Die Prüfung: Won! (with Summary and Rating)

 

Calm down, Harry.

     

Die Prüfung

"The Examination"

Germany
Amos (developer); Kingsoft (publisher)

Released in 1993 for Commodore 64

Date Started: 24 February 2025  

Date Ended: 9 March 2025

Total Hours: 12
Difficulty: Moderate (3.0/5)

Final Rating: (to come later)

Ranking at time of posting: (to come later)  

     

During my first session, I solved the first two parts of the titular examination. Afterwards, I was cast outside to find the third test. My masters didn't tell me where to go, but it turns out you can only enter dungeons if you have a reason to be there. After a couple of attempts, I found where I needed to be at "The Hole."

       

As I explored this new dungeon, I became aware that the translators of this "English version" did an abominable job. They simply didn't translate some words, mistranslated others, and used unnecessary colloquialisms that rarely appear in written language. Almost every "you" is rendered as "ya"; almost every "your" as "yer"; almost every "of" as "o'"; almost every "the" as "da"; almost every "because" as "coz." "Want to" and "going to" are always "wanna" and "gonna." There are contractions that we don't actually use in English (e.g. "Who're ya?") and weird obscenities that aren't in the original. Enemies kept calling me "bugger." Repeatedly, I had to look up YouTube videos of the game, find the appropriate place, and look at the original German so I could translate it properly.

      

I have a similar one about this translation.

        

You may ask why I didn't just bring my saved game over to the original German disk. The answer is that I couldn't get the game to save. It's supposed to do so every time you rest, but it never worked. Maybe I screwed up an emulator setting. Whatever the case, I had to rely on save states, and I wasn't about to start over.

       

I don't normally like to show "cracktro" screens, but Armageddon deserves to be remembered for this one.

     

The Hole had an undead theme going on—three levels of zombies, vampires, "carnghosts," "leechdemons," and "varndagals." The battles were alternately easy and hard. I acquired third-level spells during the last session, including "Firestorm," which does around 40-50 points of damage to every enemy on the screen, but at a hefty casting cost. Two castings wiped out parties of zombies but not some of the higher-level undead. I had to parcel my magic points carefully and save some of my points for healing spells and/or "Firewall," which does about 100 points of damage to anyone in the first rank.

     

The toughest enemies in this area.

      

At one point, a ghost asked me if I was "Cendoras." I'm not sure who that is, but his name got me past a number of password checks. Yeah, the dungeon had about six places where I had to enter a word, which of course I had to enter by scrolling the joystick through the alphabet and hitting the button when it was on the right letter. If I wanted to play a console game, I would have picked one from the list.

     

Everything about this screen is annoying.

         

I couldn't get past a party of 9 carnghosts, so I took an alternate path, which brought me to the lair of a friendly gnome. He introduced himself as Arndogas the Wise, which I guess is a name that my character knew, but the translation was a bit unclear as to what it meant. Arnagard later called him "the founder of our magic." After saying he wouldn't compromise the test by helping me, he winked and gave me a "Staff O'White Magic." He assured me, "Wou'll need it."

     

You have to give respect to the "inventor of our view on the world."

        

The staff had four uses and cast a powerful mass-damage spell that got me past the carnghosts and a couple of other tough battles. On a lower level, I found a new best weapon (a fire sword), a new best armor (a trenchcoat), my first shield, several gems, and a lot of money that the game never gave me any opportunity to spend.

   

It turned out that the dungeon was inhabited by a red demon named Garnadas who existed as two entities, meaning I would have to kill him twice. In both cases, he attacked me alone, so he wasn't very hard.

     

That was anticlimactic.

    

Once I had killed both versions of the demon, Arndogas (or "Arndoga") appeared and congratulated me, awarding me 1,000 experience points. I walked back out of the dungeon and returned to the Castle of Wizards.

    

Did I do something that made you feel I lacked self-control?

      

At this point, the game completely glitched. Arnagard was supposed to say something to me, but I just got a bunch of random symbols. I had to look up his (long) speech online and translate it myself. From this point on, a line of gibberish remained at the bottom of my screen.

        

Go home, Arnagard. You're drunk.

        

The gist is that I could tell something was wrong the moment I entered the castle; there was too much activity. Arnagard explained that some hole had opened up in Dorsten Cave. Ternados and two mages named Anderson and Valria went to check things out and did not come back. Through magic, Arnagard could tell that they were alive, probably taken prisoner. "Who captured them? I cannot tell you for sure. Not yet."

   

He said that because of this peril, the fourth and fifth tests would be combined into one: "Go down into the Dorsten Cave, find the dark hole, and free our brothers and sister. Then, with your combined forces, defeat the intruder who held them captive." You won't hear any complaints at this end about making my "examination" four tasks instead of five.

    

I had already found the cave while searching for the Hole, so I returned and entered. I noticed that I had received Level 4 spells at some point: "Push Opponents Away" (a stronger version than the Level 3 one, I assume), "Healing," "Death Breath" (one opponent in melee range), "Fire Magic" (a more powerful "Firestorm," affecting all opponents), and "Lava Rocks" (all opponents up to 7 steps).

      

Entering the final dungeon.

      

The Dorsten Cave was about 7 levels, which sounds like a lot, but they go fast in this game. The walls were full of ominous messages rendered unintentionally goofy by the poor translation (e.g., "A DOZEN MIGHTY WIZARDS EXILED DA CREATURE TO HELL"; "THE CREATURE O'SHADOWS WILL SOON AWAKE").

       

Da Presence O'Evil should have been the name of the game.

         

The gist seemed to be that long ago, some sorcerers of my order had driven a demonic creature off this plane, but he swore to return and now apparently has. Eventually, I found a magic mouth that named the demon as Morangok the Dark, which is a name I had already heard in the first dungeon, an ally of the kobolds there.

    

I don't think that's very "cool," no.

        

Enemies included giant worms called "gloomworms" and "sparnărmers," various kinds of giant rats, orcish-looking creatures called "grandars" (they look like, and I'm sure were copied from, Gamorreans from Star Wars), skeletons, zombies, "spectralghosts," and demons. There really wasn't much to do but just blast them with my best mass-damage spell as many times as necessary, then rest to restore my magic points. Most enemies at this point could attack me from a range, so I couldn't keep doing the early-game strategy of using my weapons against first-rank foes. Even with the best weapon and armor in the game, enemies were capable of swiping away 40% of my hit points in one hit, whereas my own melee attacks never did as much as even a modest spell. I guess that goes well enough with the backstory.

     

Run back to Jabba's palace.

      

The only enemies that gave me a lot of trouble were demons, who could stand up to three castings of "Fire Spell" and still have some hit points to spare. Moreover, they would often kill me before I could even finish those three castings. I had to use a lot of magic-restoring items (gems and magic staves) or mass-damage items like Fire Wands whenever I encountered them, and even then I only won after a few reloads. Fortunately, there weren't many of them.

      

Not quite 40%, but this wasn't the hardest that he could hit.

         

I ultimately reached Level 9. At some point, it seemed unreasonable not to put all of my attribute upgrades into "Mental" so that I could increase my magic points. Equipment upgrades came every once in a while, but they never felt like they really did anything. The game had me continue to find axes and swords long after I had much better weapons; since there's no place to sell anything, I'm not sure what the purpose is. The armor ladder is somewhat amusing; in order, it goes: gown, cape, trenchcoat, leather jacket, "armor" (just that), and weapon skirt.

      

Allocating my last attribute point.

       

There are, as I said, usable items. Magic gems and magic staves restore magic points; "lifejuice" restores hit points. Compasses put a compass on the screen in case you don't want to spend magic points on one. "Slime phials" are like grenades. Wind Staves cast the "push enemies back" spell, but the game crashes after they're used. Overall, items weren't a big part of my game, since the basic strategy—cast the most damaging spell and rest afterwards—never changed.

   

Messages told me that to defeat Morangok, I would need to find a magic sword and unite it with a Sun Gem. I eventually found an area of prison cells and found Anderson dead in one of them, the magic sword Xerador beneath his body.

       

I'd better be careful; Noone is a tricky bastard.

     

Messages said that the Sun Gem was guarded by the King of Rats. I had to fight my way through rats of various types, all mostly dying to one casting of "Fire Spell." After I found the Sun Gem embedded in a wall, the King of Rats attacked me by himself and was not hard to defeat. But afterwards, some kind of black shadow passed over me and stole the gem.

    

One of many rat battles in this area.

        

There was an encounter that I didn't understand on the next level. A message read: "There is only one weapon to stop the dark creature, but no one can touch that weapon without destroying it!" Sure enough, I later found a "magic weapon" sticking out of a wall, and when I tried to grab it, it disintegrated. But since I already had Xerador, I'm not sure what that weapon was supposed to be. 

      

Maybe it's a college fraternity pledge.

       

Miscellaneous notes:

   

• Unlike the other dungeons, Dorsten Cave had some legitimate random battles. I could have grinded if I thought it was necessary. 

• The game precedes most encounters with a line or two of text. I always appreciate a little context for my battles, even when it's a bit laughable.

        

Guess what I encountered a couple steps later?

What else is there to say?

      

• I ended the game with 2,485 gold pieces. At no point in the entire game was there even a hint of a place where they could be spent.

• The game really loved its secret doors in this final dungeon. I had to turn and look at basically every wall.

     

At last, on the lowest level, I entered a great hall. Morangok, in a shadow form, was flying around the room. Ternados and Valria were chained to the wall. The Sun Gem sat on a pedestal. Morangok taunted me and tempted me to take it. Valria (or "Valerie"; the translation has it both ways) gave me a subtle signal not to do so.

   

What happens if I ignore her.

     

I declined to take it, and the narrative took over, describing how, instead, I swung mightily at Morangok with Xerador, but the sword passed through his ephemeral form. Instead, it arced downward and sliced through the Sun Gem and split it into two halves. Some kind of light came out of the gem and sucked Morangok into it.  

      

So the Sun Gem is like one of those Ghostbusters traps?

       

As I freed my two companions, Valria gushed at how I "used the gem, the gate of the worlds, in the right moment!" They explained that the gem is a dimensional gate. "Morangok is on another world now," Valyria said. "Hopefully, nobody is living there," Ternados added.

      

Yep, that was all 100% intention. I totally understand what just happened.

          

The game related how we made our way back to the Tower of Wizards—no, wait, "Da Tower O'Wizards"—where Arnagard reviewed my accomplishments and declared me a "real wizard." On a reload, I took the gem, and it blew up in my face and killed me instantly.

     

Didn't I already live with you?

     

I promise I won't let any of the translation issues affect the GIMLET:

        

• 3 points for the game world. It's not extensive, but it tells an uncommon story (an apprentice wizard taking his final test). 

     

This reminds me of that "Da War a' da Woilds" SNL skit from the 1980s.

     

• 3 points for character creation and development. You get a few options for the distribution of attribute points, and leveling is somewhat rewarding, but mostly because you get more maximum health and magic. The game strongly encourages a particular "build," and I'm not sure whether it's possible to win if you, for instance, tried to create a fighter-type character.

• 0 points for NPC interaction. The game doesn't really have NPCs so much as "encounters," so I gave a boost to the next category.

• 4 points for encounters and foes. Enemies are nothing special. They're mostly differentiated by their range and the power of their attacks. There are no special attacks, defenses, effects, or vulnerabilities. There are a lot of contextual encounters, messages, light puzzles, and yes/no choices, certainly enough to keep things mildly interesting.

• 3 points for magic and combat. There are seeds of a good combat system here. I like the idea of a "combat rank" system and spells that keep all but a manageable number of enemies at bay. The Bard's Tale-inspired spell system is okay except that the nature of battle, and the ease of resting and healing, encourages you to just blast away with your most powerful spells.

       

Lead us, lest too far we wander . . .

     

• 3 points for equipment. As above. You get some upgrades along the way and a few usable items. They don't really feel like they're helping most of the time.

• 0 points for the economy. The game rewards you with gold and gives you nowhere to spend it.

• 2 points for a main quest with no side-quests or optional areas.

• 1 points for graphics, sound, and interface. The ugly graphics, ALL CAPS text, occasional bloopish sound effects, and all-joystick control are worth 0 points. I give 1 to the automap.

      

The best part of the game.

    

• 4 points for gameplay. Though linear and not replayable, it gets some credit for its modest challenge and sensible length. It's not often that a game tells you how long it's going to take at the outset and then lops off some of that time.

    

The final score of 23 is what I would give for a game that shows some promise but needs a little more polish. Certainly, by 1993, there isn't much exciting about a single-character Bard's Tale with mysterious messages scrawled on dungeon walls. 

    

This looks like Zeus is going to smite a couple of miserable dwarves.

     

The game was reviewed by at least two German magazines. The September 1994 Play Time gave it 60% (but had complimentary things to say) while the May 1993 64'er gave it 80%. It's hard not to detect a little favoritism for a native game in reviews that talk about "an extensive combat system" and "lovingly drawn graphics." (I was glad to see that both reviews noted the automap.) But perhaps the phrases "for a budget game" or "for a platform for which no one is making commercial titles anymore" are meant to be understood between the lines.

     

The actual final screen.

      

The authors (Dirk Valkyser and Ralf Kirking) had reportedly intended Die Prüfung as the first of a series, but it never materialized. The authors did release another game called Berania: Estes Buch: Der Kampf (1994), which I understand is a lot larger. I guess we'll see it if I can get to 1994. For now, let's just appreciate that I managed to finish two German games in a row. We'll see if we can continue the streak for the next two games, which, by luck of the draw, also happen to be German. Heiliger Strohsack.