Excelsior, Phase One: Lysandia: Won! (with Summary and Rating)

 

Matt, I want to see this "Registry of Fixers."

       

Excelsior, Phase One: Lysandia

United States

Castle Software (developer); published as shareware
Released 1993 for DOS, 2000 for Windows

Date Started: 17 October 2025 

Date Ended: 14 December 2025

Total Hours: 32

Difficulty: Easy-Moderate (2.5/5) (Combat easy after the first few hours; puzzles still hard.)
Final Rating: (to come later)

Ranking at time of posting: (to come later) 

    

Summary:

 

Excelsior is a better-than-average Ultima clone, with an iconographic interface and single-key commands. The main character is a "fixer," arrived from another dimension to correct an aberration in the timeline of the land of Lysandia; this turns out to be a demon who has possessed King Valkery. The player must solve a multi-stage quest to banish the demon that takes him through cities, dungeons, and castles, including multiple conversations with NPCs.

     

Mechanics and combat are trifle bland. The detailed character creation ends up mattering little, NPC interaction is one-way only, and character leveling stops being rewarding well before the end of the game, which takes a smidge too long. Interesting interior layouts and challenging puzzles keep things lively.

    

*****

    

When I last blogged, the Resistance and I had pieced together that to banish the demon from King Valkery, we would need a Gem of Severance, a Crystal Jar, and a third unknown item. I had obtained the jar and had discovered that to make the Gem of Severance, I would need individual gems that would be left behind when I killed the most evil and most good people in the land. I had identified the "most good" as a friar living in isolation in the Royal Keep, but he would only consent if I stabbed him with a dagger dipped in holy water. The "most evil" person was a sorcerer named Fevez in the dungeon Daivenhoven; he wanted me to kill the leader of the Order of the Crescent.

   

These two sub-quests came together when I visited the Forgotten Pits, knowing that I'd find a priest there who could make holy water. He confirmed this, but said he could only give it to a member of the order of the Crescent.

      

Trying to save the world here, buddy.

    

I had no idea where to find the leader of the order, but commenter Scott had alerted me that there were two more levels to the Seventh Keep, which I had abandoned after exploring only two. The third level had one of the more difficult puzzles in the game, and I think I would have needed a hint to solve it if I hadn't encountered a similar puzzle in an escape room game just a couple of months ago. The level had eight messages on signs, plus a ninth talking sign that asked me for a password. The eight messages were:

     

• Tea is served promptly at three.
• One blue jay sat in the tree.
• Sail the seven seas.
• To be good is the goal.
• The eye can wander for days.
• Oh no! Something ate my cat!
• Each philosopher asked "Why?" five times.
• A hex on you! 

     

If you can figure it out, I tip my hat. The key realization is that each sentence has one word that sounds like a number (or is a number) and one word that sounds like a letter (e.g., "2 B good is the goal"; "The I can wander 4 days"). The password is discerned by ordering the phrases by the numbers and then spelling out the letters, which in this case is JBTIYUCO. I figured such a nonsense word couldn't possibly be right and that I was overlooking something, but to my surprise, it opened the way forward.

     

I want to know how I pronounced that.

       

On the fourth floor, I met a frail-looking woman who said she was hiding from King Valkery's minions. Apparently, the Order of the Crescent is some do-good organization, and the king outlawed it. The woman had run out of food and asked for half mine, which I gave. In turn, she put a brand on my palm and welcomed me into the Order.  

    

Knowing I eventually had to kill this woman, I tried to do it while I was here anyway, but the brand disappeared. Thus, I had to make my way back to the Forgotten Pit for the umpteeth time, descend to the priest, get him to sprinkle some holy water on my dagger blade, and then return to the Seventh Keep to kill Lady Jasmine.

    

Well, the good news is that you don't have to worry about that.

          

Before doing that last part, I returned to the Royal Keep and killed the friar. He was ready for it. After killing Jasmine, I returned to the dungeon Davinhovin and killed the evil sorcerer Fevez, who like the friar was ready and willing to die. It's notable that for both of them, I just had to T)alk to them, and the game took over from there. For Lady Jasmine, on the other hand, I had to do the deed myself with the A)ttack key right after the old woman complimented my generosity. I was sure that the game would give me some kind of "out," some way of tricking Fevez, but I couldn't find it if it did. It's an interesting moral question that I wish the game had milked a bit more.

      

How affable of him.

       

Killing the friar and Fevez rewarded me with the two halves of the Gem of Severance, but I needed to unite them. All I had been told was that I would need to find a statue of the demon Xoxiro in a deep dungeon and stick the two gems in his eyes. A return visit to the Resistance got me nothing new. I checked my notes, but I had already been to the bottom level of every dungeon I'd found.

    

I checked the map of Lysandia that Matt Engle had sent me and saw a dungeon I'd missed in the middle of the continent. I found it at the top of a river, through some poisonous fens. The dungeon was full of poison, too, so before exploring, I backtracked through several magic shops until I found the "Pure Blood" (PB) spell. (I'd been dealing with occasional poisoning up to this point at healers.) I took the opportunity to buy some other spells I'd neglected. I ended up casting virtually none of them and regretting that I'd spent the money.

    

A new dungeon entrance.

     

The dungeon of Draxen had four large levels, with sections full of water in which I needed to navigate by ship. Fortunately, there were ships in the appropriate places.  I found Eramel Plate Mail, the best armor in the game, at one point. There was also a sword called Avenger, but my paladin couldn't use it. There were a few secret doors. Naturally, I got attacked by hordes of dragons and undead and such, but combat hadn't posed any difficulty since about Hour 3, and it didn't pose any difficulty during this session, either. I think the only time I died during the last 24 hours is when a wizard hit me with a lucky "Sleep" spell that I just never woke up from. For everyone else, as long as I cast a healing spell once my hit point total got to, say, 300, I was fine.

    

Moving through Draxen.

        

Now, given the sheer number of enemies that you face as you move from one place to another, I wouldn't have wanted combat to be a lot more challenging. Nonetheless, I think an easy fix to the game's balance would be to have spell points regenerate about half as fast. The player would have to conserve a bit more, and potions would be more valuable.

    

Anyway, I made it to the bottom of Draxen and found a demon statue. I couldn't get near it, so from the altar in front of it, I U)sed the two individual gems. The game narrated how I threw them into the statue's eye socket and they fused into the Gem of Severance.

     

That looks less like a statue than a skull.

       

From here, the surface was a few "Instant Elevation" spells away. I stopped in Castle Excelsior for what turned out to be my final promotion; the game has a level cap at 10. 

    

Back at the Resistance HQ, Sebastian told me that the final item I would need to defeat the demon in King Valkery was the Banishment Sword. He sent me to Aldno. Fortunately, Aldno had the sword on him and just gave it to me with no fuss.

      

I think I should have noticed this place earlier.

        

No, of course that isn't what happened. Aldno told me that the sword was in Ironthread Keep, the only place I hadn't entered, because a sign next to the door kept asking for a password. Aldno related that the two sub-kings, Amanthor in Infinitum and Rodagarn in Griswold, each knew half the password. Of course, it wasn't as easy as just asking them. Each of them wanted me to do a little quest first.

   

Amanthor's quest was to cure the land of a drought. His sage, Horance, said I would have to do it by spreading Storm Dust into the atmosphere. I would first need to find the rock, then somehow get it up into  the stratosphere, then somehow cause a bolt of lightning to strike it. This quest sent me from person to person to find the rock, find a scroll that would summon a lightning bolt, and purchase a balloon with which I could hoist it into the atmosphere from the highest mountain. Everyone who knew something valuable wanted me to do a little sub-quest for him.

       

My patience wore a bit thin at this point.

               

I don't feel like relating all of it, but it took a while, mostly because the two guys selling the balloon wanted 5,000 gold pieces for it. Since I'd recently gone on a spell-buying binge, I had to ignominiously grind for the money. I did it in front of Oooblyae, which has shops that buy everything except bows. I got to the goalpost a lot faster by selling items than by looting gold itself.

     

Yay! 235 more battles to go!

       

But I confess I needed the hint book for the location of the rock. I couldn't find anyone to tell me. It turned out to be in the middle of a very obvious landscape pattern south of Infinitum. I can't believe I didn't notice it.

     

Amanthor gave me his half of the password (the nonsense IBBR) and had me see one of his servants, Heltimer the Obscure, about a key that I would need in Ironthread. The key turned out to go to a clock I had bought ages ago, turning it into a "Wound Clock."

      

Amanthor is happy.

      

Rodargan, meanwhile, didn't want to give me his half of the password while a king's spy, Peffley, was hanging about nearby. Valkery had recently given Peffley something called the Miracle Ear, an automatic translation device which Griswold depended on to negotiate trade with the monster-inhabited city of Grethal.

     

I had to conduct a world tour of several towns, one NPC sending me to another, before I learned Peffley's big weakness: He's a coward. With that intelligence in mind, a little threatening caused him to cough up the Miracle Ear, which Rodargan now wanted me to take to Grethal to work out a new trade deal. On my first visit to Grethal, I had been unable to speak to most of the NPCs. This time, I could. The goblins and trolls and whatnot protested that they were just as civilized as humans and elves, just misunderstood.

       

Your argument would be more sympathetic if you didn't attack me everywhere I go.

       

A gorn named Bleh gave me a password that I would need in Ironthread (CAVENGBER), and a golem named Hurmst told me I would definitely need a clock in the tower. I parlayed with Mayor MgMemble and got the favorable trade deal Rodargan was asking for. When I returned to Griswold, Rodargan gave me his half of the password: IGBL. That means that the final password was, yes, IGBLIBBR. No one was going to brute-force their way into that tower.

       

"Mayor MgMemble" sounds like the villain in a bad Christmas movie.

              

I have no idea how many levels Ironthread was. It had multiple up-and-down ladders, and no light source worked, so I could only see one square around me at any given time. I thought I'd probably have to map it, but instead I just followed the right wall, going up or down as I came to ladders. It worked. I eventually came to a dead-end amidst walls of fire.

   

Here, alas, I needed the hint book again. I'm not sure this was a fair puzzle. I had to pair Bleh's clue (CAVENGBER) with the wound clock, which when U)sed, could be set to 13 different positions. The trick was to associate each letter with a number on the clockface in alphabetical order: for instance, C was 3 and A was 1. V is, of course, 22, but 22:00 on a 26-hour clock would be 9 on a 13-hour clock (with AM and PM). I get the logic, but not how the player could possibly have stumbled upon it on his own. Since the hint book shipped with the game, though, I can't ding the authors too hard for this one.

      

Why would any society settle on a 13-hour day?

        

When I had finished entering the sequence, the fires heated up and presented me with the Banishment Sword.

   

"Instant Descent" got me out of the dungeon in a few seconds, and all I had left was to go to Castle Excelsior and confront Valkery. I stopped to visit Sebastian just in case. "The Day of Renewal has arrived," he proclaimed. "Begone and may the stars shine brightly upon you."

   

I entered Excelsior and marched up to the king. He wouldn't talk to me. I tried attacking him, but all the attacks missed. I needed to use the Gem of Severance first. A couple of text paragraphs explained what happened: I smashed the gem in half, which caused Valkery to vibrate and then split in half himself, a noble king in the rear and "evil incarnate" in the foreground. The evil version drew his sword and attacked.

     

So, it's the literal type of Gem of Severance then.

      

We traded blows for a while. The Banishment Sword did several hundred points of damage per hit, but the Dark King must have had a few thousand. His sword, meanwhile, hit me for about 115 per hit. I think I could have won by just casting "Flesh Mend" every so often, but the easier way was to use the Glistening Elixir, which raised my health to 999. That lasted long enough to see the battle to the end, which was only a few more rounds.

      

It's a good thing the two kings didn't end up in the opposite order.

      

More narration: the Dark King fell to the floor, still threatening me with his dying breaths: "True chaos is not a material being. It will live on, stronger than ever, for your anger toward me merely strengthens it!"

       

I hope I remembered to poke some air holes.

         

Fortunately, "true chaos" could be captured in a jar. When I used the Crystal Jar, the narration described how the incorporeal entity that came out of Valkery's body was "ripped apart and pulled inside the jar."

   

The "good" Valkery had his Theoden moment, slowly coming to his senses and thanking me for banishing the demon and restoring his wits. He offered a reward, which I declined. In fact, I didn't even get to stay long enough for the banquet. Instead, the Great Council immediately sucked me back to Fixer headquarters, congratulated me on a job well done, and promised me a promotion.

      

This framing story is a nice meta-commentary on CRPGs. You could assume the role of the Fixer in just about every game that you play.

        

You will be tempted from my description to think that the main quest is too long, with too much back-and-forth, and too many stacked sub-quests. There is an extent to which this is true, but I don't want to over-emphasize it. Like the best of the Ultima games, Excelsior does a superior job with writing, plotting, and use of its graphics, such that its areas are never boring. Like, it would have been nice if Rodargan had just given me the password, but the idea of a human society needing a fragile magical item to engage in trade with a monster society is compelling, and it was fun to talk to the NPCs who had only been able to grunt on my first visit. Superior writing kept the long text passages from risibility (I would never call the Dark King's dying speech a "Trandle Oratory," for instance). Interesting layouts and puzzles kept the dungeons from falling to tedium.

     

Good writing (including dialogue) and use of graphics distinguish Excelsior from dozens of similar Ultima clones.

         

Where the game really disappoints is in character attributes. Excelsior is hardly the first game to offer numerous character options and then never actually use them in encounters, NPC dialogue, quests, or puzzles, but it somehow cuts more deeply here given the game's more unusual options (sexless golem paladin, male imp pirate, female giant bard). Similarly disappointing is the alignment system, which only seems to affect the number of spell points required to cast certain spells, and naturally gravitates towards the spells you use most often anyway.

   

I do think the different classes could create very different gameplay experiences, however. I didn't use much magic in the game, and if I were going to replay it, I would choose a magic-heavy class to see how some of the more expensive, higher-level spells performed versus the weapons that I relied on. I also note that intelligent spell use can make aspects of the game faster. I never bothered to explore "Mortimer's Pinpoint Relocation," which uses a magic skull to perform a sort of mark/recall. Very late in the game, I discovered that I had bought something called "Air Walk" at some point. It literally allows you to fly, rendering other forms of transportation obsolete. Overall, I only explored about 10% of the spells available to me.

        

My late-game character. I guess I could have gotten 1 more point of dexterity.

       

On the other hand, I think a purely-martial character would have a nightmare of a time, relying on rare potions and natural regeneration to heal (maybe even paying for healing!), having to walk back out of every dungeon. Rogues and assassins would have a particularly difficult time, with no actual stealth mechanics. On the other hand, I think the author did a good job seeding the game with high-level weapons and armor for each class. 

     

In a GIMLET, I give the game:

    

• 4 points for the game world. Its main plot may be a bit derivative, but its framing story (involving the Fixers) is at least original. The world is well-constructed, although it doesn't have a ton of lore. It would have been nice to know something about where all those dungeons came from. Why is the Seventh Keep called that, for instance?

• 4 points for character creation and development. As discussed, an extensive creation process gives way to not much use of the character attributes. Advancement is relatively satisfying in the early stages.

• 3 points for NPC interaction. There are lots of NPCs, but alas all the interaction is one-way.

     

NPCs have a lot to say, but you never say anything back.

      

• 4 points for encounters and foes. The foes are nothing special. They mostly come from Dungeons & Dragons, with a few associated special attacks. I would have liked them to be individually harder but rarer. The game earns some credits with the interesting puzzles, even though I thought a few were unfair.

• 3 points for magic and combat. An easy melee system makes combat unbalanced and discourages experimentation with spells. The Ultima-derived spell variety is otherwise impressive.

     

Battle with some zombies near Ironthread Keep.

        

• 4 points for equipment. You get a decent number of equipment slots and regular upgrades. I always like when games allow me to dual-wield. There are some fixed item locations, but a lot of your inventory comes from random battles.

• 4 points for the economy. The fact that I had to grind 95% of the way through the game shows that it at least never gets out of control—and I didn't buy more than half the spells. Most games offer too few ways to spend money; I think this is one of the few that offers too few ways to make money. Cash drops from slain enemies are paltry; you really have to load up your inventory space (which you don't have that much of) and sell things if you want to get rich.

• 3 points for a branching main quest with lots of sub-quests. I do not think there are any side-quests or optional areas, however, and unless I missed something, there are no alternate paths or role-playing choices. (One exception: solving a cryptogram on your own instead of paying for it.)

    

This was a well-constructed sub-quest that had the misfortune of appearing too late in the game.

        

• 3 points for graphics, sound, and interface. The game makes fine use of its iconographic graphics and its single-key approach to commands is exactly what I want from an interface. But the sound effects are basic and rare, and the footstep effect is annoying enough that I turned all sounds off. I would have liked an in-game map and an option to dump NPC dialogue to a note file, neither of which is a big ask by 1993. I should note here that the authors did include an in-game map in version 2.0, released the following year, so I think you could bump up this category and the final score by 1 point for that version.

• 4 points for gameplay. The world is nonlinear, but the plot is mostly linear. There is some mild class-based replayability. It was a bit too easy and a bit too long, but only a bit in both cases.

   

That gives us a final score of 36. Going into this entry, I thought to myself that it ought to just crest my "recommended" threshold, and that's what it did. I also thought it should get about the same as Enchantasy from the same year, which I rated at 35, and Antepenult (1989), which I also rated at 36. These games form a trilogy of superior Ultima clones.

     

Part of the game's thorough documentation.

           

Excelsior was written by Matthew Engle, who handled most of the graphics and design, and Daniel Berke, who handled most of the programming. ("Digital Antiquarian" Jimmy Maher has an extensive rundown of Engle and Berke's backgrounds and the game development process in this November 2020 entry.) The two had met in high school but did most of the development while they attended college in different states, occasionally meeting to trade notes and disks. They sold the game through bulletin boards and the occasional ad. When the Internet era came along, they switched to web-based sales (also switching their brand to 11th Dimension Entertainment). Nearly 30 years later, their site still offers Excelsior and its sequel along with an award-winning text adventure they wrote in high school called Skyland's Star. 

         

They began working on Excelsior, Phase Two: Errondor almost immediately, but exacerbated physical distances made development slow. Rather than simply re-use assets from the first game, Engle and Berke replicated the Ultima VI interface. The plot has the Fixer tracking down a missing colleague on the subtitular world while also completing her mission.

   

Berke became a software engineer and remains one to this day, based in the Seattle area. Engle became a game producer for Disney and Knowledge Adventure, then switched careers by going to law school. He practices in the Phoenix area.

    

My new approach to going through the years may mean we actually get to 1999. We just have one more game to wrap up 1993.