Game 536: Sword Quest 2: Tale of the Talisman (1993)

         

Sword Quest 2: Tale of the Talisman

United States

NGS Software (developer and original publisher); GT Interactive (later publisher)

Version 1.1c released in 1993 for DOS

Date Started: 5 December 2024

       

We've seen plenty of console RPGs influenced by computer RPGs—that directionality is sensible, since computer RPGs came first. We see less of the opposite. Nonetheless, Erik Badger's two Sword Quest games for DOS were clearly influenced by Dragon Warrior (1986, AKA Dragon Quest) for the NES. These influences include the iconographic interface, the tiled landscape and dungeons, the one-line NPCs, the spell list, the turn-based combat, and—most importantly—invisible borders partitioning the landscape by enemy difficulty. I didn't play Dragon Warrior until 56 games after Sword Quest 1, so I originally missed the connection. I thought it was an Ultima clone (which makes a little sense, as Dragon Warrior clearly borrowed from Ultima), but commenters set me straight, and in an email exchange, Badger confirmed it.

        

The game begins.

     

Badger was 16-17 when he wrote the two games after experiencing Dragon Warrior on his friend's NES. He published them first as shareware through his own label, NGS, which stood for "Next Generation Software." (My use of "NGS Software" is an example of RAS Syndrome, but one that comes from the game materials.) Later, it was published by GT Interactive. I think he did a respectable job, particularly given that he didn't have his own copy of Dragon Warrior to work with.

      

Sword Quest 2 is a nice upgrade from its predecessor. I complained that the first game wasted a lot of interface space by keeping the game title and NGS logo on the screen at all times; the sequel at least removes the latter and replaces it with the current inventory. The sequel is quite a bit larger and longer. It is no less grindy, but the grinding happens more quickly than in both Dragon Warrior and Sword Quest 1. Miscellaneous interface items have been fixed; in particular, an errant keystroke no longer passes in combat. Perhaps best of all, Badger added a world map accessible with the "P" key. Let's also note that in adapting a console game for a keyboard, Badger did not rely on the joystick or other controllers but instead sensibly mapped each command to a key.

        

One of the cooler features of the sequel.

        

In 1, the player, a jester from the court of King Ferd, had to take on the quest to destroy an evil warlock after all the knights failed. At the end, he was knighted as Sir Jester. As this game opens, he's been summoned from his home to the world of Golbe by the Wizards of Zrofdomel. Golbe has been invaded by evil creatures, led by the Dragon King. The world's armies have been magically sealed inside a castle. If he can kill the Dragon King and retrieve the talisman he wears, they'll send him back.

        

Summoning someone from another world is a "minute" power?

       

The character creation process has the player allocate a pool of 30 points among strength, dexterity, and skill (all start at 5) and give a character name. The game starts with the character at the northern tip of an island in the northwest corner of the world. He has 9 food, 24 hit points, and no weapons or armor.

      

I, boringly, went for an even allocation.

         

Sword Quest 1 offered a brutal opening chapter, with the first town nowhere in sight and hostile enemies like demons and dragons attacking the unarmed, unarmored character almost immediately. It took a good hour before I was stabilized. The sequel still pulls no punches when it comes to early enemy difficulty, but at least the character starts on top of a town. I didn't notice this, and I spent a while wandering the island, looking for refuge, as I got attacked and killed by the same sorts of foes.

  

Both of those caves go to the same dungeon.

      

The beginning town is called Zrofdomel, and like all towns (so far), it has an armory, a mage shop, an inn, and a tavern. The armory in each town sells two or three items from a ladder of goods, a feature that passed from Ultima to this game through Dragon Warrior. Zrofdomel sold only staves and scythes as weapons; later towns sold short swords, maces with chains (i.e., morningstars), and long swords. The armor ladder so far has been leather, chain, half-plate, and full plate (only the first two sold in Zrofdomel), and the shield ladder has been leather, small shield, large shield. When you purchase an item, it automatically replaces the older item in your equipped inventory.

         

Buying weapons in the town of Smoffed.

      

Mage shops sell items that basically replicate spells, including torches, fire jars (for use in combat), and curing potions. Inns are the only place to completely restore hit points (camping outdoors restores some), and pubs sell food. Food is a somewhat unwelcome addition to the sequel. You can carry a maximum of 99 meals, and they disappear at a rate of one every 16 moves, though thankfully not in towns. Still, the mechanic limits how much time you can spend out on exploration.

       

I'm not sure it was worth the cost.

       

Towns are safe places, but out in the wilderness, you get attacked every 20 or so steps by dragons, fire dragons, griffins, slimes, slimy blobs, demons, evil spirits, giant spiders, evil knights, vampire flocks, and (living) fireballs. These creatures are more or less interchangeable, their level (from 1 to ???) counting more towards their difficulty than their type.

            

Taking on a Level 13 fire dragon when I'm Level 25.

      

Combat occurs in rounds, with options to flee, fight, use an item, or cast a spell; at the beginning, only the first two are available. As with both Dragon Warrior and Sword Quest 1, the best practice is to grind against foes until you can afford the best items in the local town. This process is made much easier in this game by the fact that you can just hold down the "F" key, which passes time outside of combat and fights inside combat. You save every few victories and reload if you die (saving and reloading can take place anywhere). Leveling is swift. Your first victory gets you to Level 2, and after that, you need about as many victories as your current level to reach the next one. Enemies start fleeing from you when your level variance gets high enough.

       

Hard not to feel powerful when this happens.

     

There are both fixed and wandering NPCs in the towns. Some of them have fixed dialogue while others draw from a library of options each time you talk to them. In either case, some of them are helpful and some of them are not. The same NPCs will amusingly cycle through both positive and negative options:

• "Welcome to [town name]; enjoy your stay."
• "I would say 'nice weather' except that it isn't."
• "Did you know you look a lot like a court jester?"
• "I can see that you are an honorable person."
• "I haven't seen you around here before."
• "Why aren't you doing something more constructive, huh?"
• "Bug off!

       

Must . . . not . . . laugh.

       

• "Let me get this straight: Tuesday is after Monday?"
• "Dippidi-do-dah, dippidi-day. My-oh-my what a horrible day."
• "Gosh, you're ugly!"
• "Shove off, buster!" 
• "The land is suffering under the evil; save it!"
• "Kill the Dragon Lord or evil will win!"
• "You won't succeed, so why bother?"

      

I did! I learned this from Ripley's Believe It or Not when I was a kid. The reason is gold is measured using the troy system, which has 12 ounces to the pound, whereas feathers would use standard weight units (or avoirdupois weights) at 16 ounces to a pound. Troy ounces weigh more than avoirdupois ounces, but not enough more to make up the variance.

       

More useful comments include:

   

• "I've heard that a circle of columns can be strange indeed."

• "Some believe that the stronghold of evil is on a south-easterly island." 

• "If you have the talisman, a castle will appear somewhere."

• "If you enter the castle with the Mystic Talisman, you will restore Golbe from the evil minions of the Dragon King."

       

Nice to know exactly what I'm supposed to do.

      

• "Before the castle disappeared, Blaslub was 22 quargs east and 4 north of it."

• "'Tis said that magic wings work only about twenty quargs of time." [A quarg in the game's lingo is a move.]

• "It would be a good idea to write down the name of all the towns in the world of Golbe."

• "With a magical compass, you can find any village in the world that you know the name of."

• "Find the magic book in the cave system to the south [of Zrofdomel] and you can do magic."

   

Enemies right around Zrofdomel are capped at Level 1, so I spent some time grinding there until I was about Level 12 and had the best starting equipment from the shop, plus a couple of torches. This took maybe 20 minutes. I then went to the only place I could: a network of caves south of the city.

   

The game's dungeons have so far all had multiple entrances and exits, and the first dungeon is the only way to reach the mainland. Dungeons are all multi-screen mazes that require torches or the "Light" spell to see. From the moment that you activate either one, the window of brightness collapses bit by bit as you move.

       

I find a spell book just as my torch runs out.

      

Chests and piles of jewels are seeded throughout dungeons every time you enter or exit. There are also fountains at fixed locations; these have a random chance of increasing or decreasing an attribute or experience. Monster attacks occur randomly, with each dungeon having its own (invisible) monster level maximum. 

      

A fountain lowers my dexterity.

        

As promised by an NPC, the first dungeon had a spellbook. It had "Heal," "Injure," "Shield," "Light," "Lightning," and "Unlock" (every town has a few locked doors, usually in inns). I later got "Fly," presumably from leveling up. This spell lets you move over the landscape with no restrictions, but for a relatively hefty cost.

         

50 spell points to cross a channel.

    

I emerged from the first dungeon on the mainland, where my movement was a bit constricted by mountains and waterways. I eventually found my way to the town of Catchniv and a nearby dungeon network. I spent some time grinding there until I had the best the city had to offer, then took a third dungeon to a large island in the southwest corner of the map.

    

I think I was in this new area prematurely; I got there at Level 29 and the enemy maximum seemed to be around 50. Nonetheless, I found a town called Velmedel and kept grinding until I matched those levels and had enough money for a long sword and full plate armor. One thing I like about the game is that lower-level enemies continue to show up in places that have high max levels, so you can always grind if you're willing to reload. On the other hand, Level 1 and 2 enemies can occasionally show unexpected competence, whacking away a few dozen hit points before they die.

      

Chests offer about as much gold as a single battle.

       

Even after getting up to the level of the enemies, exploring the rest of this area was possible only through my willingness to save and reload frequently. I found a couple more dungeons and a "temple" that looked like a dungeon but had no enemies inside. Despite a modest size, its half dozen exits disgorged me all over the game world. I also found a circle of stones that teleported me to a small island in the center-north of the world and back again.

    

Miscellaneous notes:

     

• There are MIDI tunes that play in towns and combat. I don't know whether Badger composed them or just used classical numbers I'm not familiar with. I'll try to find out before the final entry.

• I've been playing with the sound off, however, less because of the music and more because of the torturous 10-second, eight-note "effect" that accompanies every spellcasting. Other sound effects just sound like static to me; it's possible that I've misconfigured something.

• The graphics don't work well with my colorblindness. I can't see some of the graphical detail because the colors appear too similar, so a lot of the icons just look like blobs.

• If you die, you're resurrected near Zrofdomel, minus a lot of food, gold, experience, and equipment. It's better just to reload.

     

Resurrected, minus five levels, 30 food, my weapon, and my shield.

     

• Prices escalate as you move across the map. A night at an inn went from 6 gold pieces in Zrofdomel to 103 in Velmedel.

    

I'd advise dropping your prices. Even the Empress of Kesh would balk at what you're asking.

    

• Fleeing from combat works reliably until enemies get around Level 25, at which point it starts to fail most of the time. I think success depends on the absolute level of the enemy and not the relative difference compared to the player.

• There's a "Look" command, but so far I haven't found any use for it.

    

It says this every time I use the command.

     

I started noting locations on a screenshot of the in-game map. The map has its own legend with villages, temples, caves annotated with the first letters of those words, but I can barely see the letters against the backdrop. Still, even those letters will help me if there's some village that I can't find. Based on some sampling, I estimate the game world to be about 250 x 250.

       

My explorations so far.

      

I'd say that I've explored about one-third of the game world but that I'm about halfway through the game. It's good in a light, pass-the-time sort of way, a somewhat nice contrast to the thick plots of both Betrayal at Krondor and Star Saga: Two.

    

Time so far: 4 hours