Game 416: Perihelion

 

If "perihelion" is meant literally, things are about to get better for this planet.

       

Perihelion

Hungary

Morbid Visions (developer); Psygnosis (publisher)

Released in 1993 for Amiga

Date Started: 20 June 2021

     

Perihelion certainly makes a good first impression. I haven't quite decided if it's a New Thing or the Same Thing with a New Skin, but either way, it starts strong. It's creepy, bizarre, and atmospheric, and it kicks off with one of the best cinematics we've seen in CRPG history so far.

   

The setting is, I guess, fantasy cyberpunk. That is, a cyberpunk aesthetic but in a fantasy world rather than the future of our world. The backstory is confusing as hell, but in a good way--one that begins with questions and blanks that you trust you'll fill in as the story goes along. (Think Might and Magic, but if the author took his own game seriously.) As best as I can tell, it takes place in a land called Perihelion, ruled by an emperor named Rex Helion the 27th. It is a post-apocalyptic empire on a sunburned world, ravaged by wars involving "Bionecrons" and genetically engineered creatures. "Gods" are visible pools of energy with mysterious goals.

  

Not only is the writing good, but the audio that accompanies it is absolutely bone-chilling.

        

As the game begins, an initiate at the Psyonic Training Institute has had a vision (the "prophecy" of the game's supposed subtitle) of a malevolent extra-planar being called the Unborn, "an intelligent manifestation of the Entropy," forcing its way into the world. A version of the prophecy is read in a chilling voice in the game's opening cinematic, which you must watch. The Psyonic Council informs Rex Helion, who takes it seriously enough to greenlight Project Awakening--the growth of six genetically engineered super-soldiers who can protect the world from external threats ("six souls to defy a god"). The opening cinematic seems to relay the perspective of an agent of Emperor Helion, some time later, after the demon's invasion has begun. Alien creatures are tearing their way in from another dimension, solar flares are scorching the world, and people are experiencing "horrible genetical distortions." The agent travels to the Sandstorm Citadel to complete the Awakening.

     

A "messenger's log" appears one line at a time over beautiful graphics.

         
The story thus segues to character creation. Other than humans, races are original to the game. Bionecrons are a god-created race that fuses humans with "organic metal," giving the metallic skin, rapid healing, and psychic powers. Cyberns are humans implanted with cybernetic technology. Symbions are half-human, half-Bionecron, with prophetic powers. Khymeras are genetically engineered human hybrids with insect, reptile, or feline stock, all with (supposedly) superior senses and reflexes. For Cyberns, Symbions, and Khymeras, you can specify the percentage of human vs. animal DNA.

     

Classes are partly limited by race, although as usual, humans can be anything. Available classes are knight, mercenary, assassin, mediator, psionic, and anchorite. I'm guessing that they basically correspond with paladin, fighter, thief, bard, mage, cleric of a typical fantasy game. 

 

The agent arrives at the Citadel.

       

That brings us to the first issue. The manual is awful. It walks you through the game's screens but tells you nothing about its classes and attributes, and it's very thin on races and alignments. Normally in such situations, I wouldn't eschew a little online help, but I couldn't find anything for this game (aside from a commenter's recent warning that I needed at least one knight, mercenary, or assassin, and one or more characters with strength, dexterity, and intelligence above 85).

   

You can re-roll the game's attributes as long as you want. There are six physical attributes and five mental attributes, all on a scale of 1 to 100, but affected by race. I spent a little time recording minimum and maximum roles for attributes for each race. (Class doesn't seem to matter.) When I recorded enough values, it seemed that the minimum value always ended on a 1 (e.g., 21, 31, 41) and the maximum value always ended on a 0 (e.g., 80, 90, 100), so I assumed that was always the case. The results are a little confusing, as Bionecrons (who are supposed to nave natural psionic abilities) are almost universally highest in physical attributes while humans are almost universally highest in mental ones. That makes the other races of questionable utility. However, it's a bit more complicated because you can adjust the percentages of the hybrid races, and I only recorded the values for a 50/50 mix. There are also secondary (derived) attributes like physical and ranged attack and defense, plus resistances like radiation, electricity, and mental influences. It was a lot to take in, and character creation took me hours.

     

My table of attribute minimums and maximums, and available classes by race.

     

In addition to race, class, and attributes, you choose alignment on a 9-point scale from "extremely positive" to "extremely negative." According to the manual, your alignment determines what god you worship, although sometimes you have to choose explicitly from names like "ChromePanther," "WhisperDance," "Neon," and "Toxic Waste." There are some alignment restrictions that make sense (e.g., assassins can only be "neutral" or below) and some that don't (e.g., anchorites can only be neutral and worship "Lavender"). You also choose character portraits from a limited selection based on race. Despite a lot of choices otherwise, you can't choose sex. All characters appear to be male.

     

Creating my human psionic.

        

I figured I'd try one of each class and almost one of each race for my first party and came up with this:

     

• Castellar, a Bionecron knight, extremely positive worshipper of ChromePanther
• Jokerman, a Cybern mercenary (60% cybernetic), moderately positive worshipper of no one
• Constantine, a Symbion assassin (65% Bionecronomic), moderately negative worshipper of no one
• Skeena, a reptile Khymera mediator (65% human), obviously positive worshipper of Morphium
• Aldhabi, a human psionic, extremely negative worshipper of no one
• Yu Mincho, a feline Khymera anchorite (50%), neutral worshipper of Lavender

    

Gameplay commences so fast after character creation that I missed some of the message, but it went something like this:

    

After leaving the citadel, the party sets forth across the map. The wind brings noises of alarm signals and explosions from the distance. You suddenly realize that the Citadel is dying in the ruthless grip of that mysterious, dissolving power which is now obviously sensing you and will spare no effort to pursue you, until the end. But presently, you're alone with a SandGlider unit in the middle of the desert, totally puzzled and not knowing where to turn. Maybe the only useable information you have is that last file entry on your NetStation.

    

The overworld map is presented in an oblique view. Movement across it is odd. You can't just go in any direction. Instead, you move in fixed distance intervals across fixed paths. Starting at the Citadel, for instance, hitting "west" moves me along a western track immediately to the city of MidLight. From MidLight, hitting "west" moves you northwest towards a forest; hitting "north" moves you northeast towards a lake. The point is you're moving between fixed waystations rather than free roaming. As you reach each location, you can hit the question mark icon to learn its name, the arrow to approach it, and the third icon to cancel your approach. There's not much else to do on the screen. The spinning globe doesn't seem to be interactive. 

        

You can only move across the map from one fixed waystation to another. I've annotated them with white dots. If you reach the edge of the map, it scrolls to a new screen.

       

I moved the party to the city of MidLight and got another long message as I approached:

   

After a short but tiring climb in the rust-colored sand, you finally reach the top of a small dune. As you let your eyes adjust to the eerie sunlight, a majestic sight appears in front of you and immediately takes your breath away: You are facing the ancient city of MidLight, a memento of the vanished past in this decaying, damned present. In a strange mood, you decide to advance towards the once-so-powerful metropolis, which is nowadays only a haunted shade of itself. The pollution, the crime, and the Bionecron Wars have taken their toll.

      

I don't care for the game's way of delivering messages with scrolling text across the bottom of the screen. It makes it difficult to read and even more difficult to capture. Sometimes I don't even notice it's happening until halfway through the message.

     

Approaching MidLight.

       

Transitioning to an area changes the interface. You have six options in a panel in the lower left, including psi-powers (spells), inventory, combat, NetStation, and navigation. The default screen is the same as the character creation screen; I guess you can create and replace party members from anywhere. The controls in the inventory section are a little wonky, and I'm going to have to refer to the manual again before I talk about it. Everyone came with some default stuff, so that's good enough for now.

      

The character in the inventory portrait really hams it up.

      

The oddest and most original contribution to this game is the NetStation, where you can type a variety of commands, including TALK to communicate with NPCs, ANALYZE to get statistics on whatever inventory item is in the "up in the air" slot, READ messages and files, and even LOGIN to networks and UPLOAD and DOWNLOAD things. Each command other than HELP has a cost associated with it, which discourages experimentation. A little disk drive icon with blinking lights runs in the bottom left corner as you enter commands.

      

Getting help on NetStation commands.

        

The characters start with a message on their personal NetStations called "farewell." It's from the agent of Emperor Helion's who woke them up, I guess:

     

This is the last message I can transmit to you. Remember, you're the only men who cannot be harmed by the Unborn directly, but it surely will try to find the way to eliminate you. Now you must go to MidLight. An encrypted NetCode to the Emperor is waiting for you there. You must discover it at any cost. Be quick, forget your doubts and gather all the information you can about that NetCode. My fate calls me now. Signed, Commander Ptahh, Sandstorm Citadel.

        

I'm cleaning up the English in transcribing these messages. The text is full of spelling mistakes, punctuation mistakes, and odd syntax and word choices. I assume they’re unintentional, but I have to say that they enhance the weird atmosphere of the game.

Moving through the city is done in first-person view, with hauntingly desolate graphics. Usually, turning to the side shows you a fence or wall, but occasionally you find a door. After a bit of exploration, I found an empty store in which the word "NETWORK" flashed a few times, indicating I could log in from my personal NetStation to whatever this world's version of the Internet is. (I'm basically burglarizing houses for Wi-Fi.) To log in, you have to enter a "NetCode," which I'm guessing is like a server address or something. I still needed to find the one that the message told me about, but the manual had given me a hint to another: "Norman Bates was one."

    

Moving along the city streets. The text provides a succinct description of the cyberpunk genre.

     

Sure enough, I entered PSYCHO and found myself on a network with four files: council.results, priority reports, report1, and report2. The first two wouldn't let me read them, saying only "unauthorized user." "report1" was from a Dr. Inuhealn, and it talked about a "MindCryption" that he had performed on a young patient at the order of the government. He noted that it could be decoded with "that unique necklace of imperial confidants." I assume "of" means "worn by" in this context. "report2" is from a Dr. Shamar, and it confirms some of the information in the backstory: the world is seeing a huge increase in mental disorders and DNA corruptions. I logged out, having spent 590 of my original 5,000 credits.

    

      

As we left the NetStation, the owner of the building appeared. We got another long, scrolling message indicating that we recognized from his lifeless stare that he was a veteran of the Bionecron Wars (we still don't know what this was). He had a tattoo indicating that he'd gone through a "mental modification process" that sounds like it might be the "MindCryption" of report1.

   

I switched back to the NetStation and tried TALK. I found his statement contradictory at first:

      

You're absolutely not willing to talk to anyone . . . but you'll help.

        

Despite running a "shop," he didn't seem to sell anything. I'm not sure if this game offers traditional buying and selling as such. The manual doesn't mention it. Characters have "credits," but that might just be for network stuff.

At the end of another street, we met a homeless woman with her baby, but she wouldn't have anything to do with us. I don't know if it matters which character is active during these conversations. There's no "charisma" statistic or anything like that that suggests it would have anything to do with success in NPC interactions. The woman said, "By Lavender's name, I ask you to leave me alone," so I had my Lavender worshipper try to talk, but it didn't work.

    

This is a really depressing setting.

     

The city ended up being a small 18 x 18 with worm tunnels. I got a lot of atmospheric messages as the party moved around ("the howl of a lonely dog echoes through the walls around you"; "you see military units marching through evacuated quarters"). On the east side of town, a series of messages seemed to be building to something: "From nearby streets, you can hear the shouts of a considerable crowd," and then, "You see a gathering group of some strange, suspicious-looking people." But I couldn't seem to do anything in this area, and the corridor ended in a "door with a sophisticated security system." 

     

My map of the city.

    

You've seen the effective visuals so far. I should also mention the incredibly atmospheric music, which straddles the line between "music" and "background sound effects." It's sparse, weird, and effective, but also a bit too brief and repetitive. For instance, the exploration theme in citadel is only six measures, five notes, and about 18 seconds long. But it has some whirring and hooting mixed in that give it a creepy vibe. I'd still probably turn it off if I could, but the game doesn't give that option. The other sound effects are sparse but generally well-done, with beeps and buzzes as you access various buttons and a constant mechanical hum in the background.

   

I took one last scan through the documentation before I left the city and realized I'd missed another dialogue option: ASK. This allows you to enter keywords. I still couldn't get anything out of the mother with the baby. The Bionecron was gone from the first shop I explored, but I found an old Cybern in the second shop. In response to NETCODE, he didn't know the code for the imperial network, but he gave me two others: INDIGO and GLOBAL. INDIGO turned out to be the Institute of Sciences; GLOBAL was just "Global NetStation." Between them:

• A "genetic report" from a Professor Dyorall marvels at the Unborn's ability to mess with the DNA of intelligent life forms.

• Magister Gemma from the Mediator Council reports that it's been harder to establish contact with the gods, especially the "low-reactivity" ones like Morphium or the Toxic Waste. 

• Adeptus Praesepe of the Psionic Institute reports that they've had to cancel training because the amount of mental energy needed to perform common spells is killing the recruits.

• A "citymap" uploaded by Prince Alphard, Regent of MidLight, confirmed my map of the city.

        

I don't know why it's stretched so much north and south. The city is a square.

     

• Prince Alphard issued an EMERGENCY STATE alert for MidLight, imposing martial law.

• Lieutenant Zhook reports two storm-trooper units were destroyed 70 miles out of MidLight.

    

As before, there were several files I couldn't read because I was an "unauthorized user." But looking over my notes and inventory, I realized that we're all "imperial confidants" who are wearing the necklace described in the report. I spent ages lurking around that first shop trying to get the Bionecron to reappear, but I had no luck. I don't know what triggers their appearance or disappearance.

   

While I couldn't find the shopkeeper to use the necklace, it did oddly work on the baby. Apparently, someone had implanted some information in his brain. When I used the necklace, the game said that the baby looked at us and communicated ASYLUM, then fell asleep. I assume this is the name of the imperial network. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to log on to it, because both shops (the only places with Wi-Fi) were "brutally looted and closed" after this encounter. I decided to try one more time at the locked shop, and this time something happened as I approached.

      

I stumbled into a street riot led by followers of an extremely negative god. I tried to talk to them, but they insisted on fighting. Battle commenced.

     

One of my characters takes aim at a marauder.

   

I hadn't really known what to expect from combat, since the manual doesn't have any screen shots. I had frankly expected something derived from the Interplay line, as the exploration in the game had reminded me of The Bard's Tale or Antares. Instead, I found my characters on a top-down tactical map. Combat is turn-based, with characters choosing ranged or melee attacks or defenses, spells, and other actions. I haven't even begun to look at spells yet.

     

Even the "full party death" screen is pretty cool.

    

There were about 10 marauders with guns and 3 priests with spells, and they just massacred us. I think I only killed two of them. So we'll close it here and pick it up next time with a more thorough analysis of combat and magic. It's a weird, fun, eerie game so far, and for the first time in a long time, I feel quite out of my element. If anyone reading has experience with the game, I'm happy to take tips or comments on anything I've already messed up.

     

Subtitle or section title?

      

A quick note on the title: Most sites call the game Perihelion: The Prophecy. The subtitle does not appear on the box or manual. The closest is a tagline on the box that asks, "Will the prophecy be fulfilled?" I think the idea that The Prophecy is the subtitle comes from a screen that appears after the title screen. It does indeed say "The Prophecy." However, I interpret it as the title of the cinematic that follows, not as the subtitle for the title on the previous screen, if that makes sense.

  

Time so far: 5 hours