Game 391: Legends of Valour (1992)

       

Legends of Valour

United Kingdom

Synthetic Dimensions (developer); U.S. Gold (U.K. publisher); Strategic Simulations, Inc. (U.S. publisher)

Released in 1992 for DOS; 1993 for Amiga, Atari ST, and PC-98; 1994 for FM Towns

Date Started: 28 November 2020

   

Older gamers, who remember the era before the death of game manuals, often talk about that magical time in between purchase and play, often during the car ride home, when they opened the manual and started to get a sense of the plot and mechanics. The manual to Legends of Valour would have left me absolutely drooling. It promises an immersive, gritty, personalized experience in a complex simulated fantasy environment. I've said multiple times that I prefer small, local, personal stories to world-threatening events, so I am 100% on board with playing a young naif freshly arrived in the big city, looking for his cousin Sven.

    

The city is Mitteldorf, built on a volcanic island named Wolfblood ("build your cities on the slopes of Vesuvius" indeed). A newspaper (The Mitteldorf Post) presents it as an unruly place of haves and have-nots, ruled by a semi-competent king named Farley. A City Watch keeps a certain amount of order, but justice is only a distant aspiration. It is a place of taverns and brothels, shops and arenas, thieves and scoundrels. Men and monsters mix on the streets, cults and guilds compete for members, and of course there's a dungeon underneath the city. Into that dungeon, Sven has disappeared, searching for a lost jewel.

       

I got pretty lucky on the dice this time, I think.

       

The manual suggests that the player may eventually join a guild and get quests--and of course, there's probably a "main quest" that will become apparent at some point--but at the outset, he'll be occupied with keeping himself sheltered, fed, free of disease, and out of jail. The setup makes Valour sound a lot like Alternate Reality: The City with an actual plot; I can't imagine that the developers were not familiar with and inspired by The City.

     

What the manual promises, the game matches--at least in its opening moments. There is a pre-title sequence with some lovely cinematics, including what is probably the best water animation that we've seen so far. We zoom in on a mountain; a hawk flies in circles; a large dragonfly beats its wings above a rippling surface; a lone figure pilots a small rowboat as giant manta rays swim beneath him. This is some next-level stuff. I know from reader comments that the game doesn't hold up, but I'm not discouraged by the beginning.

      

This probably has nothing to do with anything you can do in the game.

          

(The pre-title sequence actually begins with three Nietzsche quotes stuck together to suggest that they're part of the same passage. We'll see some of the same material later at the beginning of Baldur's Gate. The specific use of this material got my hackles up, and the original draft of this entry grew to about 2,000 words on Nietzsche, how he is both misunderstood and perfectly understood, and how the CRPG hero is an ironic Nietzschean archetype--ironic because I think Nietzsche would have hated video games and regarded anyone who spent his life playing them with utter contempt. Anyway, as you can see, it was getting out of hand, so I cut the material and saved it for a later special topic about the use of Nietzsche in CRPGs.)

  

The game distinguishes itself from all those less-philosophical RPGs.

        

The character creation process isn't bad. The game automatically rolls for strength, intelligence, health, speed, and "inheritance" (your starting wealth); the manual warns you not to get too hung up on these figures, since you have lots of chances for improvement. You select a male or female and from human, dwarf, and elf options that change the character portrait in predictable ways.

   

The character's face is customized by clicking on its parts on a stone tablet. You can cycle through six hair options (alas, no bald option), nine hair color options, seven eye options, eight nose options, nine lip options, and six facial hair options. You cannot escape a healthy set of sideburns (which oddly do not change color with the rest of your hair) no matter what you do.

    

Once you accept the character, the game gives you a random name for your father (I got Sedgley Cooper), his trade (baker), and your town of birth (Headless Cross). You enter your own name.

         

The provincial little place I'm about to abandon.

      

You're then given a chance to spend your "inheritance" at the blacksmith's shop and general store in your village before heading off to Mitteldorf. My first negative impression of the game comes from the use of only a single suit of "armor" in the game. While perhaps historically accurate, it's far less satisfying than having different pieces of armor to find, purchase, and equip throughout the game. Even worse, the different types of armor appear to have no names, just styles and prices. You can get an all-golden set for 210, a vaguely-samurai set for 230, or an all-silver plate set for 240. You can also get two shields--both cleverly named "shield"--for 32 and 38--and an axe for 40. 

    

For those players who are more price-conscious, the general store has three "costumes" for 70, 80, and 98, and, mysteriously, a chunk of "ore" for 12. I could have afforded the most expensive of everything, plus the ore, but I decided to go with a "costume" instead of an armor set to save some money for Mitteldorf. I bought an axe and, of course, the ore. That was just too odd not to buy.

       

The styles are eclectic in Headless Cross.

         

The game really begins as you arrive in Mitteldorf. I think a lot of the content, including names, is procedurally generated, so from here my experience may not match anyone else's.

       

An NPC greets me as the game begins.

          

I'm greeted as I enter the town by a bounty hunter named Storr Wildfowl. He welcomes me to the city and advises me to read the notices outside the Custom House, across from the town gates. The dialogue interface gives me a few keyword starters, plus buttons for attacking, pickpocketing, and insulting. I spent a little time on the dialogue. "Where" and "What is" bring up sub-menus where, altogether, I can ask the following questions:

    

• Where is the town gate?
• Where is the market square?
• Where are you going?
• Where am I?
• Where is the Custom House?
• What is the day?
• What is the time?
• What is your name?
• What is your religion?
• What is your trade?

          

Some dialogue options.

     

I'm not sure how the game determines whether the NPC likes you, especially minus a charisma statistic. The game seems to roll for success after each question, which creates the following humorous exchange:

• Me: What is your name?
• Storr: Storr Wildfowl
• Me: What is your trade?
• Storr: Bounty hunter
• Me: What is your religion?
• Storr: I worship Aegir, God of the Sea
• Me: What is the time?
• Storr: None of your business

    

Amidst a lot of restarting (Storr walks away if I take too long to take notes), I check out the "insult" system, which involves randomly-generated slurs. "Your mother was a geriatric dung beetle," I say. "And you have the dress sense of a rotting ogre," he replies. This reminds me of Swords and Sorcery (1985), another British game, although the two seem to share no ancestry other than their country of origin.

      

As Storr glides away (more on that in a minute), I spend some time studying the interface. The three boxes in the upper left are for unique magic items that I will apparently find later. The lower left has "examine" and "disk options" buttons, plus a box in which various objects appear when I encounter them in the environment. There's a set of status bars for health, energy, injury, "appeal" (that must be the charisma bar I was looking for), hunger, thirst, and fatigue. Next to that is a set of controls that I am dubbing the "GTFO Panel," named after my reaction if you tell me that you actually use this, instead of the far more convenient arrow keys, during actual gameplay. Then we have the action panel, which includes three options for combat (crush, thrust, slash), the game map, buttons for casting mage and priest spells, sleeping, using, and shouting, "Hey!" The word "Hey" literally appears in the game window.

   

The upper right has your pockets. By default, it shows your gold, but there are six buttons that change the display to show the other trading items used in Mitteldorf: gems, spices, pigments, ore (aha!), hide, and tar. In a nod to realism, the manual notes: "That doesn't necessarily mean that you have several tons of merchandise in your pockets; some of your goods may consist of letters of credit, bills of lading, that kind of thing."

       

Buildings indicate what kind of place they are.

        

The lower-right box shows what you're holding in your hand, along with arrows to throw or drop it, and the six boxes above it show your backpack contents, which may be readily transferred to the hand.

   

Keyboard backups for these buttons are unforgivably scant. The action panel is replicated with the function keys, but in a weird configuration. F1 executes "thrust" (middle of the top row), but neither of the other attack options have keys. The middle row picks up with F2 (map) and continues in order through F7 (Hey!). Gods know why they didn't just go from F1 to F9 with all the buttons. Nothing else has a keyboard shortcut.  

   

That leaves the main game window, a mix of good and bad elements. On the plus side, you can see enemies and NPCs in the environment, which immediately puts it above the Gold Box and most Wizardry derivatives. On the negative side, the window is non-interactive--you can't even move your cursor into it--which puts it below Dungeon Master and any game based on it, and of course Ultima Underworld.

   

In between, we have a couple of neutral factors. The graphics are uninspired, and the ground looks particularly blah. There's an option turned off by default to add some texture to the ground, although even this goes away when you move. 

      

NPCs use several means of locomotion.

      

Like Alternate Reality, the game features continuous movement--or, at least, movement in very small increments so that it appears as if it's continuous. I realize that this is supposed to be appealing, but I'd rather have a tiled game with immersive graphics and an interactive environment than a continuous game with the opposite. The existing system must have slowed down a lot of PCs, because there are game options to use a smaller window and to have the game render shorter distances.

   

A game day lasts about 16 minutes of real time. You get a static transitional screen when day becomes night and night becomes day. 

    

The sky graphics for night turning to day are nice.

     

The game map is interesting. It shows the streets and paths of a large and sprawling city and gives you the names of its establishments. It's up to you to annotate their precise locations on the actual map. I'd like to do that, but I haven't been able to find a high-resolution copy of the original map; the one at the Museum of Computer Adventure Game History, for instance, has the annotations already printed. Someone let me know if you have a good source for a blank one.

    

Sven's letter said that he's been staying at The Boarding and drinking at The Snakes, so I need to be on the lookout for both places, but to begin I'm happy to check out the Customs House notice board. This requires going into the Customs House, which buys and sells the various commodities. The owner greets me and promises me the best prices short of the black market. His "notices" board has the following notices:

    

• Government warning: Beware of everyone! Especially the government. The last part looks like it might be graffiti.

• Rusty Cutlass All your medical needs. Open every day, daylight only. Specialty leaching service. This one has a little map indicating how to get there from the town gate.

• Legends of Valour helpline. This gives a U.K. phone number and says it costs 48p per minute most times and 36p per minute.

• A note from Sven! He says he's been delayed but will meet me at The Hanged Man later.

• A job to collect a chest from the Hanged Man and deliver it to Potch's Supplies. Payment is 22 groats, the game's currency.

     

It looks like I'm looking for The Hanged Man next. This just the sort of place I could find immediately or not find until the end of the game depending on my exploration pattern. I try my best to explore right around the town gate (which is on the eastern edge of the map) first.

        

NPC images are digitized photos, which is not something I particularly like.

     

The first door I try (you open doors just by walking into them) opens into a set of guard barracks, which in turn opens into the Guild of the Men at Arms. This is one of three guilds mentioned in the Mitteldorf Post; the others are the Thieves' Guild and the Mercenaries' Guild. There are also two "fellowships" and four temples that you can join. The Post specifically says that the Men at Arms are recruiting, having lost members recently "in a series of mysterious accidents." The guild also has two ads, one offering training, the other offering used weapons for sale.

    

My impression is that I can join multiple guilds, so I figure I might as well do it while I'm here. It turns out maybe I was a little hasty. After I pay an initiation fee of 24 groats, the guildmaster tells me that my "trial" is to "secretly" fetch a bronze helmet from The Armoury within two days. "The code word is 'blueboar,'" he says. The Armoury is a shop, according to the map. I have no idea why I'll need a codeword. I also pay 50 groats to improve my weapons skills to "the first Dann." I trust this works, I've yet to figure out how to actually see my skills.

         

What the heck.

      

Out in a courtyard, I hail a guardsman and ask him where The Armoury is. "51 poles northwest" is his reply. The Hanged Man, he further offers, is 30 poles west. I have no idea how long a "pole" is, but the same guard says that the Market Square, which is marked on the map by default, is 48 poles west. It's about halfway across the map, so The Armoury should be about that, just to the northwest, and the Hanged Man should be a little more than halfway to Market Square. I go to save my progress so far and find that you can only save at taverns, hostels, and inns, so I guess it's the Hanged Man or bust.

      

After wandering into several generic hovels and residences, I figure out that most shops have clear signs on the outside. I soon wandering into a major square called The Stone Circle, and lo and behold, an inn on the north side is labeled "The Hanged Man." I enter just as the game switches from day to night.

      

The Stone Circle was easy to find.

         

There's one NPC in the tavern, Choker Bloodaxe, the town executioner. He has no dialogue on Sven, but he tells me The Armoury is 23 poles north of here, so I guess I've gone far enough west.

    

The tavern has its own notice board, some of which duplicate the Custom House. There are rules for roach racing, a gambling game the tavern offers. Sven has left another note, saying there's "something weird" happening in the city, and he'll meet me at the Troll's Arms. I can choose from a variety of unappetizing food and drink options. I don't see any option to take the quest to deliver the chest.

       

We have a roach burger, a brain, and two pie-looking items with horns sticking out of them.

       

The roach racing gambling game costs 1 gold piece and pays out 2, 3, 5, or 10 depending on which roach you bet on. Theoretically, the first roach (paying 2:1) has the best odds. I'm going to have to spend some time recording trials when I have more gold and time.

      

"Roach races" were in the PLATO Oubliette, which partly influenced Alternate Reality, but I don't remember roach races in Alternate Reality.

     

I save the game. Despite a bit of trepidation, I decide to head out on the streets at night, since I only have two days to return to the guild. A couple blocks north, a guy in a hood asks if I want to buy insurance. I say no, but then ask him where The Armoury is. "Here," he replies. I turn and, sure enough, the building next to me has a pair of crossed swords on it. Finding things in this game is going to be easier than I thought.

    

Despite the late hour, the door is open, but when I walk up to the "counter" inside, I get a message that it's closed. I wander upstairs and find a set of "Power Gauntlets" on a table. I guess maybe there are individual pieces of armor. I don't know much about this game's approach to ownership and thievery just yet, so I decline to take them. Instead, I head back outside to wait for daylight.

   

A werewolf wanders along as I wait. The Post had an article about how werewolves were becoming a problem on the streets at night. I hail him and he says "Grrrr" to all of my questions, but he otherwise doesn't seem interested in attacking me.

         

What is your trade?

        

In the morning, I enter The Armoury again. The notice board has a "message for blueboar" that the item I seek is no longer here. Instead, it gives me directions to a nearby place called the Charterhouse. The directions are solid, and pretty soon I'm in the Charterhouse, where I find the bronze helmet on a table upstairs. I grab it and hightail back to the Guild of Men at Arms, where I am welcomed as a Grunt. I decline to pay the fee to take on the next quest just yet.

 

I'm confused as to whether I'm in a plot to steal this helm, or whether I'm just picking it up.

         

Finding the bronze helmet. Note the image in the lower left.

I feel like your guild ought to have some hyphens in its name.

     

As Day 2 comes to a close, my food, water, and fatigue meters have hardly budged. I haven't officially fought any combats, but a couple came upon me--random NPCs with a bone to pick--while I was typing up paragraphs for this entry, and both were easy. Thus, Valour may have been inspired by Alternate Reality's mechanics, but it was definitely not inspired by its difficulty. 

    

Speaking of inspiration, Bethesda's Todd Howard has noted several times that The Elder Scrolls series was modeled partly on Legends of Valour. You can see it in its guilds, guild quests, and focus on skill development. It amuses me that The Elder Scrolls is only two steps away from Alternate Reality on the RPG family tree, particularly since Alternate Reality was influenced by the PLATO games. That's yet another major RPG family we can trace back to PLATO.

    

So far, I like the setup of the game, but I'm less enamored with its interface and mechanics. By next time, perhaps I'll have gotten used to the latter.

   

Time so far: 3 hours