Game 409: Might and Magic: Darkside of Xeen (1993)

 

This image, which is showing the Dragon Pharaoh's pyramid on the dark side, suggests that there's another planet in very close proximity.

      

Might and Magic: Darkside of Xeen

United States

New World Computing (developer and publisher)

Released 1993 for DOS and PC-98, 1994 for FM Towns

Repackaged with Might and Magic: Clouds of Xeen and released as World of Xeen in 1994

Date Started: 20 April 2021

    

I decided it was time to jump right to Darkside of Xeen and pick up some momentum, despite some commenters who felt I should still dither longer with Clouds. I would have preferred to post again on Mission: Thunderbolt first, but that game is giving me all sorts of trouble.

    

To recap what we covered a couple months ago, Darkside of Xeen was released in 1993 as a standalone game, although players who installed it in the same directory as Clouds of Xeen could enjoy both games at once, plus some special endgame content that involves both sides of the world. This is naturally what I will be doing. Although I'm nominally playing Darkside, I will have to return to the Clouds side several times. There are two towers, one dungeon, and a sphinx that all require keys from the Darkside, plus I have vowed to finish the Dragon Cave and the Volcano Cave once my new characters are up to strength. 

The Dragon Pharaoh learns that his ally has become a vampire.

      

The backstory of Darkside is told in both the manual and the opening cinematic. The Dragon Pharaoh, who seems to rule all or part of the Darkside, is excited about the upcoming fulfillment of a prophecy. One night, he sees two meteors crash into the world, which he initially regards as a good omen. (I'm not 100% sure, but I'm willing to bet that the two "meteors" are actually Sheltem's and Corak's ships from Might and Magic III.) A dispatched agent fails to return from the crash site, and the Dragon Pharaoh's readings of the omens start to go haywire. In his journal, he repeatedly expresses his confidence in fulfilling the prophecy in exact percentages, which drop alarmingly as events unfold.

     

There's that planet again. What are we to make of it?

     

The pharaoh soon learns that one of his allies, Queen Kalindra, has taken in a "mysterious but charming guest named Alamar," which is of course the alias that Sheltem used in the first Might and Magic. Alamar usurps and imprisons the queen and somehow turns her into a vampire. Scouts return to the pharaoh with reports of a rebel army amassing near the crash site. One by one, the pharaoh's allies abandon him for Alamar. Soon, his very pyramid is under siege. In desperation, he magically seals off the last level of his pyramid, keeping himself safe but also trapping him inside. He entrusts a magic orb to a winged familiar, but the creature is blasted out of the sky soon after it leaves the pyramid, and the orb falls to the ground. It is found by Zelda the Herbalist and given to the party immediately upon their arrival on the Darkside. 

        

The little creature doesn't get very far.

      

As I began the game, I considered the recommendations from various commenters and ended up doing something odd. Although I didn't have to combine things this way, I was curious to see how fast I could win Clouds. An anonymous commenter linked me to a speedrun where the player had done it in less than five minutes. Winning this quickly requires prior knowledge of the maps and names of places, but it's still legitimate. I was prepared to try to win even faster by using the I LOST IT cheat at a mirror to get the Xeen Slayer Sword. 

      

An NPC lives up to his name.

         

In my first attempt, I started with a new party, ran up to the mirror, grabbed the sword, and asked the mirror to take me directly to LORD XEEN. Alas, my characters were unable to hit him, and he soon slaughtered all of us. My next thought was to try the leveling fountain in Nightshadow before going to Xeen, but the problem there is surviving the vampires on the way to the fountain. (Ed: I later remembered that this fountain doesn't work until you clear the town anyway.) My party would need either a quick means of leveling up or a quick 1,000 gold pieces to afford the "Teleport" spell in Shangri-La. Unfortunately, having the teleport spell is only half the battle. You also have to have enough spell points to use it, and the starting sorcerer doesn't. The +150 spell point fountain in Rivercity isn't available until you complete the town's quest, so that's out. You also need gems to do all that teleporting. Because of terrain and monsters, the +250 spell point fountain in the Land of the Giants isn't reachable unless you already have a boost. Neither is the +50 accuracy fountain. The +5 level fountain near Vertigo lets you hit Xeen a couple of times but not defeat him.

   

I needed a way to gain at least a few legitimate levels. After some experimentation, the fastest way I could find was to actually complete the Vertigo quest. You don't have to kill all the monsters; you just have to return with proof that Bob's Extermination actually caused the infestation. That's enough to get everyone to Level 3, which provides enough points for the sorcerer to cast a couple of "Teleports" and maybe a stray "Lloyd's Beacon."

       

I rolled a new party for Darkside.

      

To implement this plan, I created a new party so that I could experience Darkside without all the levels and skills and spells from the first game. But as a concession, I decided to curate the party rather than relying on random rolls. Thus, I ended up with:

• Saoirse, human female paladin. She was the only character from Clouds I really liked.
• Gnaart, half-orc male knight.
• Glean, gnome female ninja.
• The elf brother-and-sister archer duo of Shaft and Feather.
• Sasha, human female ranger, short for "Sashayer" (cf., Walker, Strider).

     

Not having a pure sorcerer created a problem, because my best archer only just had enough spell points for a "Teleport" at Level 3. But I was able to slay Lord Xeen by:

     

• Clearing out Vertigo and getting the associated reward.

• Using the reward money to purchase "Water Walk," "Lloyd's Beacon," and "Teleport" in Shangri-la.

• Using the +5 level fountain near Vertigo (you have to kill some orcs on the way).

• Using the +50 luck fountain near Vertigo.

• Using the +50 accuracy fountain in B3. This was the hardest. To get there, I had to use the magic mirror to go to the CAVE OF ILLUSION, "Water Walk" north 4 squares, and "Teleport" west 7 squares. That gets you to the fountain, but you only have a couple of turns to use it before nearby ninjas start blasting you with electrical spells, requiring you to "Lloyd's Beacon" back to Vertigo.

         

"Winning" Clouds with about the lowest score possible.

     

Even with these advantages, it took me about 10 tries to kill Xeen, then about 10 more to kill him and have enough characters left alive that I could afford to raise the ones who Xeen killed. I also made a lot of mistakes along the way, such as drinking from the fountains too late in the day, so that the 05:00 rollover wiped them out. Because of all of this, a planned video of my "speedrun" fell apart, and I ended up spending far more time than if I'd just copied the YouTuber and done it the longer way.

         

Zelda gives us the Dragon Pharaoh's Orb as we arrive.

          

Nonetheless, as I began Darkside, my party had accomplished nothing on the Clouds side except clearing Vertigo and killing Xeen. What makes me happy about this is that the various attribute-raising barrels are still around if I decide I need them. But otherwise let me know if you think having accomplished virtually no quests in Clouds will be a problem, and I'll start over with my saved game. As you've pointed out, I can still create new characters.

   

This new party entered Darkside at around Level 5, but with no decent equipment, no spells except the ones I bought in Shangri-la, and no skills. Thus, I could not immediately start lawnmowing my way through the dark side. Theoretically, it should make for a more challenging, interesting experience.

         

I thought this was a pretty cool image.

        

Darkside gameplay began in Castleview, a large 30 x 30 town with the usual services, a sprawling sewer beneath it (Darkside restores the Might and Magic tradition of a dungeon beneath each town), and a tower belonging to the mage Ellinger, to whom the Dragon Pharaoh had intended to send the magic globe. Castleview had been invaded by goblins and gremlins, looking here like no goblins and gremlins you've ever seen before. Mayor Snorfblad wanted us to clean them out. 

     

This puzzle required me to close the chests in an order that spelled PITCHFORK. I had to use an online anagram tool to figure it out.

      

The entire town seemed designed to level the party to Cloud levels as soon as possible. I got 100,000 experience points for solving a letter puzzle for Miles the Cartographer. He gave a string of gibberish letters and then asked us to eliminate letters based on the dark side's physical features (e.g., "if the Great Northern Tower is east of Lakeside, cross out all S's and D's"). Rescuing a man named Jasper from prison netted another 10,000. Two chest puzzles--one involved opening chests in a particular order, the other closing them--earned me 300,000. Another 25,000 came from simply talking to a succession of five "Drawkcab Monks," all of whom have palindromic names and speak in palindromes. Some of them were clever:

• I moan, "Live on, o evil Naomi!"
• Do nine men interpret? "Nine men," I nod.
• Eva, can I stab bats in a cave?

To defeat the gremlins and goblins, I had to contend with Gettlewaithe the Gremlin King, who sits in a tent in the midst of a field. For I believe the first time in the series, I had dialogue options when I talked to him, but all of the options seem to ultimately provoke a combat, so the choice is illusory. He agrees to stop bothering the town once you wipe out his guards. The mayor provides gold and 50,000 experience points.

     

The Gremlin King is a bit full of himself.

 

Dialogue options for the first time in the series.

The result of any of the dialogue options.

           

In the sewers--where I found a few endurance and strength barrels--Valio the Simple gives 25,000 experience for killing the Queen Rat.

       

Valio is actually an evil wizard. I wonder if the "School of Evil Wizardry" is something that I can find.

       

Both the town and sewer combats were moderately hard, particularly since I couldn't afford any useful spells yet. Temple blessings got me through most of them, but I had to do a lot of healing and armor repair with the limited funds I was earning.

Madam Oorla the Gypsy told me that I needed to take the orb to Ellinger, but his tower required a key to enter. On the dark side, the tower guardian is a cyberpunkish chick who says, "You need a key, orc breath" before you have the key and, "How did you get a key?" after you have one. The key was held by Nadia the Hoarder, who first wanted me to retrieve her lost onyx necklace from some sewer rats. That gives you another 100,000.

         

Once again, this is not how "keys" work.

         

I have to return to Ellinger's Tower at some point. There were a few items I didn't pick up because I had to walk on lava to get them, plus a button puzzle I never solved. (Ellinger seems to have a fetish for boots. Most of the treasures you find in his tower are boots, and he's written an Ode to Boots.) But I did make my way up to the top of the tower to talk with the wizard. He laid out the main quest: To save the Dragon Pharaoh, I'll need to enter his pyramid with a key. The only key is in Queen Kalindra's Castle, but Alamar did something to move the castle "out of phase" with the world, and to correct that, I'll have to find 20 energy discs. I already got three from Gettlewaithe.

        

Ellinger explains the main quest.

       

Talking with Ellinger got us a final 250,000 experience. By the end of the episode, we had enough experience to get everyone up to about Level 12. The greater problem for most of this session was money. I had to bypass the mage's guild, a guy offering a treasure map, and trainers providing the "Pathfinder" and "Swimming" skills because every penny I made went to healing and leveling up. Only at the very end of the session, when I found a few hidden treasure chests and got Ellinger's treasure, did the situation change.

     

It was pretty pathetic not to be able to afford this.

       

A few miscellaneous notes:

     

• I expected the dark side to be dark. But the daytime sky is lit, if a bit dim, and a tavern tip suggests that its towers have their own walkable clouds.

      

Exploring the somewhat-dusky side of Xeen.

      

• Ellinger's full name is Ellinger J. Hofenhager. "Hofenhager" sounds like a real last name, but a Google search suggests that it's never been used except for this game.

    

I'm going to need a drink to go along with this game.

      

• One negative consequence of using the magic mirror to get six Xeen Slayer Swords is that I can't drop them or sell them, so I have six fewer inventory weapon slots. 

• The tavern screen includes a character who looks so much like a Dr. Seuss figure that I assume it must have been intentional. In general, the dark side seems to be populated with monstrous races, only a few of which are ever identified.

           

I swear I saw his guy in Horton Fireballs a Who.

       

• I finally have a party in which everyone can wield missile weapons, but I've been very slow to acquire them. At the end of this session, I've only found two, and both were in stores.

   

Thus, while my party certainly isn't as powerful as its end-of-Clouds counterpart, I head out into the larger world of Darkside much more powerful than I expected.

   

Castleview is in area A4, in the southwest of the overall Darkside world map. The map shows a little less terrain variance than the Clouds side, with the center dominated by the Desert of Doom. (I originally wrote that this was "odd, given that the world receives little to no direct sunlight," but then it occurred to me that the sun has nothing to do with making sand. In fact, it's the other way around: lots of sand "causes" more direct sunlight by offering little water vapor to be condensed into clouds. Also, this is a manufactured world.) The map suggests that from Castleview, I can either go east through a forest and ultimately to the city of Sandcaster, or west to Castle Kalindra (no point in visiting there yet, I guess) and the Great Western Tower.

      

The game world.

       

I think I'm going to pretend that I don't have "Pathfinding" yet and see where the eastern road network takes me. That's if I don't start completely over with my old save game.

    

Time so far: 3 hours (Darkside content only)