed when one of them, Brand, broke his bonds, and freed the others. They escaped and returned to Osric's capital at Illandria. Here, the game begins.

       

They can head to New Verdigris once they're done here.

    

It's not a bad backstory, though somewhat derivative, and I'm not sure why the capture and escape part were necessary since, functionally, the heroes end up where they started. The proper names (if not their full bios) are mostly drawn from Robert Howard's Conan stories, suggesting that Warriors is meant to exist in the same sort of Hyborian-age setting as Conan. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if Warriors had started as a sequel to Conan before Synergistic or Virgin lost the license.

 

The game begins with a character creation, or at least character editing, process. The default characters are named Brand, Ataris, Keena, and Astrovir, but the player can re-name them. Each has values from 0-20 in strength, wisdom, intelligence, agility, and stealth. Immediately, there are some issues. The manual says that the game offers five character classes: fighter, wizard, thief, archer, and cleric. Each of these classes has a prime attribute that determines the maximum level the character can achieve. Fighters are governed by strength, thieves by stealth, archers by agility, wizards by intelligence, and clerics by wisdom.

     

The four characters.

    

So far, so good. But the character sheet doesn't otherwise identify a specific class for each character. Instead, the words "Combat," "Clerical," "Sorcery," "Archery," and "Thieving" appear on the right-hand side of the sheet. These are similar but not identical to the supposed five classes. How am I supposed to tell what class each character is? None of the words are highlighted or marked. Clicking on them does nothing. I guess the character is whatever class has the highest attribute? The manual notes that none of the characters is a cleric, but clerical abilities "can be utilized by any of them with high wisdom." But Astrovir has equally high values in intelligence and wisdom. Is he a wizard or cleric? And none of the characters is highest in agility; does that mean I have no archer? What if I adjust the default values, which the game lets you do? Am I changing the character's class? The manual is obtuse about these things, so I just shrugged and went with the default party, figuring I'll at least explore a bit. 

  

The character creation screen.

     

Gameplay begins on an overworld map seen from a side view. The party can choose to go to the city of Illandria, some ruins, the palace, Mt. Gunderbad, and a pyramid. Clicking any of these icons transitions the interface to the classic "studio" perspective used by the World Builder engine, in which the characters seem to be on a stage with no fourth wall. The first time the player visits the map screen, the game automatically selects the city of Illandria and takes the party there, so I guess that's a bit of a hint.

    

The outdoor map.

    

In "studio" view, the exploration window occupies the top two-thirds of the screen. The bottom third has the party members' names, inventories, and character sheets. The selected party member automatically acts as the lead when you move, and the rest follow. You can move with arrow keys or the numberpad, but most interaction is done with the mouse, with only a few keyboard backups.

  

Before I turn it off, I should note that there's some semi-tonal "Arabian"-sounding music, more thematic than melodic, over both the main title and the exploration window. It's credited to Christopher Barker, who also did Conan and the two Excalibur games. It's appropriate to the setting. Sound effects are otherwise relatively sparse, mostly limited to clangs and screams during combat.

      

Entering the city through the southern gate.

    

As we begin to explore the city, we bump into NPCs, and they begin talking to us. Some of them offer some light dialogue options. A few examples:

   

• An NPC groans about how he has to carry a sack around all the time and can't stop or put it down. "It's like there's some strange force governing my every action." Funny, but it's a little too early in the genre to pretend that NPCs are self-aware. He suggests I talk to Ulg, the crippled sage, and gives me directions to his home.

• An old man says, "Greetings, kindred spirit." This annoys the party for some reason.

     

Why are all the responses so rude?

      

• A woman carrying buckets compliments our appearance and suggests we visit her in the Orc's Nest some night.

• A woman asks for "alms for the poor." We give her a gold piece, and she recommends we visit Sahhar the Seer near King Osric's Palace. 

• An old man named Crazy Eddy plays a variety of word games with us. First, he asks us a question with all the words in reverse order. We have to respond the same way. Then he puts all his words in alphabetical order, then anagrams them. At the end, he says that if we ever defeat a dragon, we should be careful to search the area before leaving.

    

He spoke to us backwards, so our answer has to be backwards.

   

• A crotchety old woman says that the passage to Moc Madure's lair is through the great mountain to the north.

      

I don't know if any of the dialogue options are different with different characters selected as the leader. They don't seem to vary.

We also start wandering into buildings, eager for a place that might sell supplies. We started the game with 1000 gold pieces but no weapons or armor. Key buildings aren't marked, so we have to try all of them. We find:

    

• A temple with a priestess who performs "mana restoration." We don't need it yet.

• A residence with a woman who's plainly terrified of us.

     

I guess that's a sensible reaction to four warriors bursting through your door.

    

• An inn where we can sleep for 10 gold.

• A residence where a man praises us for going after Moc Madure. He tells us that Moc is "more lizard than man" and recommends that we don't try to reason with him.

• A merchant! He sells steel helms for 20 gold, steel mail for 50 gold, steel shields for 30 gold, and leather versions of those things for 10, 30, and 20. I do some experimenting, and it doesn't seem that the non-warrior characters have any trouble equipping an all-steel kit, so I just buy that for all of them. The interface for buying and selling is a little cumbersome.

    

Keena's kit when we're done. There are spaces for a helm, shield, weapon, armor, boots, necklace, four rings, and whatever the thing in the lower right is.

    

In the next house that I wander into, some guy starts attacking me with a sword. The game switches to its combat interface, which I don't have time to figure out before he kills Keena, and wow do the party members howl when they die.

    

The party members apparently don't know how to fight with their fists.

     

The manual doesn't have a lot to offer on combat, just that you should be able to left-click for a single attack and right-click for continuous attacks. Since no clicking works, I decide that the game won't let us attack without weapons, which turns out to be true. I abandon my previous exploration pattern and start hunting for some place that will sell us weapons.

   

Around this time, I start experiencing another problem: the game won't save. The way it's supposed to work is that you click the "Save" icon, then click one of three save slots, then type a name, then hit ENTER. This works maybe once or twice with every new game, but inevitably I click in the box and it won't let me type anything but spaces, ENTER doesn't work, and there's no way to escape or get out of the box. I'm forced to quit the emulator and reload, losing whatever progress I made in the meantime. It happens so often that I can barely make any progress in the game. I try several DOSBox configurations and several versions of the game with no effect. (No one online seems to have mentioned the problem, but there is very little about the game online at all.) Finally, I re-install a DOSBox version that allows save states, and the rest of this session is dependent on those. I know from experience that they will eventually fail, so I don't know how far I'll be able to get. Suggestions are welcome.

     

There is no way off this screen.

     

I find a general goods store (Timur's Fine Junk), where I buy a lockpick set, some boots, and a couple of empty potion bottles. The merchant also sells knives, but that's not a solution to my weapon problem, as the game regards them as throwing weapons. 

     

The store interface.

     

I'm unable to find a weapons shop, but after a while, I realize that from the southern gate where you enter the city, you can run around the perimeter of the city's walls to three other entrances. 

    

An alternate way into the city.

    

It still takes me a while. The city is chaotic and hard to navigate, and I find myself wishing the game had come with a city map, like Conan did. I pop into places long enough to confirm they're not stores and then leave, ignoring NPCs and fleeing combats. I do find a pawn shop selling Thor's Hammer, but it costs more gold than I have for even one of them. The merchant in Tughril's Armory is maddeningly labeled "weaponer" but only has armor to sell. I ignore numerous shops of other types: potions, scrolls, amulets, inns, pubs. This city is big. I like that, but it shouldn't be this hard to find starting weapons.

      

It's not always easy to tell where you can walk.

    

Finally, I wander into a place called Momo's Weapons. His inventory is a bit unbalanced: he has maces for 30 gold, +3 swords for 725 gold, +4 swords for 850 gold, and +4 bows for 250 gold. No matter—at least he has the maces. I buy four of them, taking us down to 200 gold pieces, and finally settle in for exploring the rest of the city, starting with a return to the south entrance and that first battle.

     

Three very expensive items and a common one.

      

Combat works as advertised: you left-click for one attack and right-click for continuous attacks. Spells will come later, when I find scrolls and ingredients. It takes me a couple of "reloads" (restoring save states) to defeat this guy. On his body, I find a healing potion, a magic potion, and a four-leaf clover.

   

Indoor areas often reward you for clicking on pieces of furniture, tapestries, or other objects. Here, I get 9 carrots (I guess these are also spell reagents) by clicking on a tapestry and 5 bones for clicking on a bookcase. 

   

There are things hidden in the plants to the left.

      

So I guess it goes without saying that this is the sort of game where if you get attacked while burglarizing a private home, you retaliate with deadly force, and you loot anything that you can loot. Conan was like that, anyway. I don't know enough yet to determine whether it's possible to play this game virtuously.

     

A lot of doors have to be picked.

     

I finish this session by exploring the rest of the district accessible from the southern gate. In addition to what I've already described:

   

• An old man on the street says that he once had a sword made by Momo, and he gives us directions to Momo's Weapons. Goddamn it.

     

Where were you an hour ago?

     

• Keena picks the lock of a residence where we find a healing potion and a suit of leather armor.

• A guardroom where a guard, while relating a story about a thief they recently caught with a bunch of keys, instills in us the importance of finding keys to unlock some doors.

• A residence where a guy named Zamander claims to know our father. "We fought together in the Baythan Wars." He says this to all of us, so I guess we're siblings. He tells us that the sections of town have names, though he only tells us three: the Thieves' Quarter on the west, the Residential Section in the middle, and the Merchants' Quarter to the east. "Unless you're a good fighter, the easiest way to get from one to the other is to leave the city [and] go around." I'm not sure what being a good fighter has to do with it. He also tells us what to expect out in the world: The Black Witch is in the ruins by the lake; Khalimad is in the White Palace; and Moc Madure lives in the volcano.

      

Zamander reminds us about the main quest.

    

• In a residence, a man named Yuga tells us that there's a band of barbarians in town fighting the Black Circle. "They'd make pudding out of the likes of you."

• In a residence, a woman named Abaton offers harp lessons and offers to sell us a harp for 100 gold, although I can't find any mechanism to take her up on it. (The dialogue only says, "Maybe I'll pay.") We find 8 serpent eye potions (reagents) on her bookshelf, plus one of those Thor Hammers. It does 30 damage against the 6 done by the mace, so I guess that's better.

     

She also appears to be dancing.

   

• In a vacant house, we have another fight with a swordsman. He leaves a serpent's eye potion and a rat tail.

• And another battle in the next residence. He leaves a +1 mace, a knife, and some berries, and his house has some more reagents. 

      

Post-combat looting.

    

• Haroun's Lotions and Potions offers healing, mana, cure poison, and resurrection potions.

• In a residence, what appears to be a nude woman lying on a bed complains that she asked "Meethed" to procure 10 men for her and they're supposed to be clean, "and NOT dressed like clowns." 

• A man named Yarra complains about his lack of fortune lately. He has a potted plant that yields a Mana Ring.

    

To be fair, I did rob him.

     

The dialogue options in these encounters are a little unsatisfying, allowing neither any role-playing nor the ability to have the character speak in a consistent voice. For instance, there's a guard who warns us not to speak to the guy in shackles (actually, a pillory) nearby. "He's a thief." The responses are:

   

• "Really, that guy's a thief?" This elicits an amusing story about how the guards caught him poking around the king's harem "with a big, stupid grin on his face." The concubines were "all passed out, mumbling 'no more . . . no more . . .'"

• "He looks like my old alchemy teacher." The guard warns us: "This guy could charm you into thinkin' he was your long lost brother."

    

Not the most interesting dialogue options.

    

Nothing terribly important happens in either case, and nothing stops us from re-engaging the dialogue and selecting the other option. So few games are offering full-sentence dialogues during this era that it's disappointing when one does and then trivializes it.

   

Other than saving, my biggest problem is identifying equipment. Sometimes, when you first pick up an item, it tells you what it is and gives you a little description. I can't figure out for the life of me how to get that same screen to come up once you already have an item in your inventory. Maybe you can't. Maybe if you miss it the first time, you're screwed.

 

Combat is unsatisfying, and if the creators were going to make it this unsatisfying, the least they could have done is give an "everybody attack" button so you don't have to click on the characters individually and then try to get them to click on a moving target who is often hidden behind another character. It also would have been nice to pause.

     

Brand started with only 20 strength.

     

Finally, I don't have a great sense of how character development works. The manual talks about experience and levels, but neither is made explicit on the character sheet. It does seem like strength has increased for a few characters, so perhaps attributes go up directly from exercising the appropriate skills.

     

In short, it's the typical Synergistic combination of interesting ideas with somewhat janky execution. The setting is intriguing, and I enjoy exploring the city, but we'll see if I can even restore the session next time.

   

Time so far: 2 hours

 

Phantasy Star: Polar Exploration

 

I'm not a very good time manager.

    

Let's bring back a feature that I introduced here but never continued.

   

Overview of this session

   

• Flew to Dezoris and explored a lot of caves and the towns of Skure and Twintown.
• Learned I needed to find a Laconian Sword, Shield, Axe, and Armor.
• Bought an Ice Digger but never used it.
• Found the Laconian Armor in some compound.
• Explored the Corona Tower and exchanged my Amber Eye for an Eclipse Torch.
• Back on Palma, found the flute, then forgot about it.
• Found the hovercraft in Bortevo, used it to explore some islands.
• Found the Laconian Sword.
• Found the island town of Drasgow, explored a dungeon, bought a Gas Shield.
• Used the Gas Shield on Motavia to get to the town of Sopia. Learned about a hermit and the Mirror Shield.
• Found the Mirror Shield.
• Noah defeated a monk named Tarzimal in combat and got a FRD Mantle or FRAD Mantle.
• Went to the Tower of Medusa, defeated her, got the Laconian Axe.

    

Dezoris

 

The party begins our fourth entry a little rudderless. We know we need to find and defeat Lassic, but we don't know where he is or otherwise have clear guidance for the next step. We only know what's open to us. Our two major paths are to try to find a hovercraft on Palma, which theoretically should open more of Palma and Motavia for exploration, or go to the third planet, Dezoris.

     

Is the game trying to get me to go somewhere?

      

I choose the second option, as we happen to be next to our spaceship anyway. We blast off and arrive after a short flight. The manual map suggests that Dezoris consists of a bunch of mountains and canyons, with only a couple of towns and a lot of caves. As we land, we see the ground is covered in ice and snow.

   

The ship is supposed to take us to a city called Skure, but the "city" has only one thing in it: the entrance to a cave. We enter, follow a linear passage in which we meet a new enemy with an amusing name . . .

       

   

. . . and then come out in an underground city. I guess this must be the real Skure.

        

If it's underground, how do trees and grass grow? If it's not, where is the snow?

    

We find:

     

• The armory sells a wand, a laser gun, and a glove. We have just enough money for all three. The glove serves as a "shield" for Myau; the wand is supposedly the best weapon Noah can use. I don't know if the laser gun is better for Odin than the light saber. I guess it depends on how many enemies we're facing.

     

I'm still not sure why we're bringing a cat into battle.

      

• "Dezoris is a world of ice." I think I could have figured that out.

• "There are places in the mountains where the ice is soft and impassable to those on foot." Another need for the hovercraft? 

• "The Altiplano Plateau is at the top of the Ice Mountain." And there are Laerma Trees there, but I don't know what I need them for.

• "Arms made of Laconia conceal holy power. Lassic fears this power and has been running and hiding in different places in the planets of the Algol system." I guess I'll have to find some. Or I could smash my pot over his head.

• "The Dead Guaron Morgue have been called back to life! What fear!" How is a morgue "called back to life?" 

• "An eclipse occurs on this planet once every hundred years. A torch lit during an eclipse is called an 'eclipse torch' and is regarded as holy by the Dezorians." An American torch or a British torch? Because one is going to be a lot easier to keep in a backpack.

• "Most emigrants from Palma settle here."  

     

But are their children citizens?

    

• "I don't know a lot about this planet, but word has it that there is a town of native Dezorians in the far reaches of the mountains."

• "If you really want to kill Lassic, you had best find a sword, axe, shield, [and] armor made of Laconia." Okay, that's more of a quest than I had 10 minutes ago, though I don't see why more than one of those things is necessary.

     

The only way out is the way we came in. We hit the tundra for a little while, looking for other things in the area, but the only place not blocked by mountains is a cave to the south. Before checking it out, I'm curious what will happen if I use a "Fly" spell to teleport to the last place I visited a church, in Uzo. It turns out not only does "Fly" work across planets, but The Luveno is waiting when we arrive.

   

Knowing that I have the option to warp to safety when I feel like it, I enter the cave. We get attacked by Dezorians a few times, which look like "evilheads," which look like horror versions of the Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz. Most of the enemies that attack us are surprisingly weak given that you have to have completed a decent portion of the game to get here, but there are occasional white dragons, wyverns, and serpents.

      

Sorry to kill you, man. It's your planet.

    

After a brief single level, the cave spits us out into a hollow with another cave entrance. We take it. The same thing happens again. We exit our third cave in a much bigger area. I follow the right wall, take another cave entrance, and emerge in a small area with another town.

     

From one cave to another.

    

As with Skure, we have to travel through a brief tunnel before we reach the town itself, underground. It's called "Twintown," I guess because it has two major sections connected by a narrow passage. Its residents are native Dezorians. We find:

   

West Side:

• "The neighboring village are all liars! Don't listen to them!" Oh, I know this logic puzzle. 

• "To ze west of ze Corona Tower is ze Dezoris Cave. Our friends are in zere. Give zem our best, OK?" And from this moment, I hear everything else on Dezoris in a French accent.

• "Ze Corona Tower stands on ze far side of the mountain to ze north of zis village."

• "Laerma Trees grow ze Laerma berries. Zose berries are our most important food, but it shrivels up after a few moments unless it is put in Laconian pot." At least I know now what the pot is for.  

• "We of zis town hate Palmans."

      

Well, excuse me.

    

• "Do you know what Aeroprism is?" NO. "It lets you see another world."  

       

Moving between the sides of town.

  

East Side:

• "This town welcomes all Palmans. Yes, indeed, we do."

• "If you use a crystal in front of a Laerma Tree, it will become, yes, a Laerma Nut. Yes, indeed." 

• "Blue Laerma Nuts used in dyes. Yes, they are, indeed."

• "There is a spring of life in the Corona Tower. There is, yes."

• "You can warp from the 10th level of the dungeon under Dezoris, yes." 

• "The neighboring village are all liars! Don't listen to them!"

   

So I'm going to assume that one side is, in fact, all liars. Something about the way the east siders all qualify their statements makes me suspect it's them, but I'll be on the lookout for both possibilities. 

   

Here's an oddly-named foe.

    

There are two second-hand shops, one of which sells an Ice Digger for 12,000. After selling my excess stuff, I have 9,521. I'm not sure I want to take the time to come back here if I can help it, so I pop back into the dungeon that brought me here for some grinding.

   

You've seen me stop to grind in a number of places. Because this is a console game, which allows me certain exceptions from my normal rules, I've been doing it by putting the emulator in "turbo" mode, which allows me to just pound the "A" button to execute attacks in rapid succession. I time it, and a battle with 3 werebats at normal speed takes 20 seconds, including opening the chest afterwards, while in "turbo" mode, it takes 2. It's also easier to grind in dungeons because you just have to spin in place instead of having to walk back and forth outdoors. And this is the perfect place since there's a healer just outside the dungeon entrance.

       

Pausing to restore hit points.

    

So it's not more than 10 minutes before I have plenty of money—I actually overshot it by a few thousand. In a few moments, I have my Ice Digger, and I'm headed back out to the tundra. The Ice Digger turns out to be another vehicle, one with rotating grinding things (there's got to be a word for them) in front. It does not allow me to just plow through regular mountains.

     

I should be able to tear apart this town.

    

I take the cave network back to the large area and continue exploring along the right wall. Let me tell you something that starts to get annoying. Almost every enemy drops a flashlight, which the party picks up automatically and then has to manually drop from the inventory. Why not give the player the option to take something or not? 

    

One of the unique enemies here.

    

After a long trip, we come to some kind of compound tucked in the mountains. A Dezorian stops us as we enter: "What have you come for? Do you intend some mischief?"

     

A few minutes later, we walk into a pit trap and get dumped down to the next level. I have Myau cast "Exit" to take us outside, return to the same area, and see if the "TRAP" spell works in such situations, since there doesn't seem to be any way to use it to disarm chest traps. It does work. This comes in handy later when we encounter another one, reload, disarm it, and find a treasure chest with Laconian Armor on the other side. I give it to Odin, for whom I'm now glad I didn't pay 15,000 mesetas for the diamond armor.

      

I wasn't really expecting that my armor would talk much.

      

Feeling like what started as a side trip has been seriously worth it, we continue circling the land. Another small cave takes us to another large, open area, and from there to another compound. I think this might be the Corona Tower we previously heard about, as there are multiple levels. On the first, we run into several Dezorian NPCs, one of whom says, "Lassic lives in fear of the crystal possessed by the soothsayer named Damor. There is something special about it, without a doubt."

      

If we're lucky, there's beer in here.

    

The enemies are very difficult, including red dragons; titans; this tall, crystal sentinel-looking guy inexplicably named "Amundsen"; and the most badass-looking "centaur" I've ever seen in an RPG. I start running low on hit points and spell points, and I need to save enough to EXIT out of here and FLY home. I stop opening treasure chests halfway through the tower. 

     

I would love to know the backstory here.

Why not cover your hooves in armor, too?

    

We finally make it to the fourth or fifth floor and to the end of a long, winding corridor. Through a locked door, we find a Dezorian who wants to sell us an Eclipse Torch in exchange for our Amber Eye. I really don't want to have to come back here, so hoping that I don't need the Amber Eye somewhere else, I make the trade and EXIT back to the frosted landscape. I never found a place to exit onto this Altiplano Plateau.

       

I have no idea what this is for.

   

With our little life remaining, we keep exploring and come to yet another cave. A Dezorian meets us inside: "Be careful up ahead. At the break in the road, go to the left!" I do my best, but it's clear this is going to be a long dungeon, and I don't have the strength for it. I guess it didn't take me that long to get here. I can come back. I cast FLY and return to Uzo for healing and my ship, annoyed that I never found a place to use the Ice Digger.

 

Palma

     

All right, the hovercraft is supposed to be back in Bortevo, which I'm pretty sure I thoroughly searched looking for the stupid robot. The first thing we do is search an obvious place in Gothic for the flute and find it. Then we make the long walk along the coast and through the lava to Bortevo. By the time I get there, I would be willing to pay real money to ignore random combats.

      

(After finding the flute, I forget about it until near the end of the session. If used in combat, it puts an enemy to sleep for a round. I'd use it in an emergency.)

     

The flute enchants a reaper.

   

The hovercraft is literally in the first house I search.

      

Where was it last time I was here? A hovercraft is pretty hard to hide.

     

I'm not sure where to go with it, but I head outside to the beach, activate it, and start looking for any land masses I haven't seen before. It became clear on Dezoris that the maps in the manual aren't complete; or, rather, there are parts of them occluded by clouds. I focus on those areas. It would be nice if you couldn't get attacked while on the water, or while in any vehicle, but alas this is not the case.

         

Here I am, your special island.

       

I find and enter a pyramid-shaped dungeon on an island. This turns out to be the largest dungeon in the game so far, at least five levels, but with multiple interconnected sections and lots of pit traps. The enemies aren't too hard at first, but the traps in the chests that they drop keep doing massive damage. I eventually stop opening them. I do not stop opening chests that I find at the ends of corridors, as I figure they might have quest items. For a while, all I find are small amounts of money and burgers.

    

A rare battle in which I bother to use spells.

     

By the time I get to the fifth floor, which at the time I don't know is the final one, enemies are a lot harder, especially this "marauder" who has a spell that halves everyone's hit points. I hate fleeing from enemies because when it doesn't work (which is often), they get a free round of attacks. Fortunately, I persist, because when I reach the final room (again, after a long, winding hallway) and defeat a red dragon, I find a Laconian Sword. I give it to Alis, replacing her light saber.

     

Alis's loadout.

    

After a trip to Scion to heal, we jump back in the hovercraft to continue exploring the seas. It helps that the world wraps. I don't think there's anything to find in the rivers between islands, so I just have to explore the areas on the "outside" by bouncing between known points. Before long, I find an island in the southeast part of the map. It looks like a little town on a platform.

    

Beautiful sunrises and sunsets, sucks during a hurricane.

    

It is a town, it turns out, though not a big one. It's called Drasgow.

   

• "Long ago, I saw a giant rock float through the sky." Cool story, bro.

• "There is a magic sword in a tower on a forgotten island." Not anymore!

• "The top of the hill called Baya Malay is always hidden by clouds. Something must be up there!" I'm not even sure where that is.

• "You are daring to have found your way here even though the sea lanes are closed to ships." 

    

And there's a small dungeon, one level, no monsters. When I enter, an NPC says: "I hear they sell a Gas Shield here, but I don't know where the shop is! What a mess!" Confusing things, there's a guy who pretends to run a shop but then just says he was "pulling my leg."

     

What is it with stores in dungeons?

     

But there is a real shop, where a guy sells us a Gas Shield for 1,000 mesetas. I think I remember hearing about some place that had poisonous gas, but I'll have to go back through my notes.

       

We still have more to do on Palma. Now that it's easy to get around with the hovercraft, I return to the starting area, go north of Scion, and enter the walled compound with the locked door. It won't open to our Dungeon Key, but it does open to the "Open" spell. It appears to be some kind of prison. There are NPCs in cells along the walls:

       

• "All who face Lassic lose their souls to his magic!"  

• A Dezorian: "Have you found the armor in Guaron?" YES. "Well, aren't you something?"

• "It's foolish to try to get Lassic!"

• "Get me out of here? But it's in vain." 

• "Lassic is gonna sacrifice us! Agh!"

    

I don't know if she means metaphorically.

    

• "There is a tower at the top of Baya Malay. Something secret is hidden at the top of the tower!"

• "There are guards up ahead!" 

       

There are guards up ahead. They demand to see my Roadpass. When I hand it over, they declare it a fake and toss me in "jail," where an NPC tells me of a "way out." I look around and find a door that takes me back to the main entrance. So I guess that's out until I find a "real" Roadpass.

 

At least he's cheerful about it.

     

Motavia

I can't find any other new locations on Palma, so we FLY to Motavia. Motavia doesn't have an ocean so much as a lake. We take the hovercraft out to the middle of it and find an island with a single ant lion, but there's nothing special about that ant lion. We try talking to it, which doesn't work, kill it, and search its chest, but only get 8 mesetas.

       

This looks important.

   

Continuing our explorations, we find the gas field to the west of the lake. There is, inexplicably, a town in the middle of it. According to the first NPC we meet, it is called Sopia.

   

• "Before Lassic came to power, even our town had plenty." 

• "I am the head of this town. Because of the cloud of gas, we are cut off from other towns. We are therefore very poor. Will you donate 400 mesetas?" I'm not sure this guy understands how economies work, but I give him the money. "Thank you! According to our legends, the very shield Perseus used to overcome Medusa is buried on the small island in the middle of a lake."

     

Reaching the city through poisonous gas.

     

• "Hi, I'm Miki! Do you like SEGA games!" NO, they always find ways of breaking my immersion. "I can't believe it. If you don't like the game, why have you played so far?!" SEGA did not anticipate a blog that keeps track of win/loss statistics.

• There's a guy who wants a cola, which I happen to have. When I give it to him, all he says is, "Thanks! Come again!"

• "There is a monk named Tajim in the mountains to the south of the lake." That's actually interesting intelligence. 

• "I've heard that Palma is a beautiful planet. Is that true?" YES. "I'd like to go visiting someday."

      

With our new information, we took the hovercraft back to the island and searched cacti until I found the Mirror Shield. Just to confirm, I reload an earlier save and search the same cactus before visiting Sopia, and of course it's not there. I reflect that the information about the Mirror Shield was the only reason to go to Sopia, which in turn was the only reason to visit Drasgow. A CRPG like Ultima IV would have had the same chain of clues but also would have allowed the player to say, "Hey, there must be something special about that island," and search for it without the prompts. Which is the better approach? Discuss.

     

If I recall correctly, Perseus just used his actual shield, which he had polished.

     

The manual says the Mirror Shield should go to Odin, recommending the forthcoming Laconian Shield for Alis. I don't know if I mentioned this before, but the manual has a paragraph about literally every item you find in the game, including its statistics. This is helpful, but it also makes the game seem smaller, more linear, and more predictable. Anyway, at this point, there are only three items that I haven't found. The "FRD Mantle," the Laconian Shield, and the Laconian Axe. I wonder what "FRD" stands for. Usually, items abbreviated in the game are spelled out properly in the manual, but here the manual uses this abbreviation. Is it possible that the mantle is fried?

    

The issue becomes even more confusing when we find it. Chasing the "monk" rumor, we hunt around until we find a box canyon we've never explored, follow it to the end, and find ourselves in a three-level dungeon that takes about 45 minutes to explore. On its top level, we meet a wizard named Tarzimal who by his dialogue is Noah's master. He says Noah must pass his final test: "We will duel!"

   

Noah has to fight alone in the subsequent combat, which isn't difficult. Noah isn't a great melee attacker, so I have him use offensive spells. Once he's defeated, Tarzimal says: "You have become much stronger. You are well prepared. I'll give you a Frad Mantle as a gift. It protects you from danger!" I can't find "Frad" in any dictionary or acronym finder, so who knows.

      

The problem with using ALL CAPS is that I don't know if it's a FRAD Mantle or a Frad Mantle.

      

And Palma Again

At some point during all of this, I realize that I never finished the Medusa Tower that I started back on Palma, which I suppose is a good thing if I didn't have the Mirror Shield. 

   

The Medusa Tower is huge. Like all dungeons in the game, I get through it by just following the right wall, but it feels like I go up and down a lot more than makes sense. Anyway, after an hour or so of exploration and combat, I meet Medusa at the top of the tower. The Mirror Shield is never specifically mentioned or invoked, and we defeat her in regular combat. Maybe if we hadn't had the shield, she would have killed us instantly or something. On her body, we find the Laconian Axe.

    

I'll bet we were supposed to USE the Mirror Shield to turn her to stone.

   

Didn't someone say this game was short? I had really hoped to push to the end this time, but I'm out of steam. At this point, I've explored everything I can think of on Palma and Motavia, barring that compound where I need something to pass the guards. Still, with most of Dezoris already explored, I feel like I must be close. Everyone is Level 25 if that's any indicator.

   

Time so far: 20 hours