Die Quelle von Naroth: Won! (with Summary and Rating)

The well flows again!

       

Die Quelle von Naroth

"The Well of Naroth"

Germany

Independently developed and published

Released 1993 for Amiga

Date Started: 5 June 2024

Date Ended: 28 June 2024

Total Hours: 16

Difficulty: Moderate (3.0/5)

Final Rating: (to come later)

Ranking at time of posting: (to come later)   

    

Summary:

  

Naroth is a short, satisfying shareware game in which a party of four characters learns what happened to the magical Well of Naroth. Mechanics and gameplay evoke the SSI Gold Box games, though simplified. First-person exploration is contrasted with top-down tactical combat. The game offers six towns and almost 30 dungeon levels, although the efficient automap makes even large levels go quickly. The party gets palpably more powerful as they level up and acquire new spells and skills. Naroth does nothing truly bad, but I wouldn't have minded a less closed system (there are no random encounters at all), higher level caps, and more to do with late game money. Overall, though, it's a well-structured game that offers just the right length and difficulty for its content.

       

*****

        

I only had a couple of hours left after the last session, which was good because three of my four characters hit their level caps (Level 10). I don't like level caps in the first place; I like them even less when you can achieve them before the end of a normal game (i.e., without grinding). Since Naroth is a closed game with nothing but fixed encounters, and therefore does not support grinding, there should be no excuse for level caps that don't at least roughly align with the total number of enemies in the game. But it would have been annoying to leave the final dungeon to level up, so I don't mind that I hit the cap just as it was time to take on the final dungeon. 

     

In the previous session, we had learned that the party behind the destruction of the Well of Naroth was named Bersakus, and that he'd hired a local mercenary leader named Gonzales to help him with his plans. We had assembled the Stone of Death, necessary to stop Bersakus and undo his sabotage of the well. Finally, we had learned that Bersakus lives in an alternate dimension, but that we could reach it by using the Magic Wand at a particular place in the dungeons of the old castle.

       

At the old castle, preparing to enter the dungeons.

      

This session began with the party standing in the ruins of the old castle, which is in the mountains and covered in snow. Again, the author (Helge Förster) did a great job with background sound and sound effects here, including the howling of winds and the crunching of the party moving through snow. The castle map had four turrets in the corners, each leading to a different part of the dungeon's first level. A big "S" shaped pattern in the central walls (for Schloß?) led to nothing interesting.

    

The first level of the dungeon was I think the largest in the game, at 26 x 26. The four stairways went to different areas, each with its own selection of doors, pressure plates, teleporters, and unavoidable combats. We had to hit a pressure plate in one section to open a door in another, leading to another pressure plate that opened yet another door, and so forth, until we finally revealed the stairs.

 

Early on the level, in a treasure chest, we found a letter from Bersakus to presumably Gonzales, asking him to personally guard access to Bersakus's dimension, "because if someone does manage to create the stone and he also has the magic wand, he could still become dangerous." 

       

One of the more difficult late-game battles.

      

Combat in the endgame was extremely variable, as if Förster wanted to make sure that every enemy type had a shot, even though some were clearly outclassed by now. Thus, we faced at least one battle with all of the game's foes: rats, spiders, kobolds, orcs, ogres, soldiers, gargoyles, druids, and trolls. I think the most difficult were battles with 12 soldiers (who can cast spells), 8 druids, 8 trolls. But by now my cleric had "Restoration I," which restores a single character's hit points to maximum, and "Restoration II," which restores all hit points to maximum, so I could carefully time a couple of complete refreshes into each battle--more than one if I didn't mind using a magic potion. Since Ilende never reached his last level, I never got the final cleric spell. I assume it would have been "Resurrection." That would have saved a few reloads.

      

And one of the easier ones.

     

Levels 2 and 3 were smaller--again, lots of doors and pressure plates--and Level 4 was tiny--basically just a single hallway. The only enemy on Level 4 was Gonzales himself, the first unique enemy in the game. He had 200 hit points, but he didn't hit very hard, so the battle was relatively simple. I just had to use the old "surround and pound" strategy. 

       

It would have been funny if Gonzales had run all over the map, always keeping just out of the party's reach.

          

When he died, he dropped a Magic Cloak and a Ring of Strength. In a chest on one of the levels, I had found another Ring of Strength and a Battle Cloak, so I felt pretty well equipped by now. My fighters were hitting almost every blow and doing a couple dozen points of damage.

   

The level came to an end at a blank wall. I figured that was the place to use the Magic Wand, and I was right. "The walls around you begin to hum and disappear," the game said, and soon we were in a new dungeon of white stone.

       

Entering the multiverse.

      

The alternate dimension was three levels. The first had a large, circular shape, and was divided into four equal sections, each with a room in the center. We arrived in the north room, went down in the south room, and had to hit pressure plates in the east and west rooms. The design was a bit diabolical because it left only a single square to rest, in the western room, and there were a minimum of three combats before we could reach that square. Of course, not knowing the dungeon layout, I took the long way around and ended up fighting five battles before finding the square. They weren't easy, either: the first had eight druids. Combat-wise, this was the only part of the game in which an accumulation of battles, rather than single battles, created a challenge.

     

This oddly-shaped level offers only one place to rest.

     

Levels 2 and 3 were again much smaller. Level 2 had a pyramid shape and more doors to be opened with pressure plates. I think there were five battles. Level 3 had basically a single corridor with a few side chambers, only one of them necessary. It led straight to the final battle with Bersakus.

   

The final battle was a tad underwhelming. Bersakus had 10,000 hit points and was capable of mass-damage spells, so there was no question of trying to whittle him down 30 at a time. Not to mention that physical attacks seemed to do nothing, and magical attacks damaged him for 1 point at best. Thus, there was nothing to do but to use the Stone of Death. It killed Bersakus immediately.

       

That doesn't do much for us at this point.

    

A text screen appeared:

You actually managed to stop Bersakus. The tyrant is dead and the threat has been removed from Naroth. Now all you have to do is get back to the dimension where Naroth is and announce the good news, but before you can think about it, you fall into a deep unconsciousness from which you only wake up hours later. When you wake up, you see the blue hill above you, and in front of you there is a small spring, which is just about to resume its activity.

    

The game ended on a shot of the bubbling Well of Naroth as some brief credits scrolled by.

       

The author thanks some people who lent their names to villains.

      

In my opening entry, I called Naroth "tidy," a word that I repeat in the summary. It's far more competent than the typical independent game of the era. It has some limitations, but it doesn't do anything truly bad, and it doesn't overreach. A 16-hour runtime is perfect for a game of this content. I'm guessing we'll see modest scores below and a final rating in the 30s.

    

• 5 points for the game world. It tells an interesting backstory and situates the characters firmly in the plot. I like that you learn a few things about the world as the game progresses. It doesn't have a lot of unique character, and it doesn't react much to the players' actions. I'm still waiting for the game that celebrates our most recent victory with us every time we enter the tavern.

• 3 points for character creation and development. It has a basic D&D-derived character creation system, and leveling up is reasonably rewarding, but it doesn't offer different role-playing experiences for the different races and classes. Races may as well have not existed.

• 2 points for a small number of NPCs you find in houses and bars who impart information about the game world.

• 4 points for encounters and foes. The D&D-derived bestiary isn't original, but the game changes it up by varying their equipment, creating new challenges. (Trolls with longbows were an unwelcome addition to the final dungeon.) The various pressure plate puzzles involve more trial and error than clever thinking, but there are a couple of places in which Förster got creative with them.

• 4 points for magic and combat. The tactical grid is all right. It would have been better with obstacles and perhaps a few other tactical considerations like facing direction or backstabbing. The list of spells is small--one per level--but you certainly get a lot of use out of them. 

      

The mage spell list at the end of the game.

      

• 4 points for equipment. It has a small selection of weapons, armor, missile weapons, and shields, bolstered by a variety of magic items to find during exploration. Potions, though ubiquitous, weren't terribly useful because they restored so little. Some other potion options, wands, or scrolls might have enhanced the experience a bit.

        

A rare magic item found late in the game.

        

• 3 points for the economy. I was dirt poor during the first third of the game but ended with well over 10,000 gold pieces. (That would have changed if I had made more use of the temple's resurrection services instead of reloading when I died.) A couple of expensive items in the shops would be a nice addition.

     

I hadn't saved in a while, so I resurrected Chester this one time.

   

• 3 points for a main quest and a couple of brief side quests to solve on the way. One of them even has a role-playing choice (whether to give the key to Aurelius or take the treasure for yourself). 

• 4 points for graphics, sound, and interface. The graphics aren't going to win any awards, but they're mostly functional enough. As I reported, I really appreciated the attention to sound effects and background sounds in particular, which remain rare in this era. I never love all-mouse interfaces, but it worked okay, and the automap is worth a point.

• 6 points for gameplay. It offers some nonlinearity in the sense that you can head off to any dungeon at any time, although the difficulty of enemies enforces a certain order. It's slightly "replayable" in the sense that I'm curious about different class combinations, including whether it's even possible to win the game without a sorcerer and her mass-damage spells to rely on. Its difficulty and length are just about perfect.

        

The trolls managed to get me once before the end.

     

That gives us a total of 38, in my "recommended" zone, and a relatively high score for an independent title. The only bug I found involved the sage reading the wrong document, although I did notice that saved games failed to load a decent percentage of the time. That may be an emulator problem, though. Nonetheless, I recommend that players use save states as a backup to in-game saving.

    

As a shareware game, Naroth didn't get a lot of attention from the press, but there was a very favorable write-up in the June-July 1993 Amiga Joker, which praised its sound effects, "elegant mouse control," automapping, and thorough manual. "This well really bubbles up to a commercial level," it concludes.

     

Förster reported to me by email that he only sold a few dozen copies. It was listed with the major German shareware distributors, and a demo version was available for download. When players paid their shareware fee, Förster sent them the full version; if they paid a little extra, he also sent them maps. He reported he made about DM 1000, which if I did my calculations correctly, is about $3,500 today--although a lot of buyers paid him in postage stamps. "It was fine to me," he said. "I was a student at university back then, after all."

    

After a 23-year wait, fans of the game finally got its sequel, Naroth, for Android mobile devices in 2016. I tried to play it by installing Google Play Games for Windows, but Naroth isn't available for that service for some reason. According to Google Play, it has received more than half a million downloads, and more than 11,000 reviews show a mode of 5 (out of 5) and an average of 4. It has a unique character creation process in which you build your bio from several potential paths. Gameplay is first-person, not unlike Ultima Underworld or Morrowind (closer to the latter in graphics). It offers an open world to explore, NPCs to talk with, and dungeons to delve. You swing your sword or shoot your arrows at enemies in real-time. I gather, however, that it's more of an action game than an RPG, with health serving as the only statistic.

        

A player swings at a spider in a Naroth dungeon.

     

Helge has been commenting on my entries, so I'm sure he'll read this one. Tell us what's next for the world of Naroth or any other worlds you plan to create.