Perihelion: There Must Be Some Kind Of Way Outta Here

 

The game continues to offer innovative artwork. This really looks like a demon.

       

I have another dungeon and six more combats to my credit, and I think I "get" this game now. Its mechanics aren't quite as good as its atmosphere, but neither are they bad. I don't much care for the linearity, but the combat system is tactical and challenging, with an interesting approach to character development.

   

I had just entered the WatchTower colony (the game is extremely fond of smashing two words together with InterCaps) when I last wrote. Although the in-game text described it as 16 levels, the part we could explore was at most five levels, the largest of them small enough that I didn't really need to map. the dungeon was graphically uninteresting--nothing but stone walls--but numerous flavor messages scrolled on the bottom to convey what we were seeing: a ragged, exhausted populace clinging desperately to life. Many of them had come to the colony for refuge, only to find conditions worse than where they came from. An explosion had recently rocked the center of the colony, and monsters were roaming the lower levels.

       

I love atmospheric messages like this; I just wish they didn't scroll.

       

As we arrived, we were greeted by Commander Algethi, who knew from the emperor about our search for Mirach, the survivor of a previous attempt by a demonic entity to breach his way into Perihelion. Algethi said that we could search the central computer for records about Mirach, but the explosion had cut off access to the colony's core. We would need to get one of the teleporters working to find our way there. He gave us a passcard to get through some of the doors.

    

A few steps after we left Algethi, a security guard ran up and warned us that many of the evacuated areas of the colony had been seeded with deadly traps to delay the monsters pouring in there. He gave us a device that would supposedly warn us about the traps, but I never saw that it did any good. Maybe I had to be holding it.

    

Commander Algethi. A lot of NPCs in this game are named after stars, including Mirach, Algethi, and later Algol.

      

The main level of the WatchTower ended in a broken teleporter, which we had to fix. There were five ladders going to sections of other levels. One of the ladders led to a trap that killed us instantly when we tried to take it. The other four brought us to various small areas where we found the three pieces of machinery necessary to repair the teleporter.

   

One of those pieces was behind a locked door that Algethi's keycard wouldn't open. The keycard that would open it was in the hands of some corrupt security guards looting supplies. When we surprised them, they turned hostile, leading to the game's second combat. It wasn't a lot easier than the first. As confirmed by my commenters, there's no way to resurrect or replace slain characters, so you want to make sure no one dies. But if enemies concentrate their fire on one character, he can easily be killed before the rest of the party even has a chance to bandage him or cast a healing spell. Fortunately, you can reload from within combat if things go poorly. After combat, you can restore everyone fully with one rest, so difficulty in this game is all about individual combats.

        

I blast some corrupt colony guards with a spell.

        

I experimented a lot more with the magic system after the last entry. I was relieved to see that when you mix spells, you're not just mixing one "use" of that spell. Instead, it remains in your spellbook perpetually, the number of specific castings limited by your mental power. I got a lot of mileage out of "storm" spells that affect a 3 x 3 area, in particular "Storm of Glowing Plasma," which decreases strength, perception, and vitality, and "Storm of Septic Thorns," which affects vitality, stamina, and dexterity. I also mixed some "Storm of Lifeforce Drain" spells in case I wanted to concentrate everything on their health.

  

These take a lot of power, though, and each character could only cast one or two per combat. I got a lot more regular use out of "Blast of Alpha Catharsis," which restores vitality, stamina, and intelligence for one character.

   

My characters started to run out of ammunition during this battle, and I had to switch some of them to melee weapons. This worked out well because you get a lot more attacks per round with melee weapons. Eventually, I settled into a pattern in which the three spellcasters launched offensive spells in the first round but then switched to "Alpha Catharsis" to heal the three melee characters in subsequent rounds.

   

I like the combat system overall. It's tactical and nerve-racking, and it has most of the strengths of the Gold Box series. It's not quite as good as the Gold Box, though. It's slow, for one thing, and like the rest of the game, it doesn't have enough keyboard backup. You can't even move with the keyboard; you have to click on that little GTFO panel. I would have liked a bit more variety to the spells, or maybe the ability to cast some of them before combat. I still don't quite understand how the initiative order works. Overall, though, it's better than another Bard's Tale derivative.

        

A character gains attributes in the middle of combat.

       

After winning this combat, I was able to find the three pieces of machinery, as well as some additional weapons and armor pieces. The only indication you have that there's any equipment in a room is your locater unit in the bottom-left corner of the interface. It starts blinking when something is close and turns to a solid color when you're on top of it. That's your cue to switch to the inventory screen and pick up the items one at a time. Trying to evaluate weapons and armor against your existing inventory is a pain. I like that the game is so transparent about its statistics, but not that to see those statistics, you have to put the inventory item in the "up in the air" slot, then switch to the network interface and wait for it to load, then type ANALYSE and wait for that to load, then return to the inventory screen and repeat with the second item. Again, keyboard backups like "I" for inventory and "N" for network would be very nice.

     

One of three pages of statistics for a helmet.

       

A diagram I'd found on a terminal in the last session showed me the order to assemble the machinery and get the teleporter working. Once it was up and running, I took it to the core of the colony. I had to pass through a grid of security corridors for which one wrong move meant instant death. One of the documents I recovered last time was supposed to guide me through the area, but it was either bugged or I misinterpreted it. I did a lot of reloading here.

        

Fixing the teleporter with a piece that looks like a pair of binoculars.

      

The exit put me in combat with vampires--the first of two such combats before I left the level. The vampires were weak themselves--one or two castings of my offensive spells killed them instantly--but they were capable of powerful life-draining magic. Still, I only had two reloads in the first battle and none in the second.

     

Hitting the vampires with "Septic Thorns."

     

I love the way that your attributes increase as you use associated actions in combat. For instance, ranged combat improves your dexterity and perception, melee combat your strength and vitality. Even walking or defending carries the chance of conferring some improvements. It seems like a lot of growth for minimal effort, but I suppose that's necessary when the game features so few combats.

   

We eventually made our way to a network interface and accessed the MIRROR network (Commander Algethi gave us the netcode). There were three documents, two of them inaccessible for security reasons. I wonder if these documents ever become accessible, or if they're all just red herrings. The one that I could read indicated that Mirach had been expelled from the colony. He was last seen heading towards the SoulTomb Uranium Mines, to the west, with a group of other emigrants.

        

The "SoulTomb Mines": The concept of "marketing" has not yet reached this world.

      

As we returned to the main level, we were attacked by a demon summoned by the Unborn from the Plane of Distortion. I'll take this moment to complain about another aspect of the game: the long text messages that appear as scrolling text at the bottom of the screen. Unless I want to transcribe the text, which involves several uses of the "Look" button because it scrolls too fast for me to type, I have to content myself with just getting the highlights. It would be so much better if the text appeared on separate screens in full paragraphs.

   

The demon attacked me alone, the first combat in the game against a single foe. It took me three tries to beat him, again only because I had to keep everyone alive. He was fond of identifying one character and targeting him three blasts in a row with "Globe of Glowing Plasma." I needed at least one of them to fail for my character to survive long enough to get him healed.   

       

Healing one of my characters in battle against a demon.

      

When the battle was over, Commander Algethi thanked us for saving the WatchTower and gave us a new ranged weapon. I may continue to favor melee, though.

   

We made our way out of the WatchTower and back to the overland map. The SoulTomb mines were a couple of clicks to the west. Shortly after we entered, we were attacked by a group of "renegade mutants." It was the easiest battle we've fought so far; they died quickly from both physical and magical attacks.

      

It's always fun when enemies group together.

        

After the battle, though, we were attacked again, and this time the game had a scripted outcome: they paralyzed us and hauled us to another location. We were awakened by a woman named PearlBlood who told us that Mirach was her father. She said we could meet him, but we'd have to speak to their leader, someone named Corall, first.

       

Technically, I don't think pearls have . . . you know what? It's fine.

   

Corall was a freaky-looking character who, the game told us, was addicted to a narcotic called HeavenSeeker. Apparently, he leads a society of mutants who don't want to live under the empire's controls of mutants. He said he'd let us meet Mirach if we would upload a message to the emperor demanding amnesty and an end to mutant controls. I did as he asked and got an acknowledgement of my message but not an answer. That seemed to be enough for Corall, though, and he had PearlBlood escort us to the lower levels near Mirach's chambers.

      

Why are we the "Scourges of the Empire"? We're trying to save the empire!

    

On the way to Mirach's quarters, we passed a network station with the word MUTANT scrawled on the walls. This turned out to be a netcode that got us a few more documents. One was a set of instructions for explosives marked COBOLD. Another discussed patrol strategies in response to increasing attacks from lycanthropes.

       

This is probably what we call "foreshadowing."

       

Sure enough, when we opened the door to Mirach's room, we found him being attacked by some wolves. Before we could react, one of them grabbed his grandson and ran off with him. We were thrust into battle with a half dozen lycanthropes.

     

Something amusing.

     

The lycanthropes weren't that hard, but they were capable of a "horrible, deadly howl" that damaged multiple characters in a radius. They seemed to be able to use it about six times per round, so my spellcasters were kept busy with healing spells while my fighters chipped away at their health. We won in a single try.

   

These icons don't much look like the beast in the picture.

    

When the battle was over, Mirach said that he'd been perfectly willing to tell us everything we wanted to know about the Guardian, but now that his grandson, Algol, was missing, probably dead, he'd rather just see the world burn. He gave us an hour to rescue his grandson (the boy needs shots every couple of hours or something) or he'd tell us nothing. He gave us a passcard to the lower levels (which I forgot to pick up on my first pass, necessitating a reload) and sent us off. A few steps later, the teary PearlBlood also begged us to rescue her son and gave us an "ancient crystal" that might be helpful.

       

"Algol" is the Demon Star. I wonder if this is a bit of foreshadowing.

      

I wrap this up on the levels below, hopelessly mired in a series of interconnected puzzles that involve using the right items in the right locations to get a series of keys. I can't seem to progress. I don't know whether I missed an item or I'm just not using the ones I have properly. With this game, it's sometimes hard to tell when a bit of text is an "atmospheric" message and when it's alerting you that you need to perform some kind of action there. Some kind of mining action is clearly going to be required coming up, as we've found a mining drill and explosives. We also found some grenades, but the game won't let me equip them as weapons, so I'm not entirely sure how they're used.

      

I'm not sure what to do in this room.

      

Miscellaneous notes:

    

• In one room, I found a "credit card" with 3,000 credits on it. Picking it up added them directly to my total. This is the first time I've earned any money in the game. The only thing I've found to spend money on is network services.

   

With a designated limit, I think this is more like a "gift card."

     

• I didn't have room to put the vampire headshot before. This needs to be seen.

      

Gruesome!

        

The funny thing is that the total area I've covered is about the size of two dungeon levels in a game like Wizardry or The Bard's Tale, but the game is so thick with verbose encounters, inventory puzzles, and long combats that it seems like a lot more. The cumbersome controls also slow things down a bit, making progress feel a bit like wading through molasses. Such a slow pace is probably necessary to appreciate the aesthetics, but it also discourages long sessions.

   

Time so far: 16 hours