Hera: Won! (with Summary and Rating)

There was, alas, no Hera II.

     

Hera

United States

Independently developed, distributed as shareware

Released in 1987 for the Apple II; 1995 for DOS

Date Started:  19 August 2017
Date Ended: 25 August 2017

Total Hours: 11

Difficulty: Moderate (3/5)

Final Rating: 29

Ranking at Time of Posting: 139/260 (53%)

Hera turned out to be a tightly-plotted, competent game. It got a bit grindy towards the end, but its puzzles and locations remained interesting and fair. It's a good example of how to do an Ultima clone right: take inspiration from your source, but introduce your own ideas, throw in a few surprises, and don't exceed a reasonable scope of time and effort.

I sent Jeff Hendrix the shareware fee and thought it was well-spent. He, in turn, sent me the game book and reference cards for both the Apple II and DOS versions. The playbook offers descriptions of the game's weapons, armor, and services, and it provides a detailed back story. It turns out that Zarebae, the game's villain, used to be the leader of the "Palisades," a group of 10 wise men who served as Hera's governing body. Rhin was another of these leaders, and the putative author of the book, Kibil e Tirbut, was a third. Ultimately, Zarebae was banished from the council when he refused to stop studying books of evil magic. He went into exile and started stirring up monsters. To deal with him, Rhin created a sword capable of destroying evil, but he was killed in battle and the sword was lost. Enter the hero.
    

The documents supplied by the author.

    

At the end of my first entry, I was stuck about halfway through the game. It turned out I was over-thinking the next stage in the quest. I had simply missed a castle in the far north, at the tip of the blizzard area where the thermometer threatens to freeze you to death. The second castle's king increases your strength where the one to the south increases your agility--but it isn't either/or. Every time you achieve 100 experience points, you can go to both kings for their respective increases. Thus, I got a bunch of strength all at once.

A healer in the castle also offered 6 hit points per gold piece instead of the 3 that everyone else offered. It was the best deal in the game.

     

I would have given a lot to find this place earlier.

     

A hidden section of the castle led me to a submarine. This is definitely a "first" for an Ultima clone and RPGs in general. You hit "D" to submerge the sub, at which point you can see the different paths you can travel underwater. You can't go just anywhere, but you can often dive under single squares of land. "S" brings the sub back to the surface. You can't stay submerged too long; an air gauge tracks your oxygen levels and leads to your death if it gets to empty. Fortunately, the sub has cannons, so you can continue blasting enemies to earn gold and experience.

     

Stealing the sub.

      

The snowy north also held a city called Lucantia. The primary purpose of the city seemed to be to offer a place to buy furs, but for 5,000 gold pieces, which is the highest price of anything in the game. I didn't think that I needed them since everything in the cold area is accessible by land or boat without freezing to death if you take a direct path.

For that price, it had better be Vicuña fur

               

The submarine led me to a couple of new areas. The first was a castle called Venipanor, where the king raised both attributes, thus obviating a visit to the other two castles.

      

The underwater world. I nearly ran out of air on this trip to a monastery.

      

I had to get a cross from a priest in Venipanor to enter the second location, the St. Remi Monastery. The purpose of this location was to lead me to an NPC with a diving suit.

I also continued to get weapon and armor upgrades during this period, from mace to bow to sword and from chain to plate. Moving to higher items requires increasing agility and strength.

NPCs continued to offer hints and clues, some directing me to other NPCs. Ultimately, I learned that the Sword of Rhin would have to be fused with a crystal found within "the skull," the castle/dungeon that the evil wizard Zarebae occupies. I learned that the full power of the Sword of Rhin could only be used at a distance. Finally, I learned that the nomads in the migrating camp had the sword.

     

I had to put this together with another bit of intelligence that the "Rovers" had the sword.

      

An NPC in the nomad camp said she'd trade me the sword for something valuable that she wanted, but she wouldn't tell me what it was, just that I didn't have it. Eventually, the only thing I hadn't found or bought were the $5,000 furs from Lucantia. That turned out to be what she wanted. We traded, and I had the Sword of Rhin.

     

I feel like I got the better end of this one.

      

Incidentally, the nomad camp was even cleverer than I thought. In addition to moving around the map from turn to turn, the interior tiles actually take on the characteristics of whatever exterior tile the camp is situated in. So if you enter the camp while it's in a forest, you get a lot of forest squares on the interior.

Unfortunately, I couldn't equip it. It turned out to require 90 agility to wield the sword, which in turn required about 6,800 experience points. Through just regular exploration and combat, I had only achieved about 3,000 by this point in the game, so I had to settle in for a fairly long period of grinding. With my sub and its cannons, it wasn't dangerous. As I got more experience (or as I amassed more moves; I'm not sure which is the deciding factor), more dangerous but lucrative enemies appeared. Again, the game doesn't name them, but one was clearly a dragon.

As I was grinding, my submarine got stolen a couple of times. This required an annoying circuit through several cities to solve, as I first had to get the original boat key, then steal a regular boat, then sail to the city where I got the sub key and get that, then return to the northern castle and get the sub.

The diving suit was clever. I had to experiment a while to figure out how to use it. I couldn't just walk up to the sea and dive in; instead, it allowed me to exit the submarine while submerged and explore underwater for a time. There was only one place that it made sense to do this: the bay outside Rara Avis, where NPCs told me that a pirate ship had sunk.

I explored the wreck of the ship, finding oxygen canisters to boost my air, and emerged with a pirate flag.

        

Exploring an underwater shipwreck.

     
The pirate flag allowed me to enter the pirates' cove in the southeast of the map. At some point, an NPC had told me that the pirates were servants of Zarebae, and it turned out they had a magic wand that allowed access to Skull Keep. I killed some pirates guarding it and took the wand.

     

And, because they were there, looted a few chests.

     

The endgame commenced when I used the wand to enter Zarebae's keep. Once I entered, I couldn't exit. It consisted of two levels. Neither had many monsters, but they were huge mazes with almost three dozen ladders connecting their various sections. I had to resort to mapping, which I hardly ever use in top-down games.

       

My map of the basement of Zarebae's castle.

     

Eventually, I found the gem in the lower level, then made my way to Zarebae on the upper level. He disappeared into a hole in one blow.

      

The end of the maze at last.

       

Following him, I found myself in a dark area where I had to feel my way along the walls. Adhering to the rightmost wall, I made my way to Zarebae's inner chambers.

     

Approaching the mad wizard.

     

He started shooting fireballs at me the moment I came into range. Each one did 200 hit points of damage, but I had plenty because there weren't that many fights in the keep. Remembering the NPC comment about using the sword from a distance, I attacked from about five squares away and killed the evil sorcerer in a couple of blows. Then, I walked up and smashed his gem to get the endgame screen.

     

Firing the fatal shot.

     

In a GIMLET, the game earns:

    

• 4 points for the game world. There's a decent back story, and the author managed to give each of the towns and castles a slightly different character.

• 2 points for character creation and development. There isn't much of either, alas. Whether you start as a fighter, thief, or ranger simply affects your starting attributes, which become unimportant as you develop. Development is steady and predictable for every character.

• 4 points for NPC Interaction. As with most Ultima clones, this was a key part of the game, and reasonably well-done, with some NPCs getting paragraphs instead of single lines, and others requiring special attention like bribes and key letter prompts to reveal their secrets.

         

Not all NPCs were useful.

     

• 3 points for encounters and foes. The monsters aren't even named, let alone described, and their differences come down mostly to how hard they hit. But the game gets some credit for creative non-combat encounters, including the various situational puzzles I've described.

• 1 point for magic and combat. Only one option in combat, and no magic. The weakest part of the game.

            

Battling a dragon with the only option I have.

        

• 2 points for equipment. You only have a handful of weapon and armor types, and your ability to purchase them is tied to character development.

• 4 points for the economy. It lacks complexity, but as it's the only way to gain hit points, food, and a few key items, it remains important for most of the game.

• 2 points for a clear main quest.

• 3 points for graphics, sound, and interface. The interface is very easy to master and poses no problems. Graphics and sound are only functional. The DOS version does slightly better here, and you can mentally add two points for its improvements.

• 4 points for gameplay. Although the world is non-linear, the path that you must take through it allows little variation. The game does not offer different experiences for different characters or playing styles. However, it lasts about as long as it should and offers a moderate, satisfying challenge.

        

That's a final score of 29, which doesn't seem a lot higher than I gave to Gates of Delirium (25), but that was a commercial title. If my scale scored originality, Hera would come out significantly ahead (though obviously not as high as a completely original game).

      

The main screen title from the DOS version.

       

In 1995, Jeff produced a DOS version of the game with upgraded graphics and sound, including music. He also added The Sword of Rhin as a subtitle It otherwise seems to offer the same geography and gameplay as the original. [Ed: See Abacos's comment below for a few differences.]

     

Fighting an orc in the desert in the DOS port.

        

In an e-mail exchange with me, Jeff Hendrix freely admitted to the game's Ultima origins, saying that while he appreciated III and IV, he "missed the simplicity of Ultima II." He wrote the Apple II version in assembly code but learned C for the DOS port (except for the graphics). He estimates that he sold less than 50 copies, proving again that shareware is mostly for love and the programming experience.

    

We might finally be done with Ultima clones in 1987--just in time for one to pop up on the 1991 list (Enchantasy). For my next 1987 game, I get to dust off the ol' Amstrad CPC emulator once again for Inquisitor: Shade of Swords.