Magic Candle: Final Rating

The Magic Candle
United States

Mindcraft Software
Released 1989 for DOS, C64, Apple II; PC-88 version followed in 1991 and NES version in 1992
Date Started: 2 September 2012
Date Won: 12 October 2012
Total Hours: 70
Difficulty: Moderate (3/5)
Final Rating: 52

Ranking at Time of Posting: 67/75 (89%)
Ranking at Game 455: 430/455 (95%)

Since I started this blog, I've played a lot of games in which I've doubtless been affected by the nostalgia factor. I remember Ultima IV, Ultima V, Pirates!, the Zork series, and other games so fondly that I don't doubt they've colored my views of how well the games play today.

Playing The Magic Candle, for the first time, I experienced a sort-of déjà-vu nostalgia: the sense that I'd played the game before and remembered it fondly, even though I never had. It probably had something to do with its similarity to the two previous Ultimas, plus the copious comments you've all been feeding me since roughly the beginning of my blog.

There were aspects of The Magic Candle that I really enjoyed: having to talk to NPCs to learn about the quests and characters; the skill development system; the party-splitting options; and the permancy of death of monsters in dungeons. But there were aspects I didn't like, too, including the repetitiveness of combats and the overall speed of the game. Even though it dragged in the latter stages, I did have a lot of fun with it. Let's see how well my GIMLET reflects that.

1. Game World. Lots of points here for a manual and game world full of lore and history. Dreax has an interesting back story, the land has geographic enclaves with their own populations and character (i.e., a dwarven region, an elven region, a halfling city). The manual rivals the Ultima series for its detail and attention to story, and your character's origins and place in the world is very clear. The game world is persistent: enemies stay dead (outdoors, they respawn every 90 days, but indoors they never do), traps stay triggered, and magic walls stay dispelled. I wish there had been more attention to the evolving game world when it came to NPCs, though. Most of them say the same things no matter how far you are in the game.

There are times that the interface doesn't live up to the world. In many ways, The Magic Candle occupies a weird space between the realism we start to see in an era of more disk space and processing power and goofy arcade-game tropes of previous years. We have dungeons with unique characters (an orc town, a wizard's tower) but silly maze puzzles and snakes that have to be "repelled" with a special spell. Neat encounters coupled with chutes and ladders. Plus, the "gods" system really doesn't make a lot of sense (why are they sleeping?). Score: 7.

A page from the lore-filled manual, courtesy of Canageek.

2. Character Creation and Development. It's refreshing to play a skill-based system now and then, but like the game world there were some oddities. You don't create a character in the game; every potential PC comes to you with a defined set of statistics, and you interview and hire them. The only real choice you have is naming your main character. Development comes in a lot of ways:

• Melee, missile, and magic skills improve through use and can also be trained up to a certain level at academies.
• Learning skill and charisma can only be trained--charisma, only by a single trainer.
• Hunting improves only through use.
• Strength, maximum stamina (the game's version of "hit points"), agility, and dexterity improve through a multi-stage process by which you awaken gods with their chants to increase your maximums, then find fountains in dungeons to increase the actual number.
• Speed improves when you visit elven maidens and request their unique songs.

I think I forgot to cover elven maidens earlier. There wasn't much else to them, though.

On the one hand, these various things give you a lot to do in the game; on the other, some of them don't really make a lot of sense. I might have preferred a more purely use-driven system rather than one that uncomfortably combines elements of Rings of Zilfin and Wasteland.

My biggest complaint is that you max your skills too fast. Halfway through the game, almost all my characters were maxed in combat skills (admittedly, I might have added to this via over-training). I also don't like that you can only awaken each god once. Improving statistics like strength is vital, and if you awaken a couple of gods with certain characters, you're locked into those characters unless you want to live with significantly lower statistics. [Later edit: It seems I'm wrong about this. See Four Hands's comment below.] I'm not sure how much having a second roster of PCs at Crystal Castle really added to the game.

On the plus side, the results of skill increases are palpable, whether it's finally being able to talk to a PC because you increased your charisma, or spells taking a lot less time to learn because of "learning" increases, or more damage done in combat due to weapon bonuses, or being able to wield a better weapon because your strength went up. Score: 6.

Giauz at game's end. I guess I could have worked on his magic some more.

3. NPCs. God help me, I have a weakness for games where you feed NPCs keywords, learn things, and have to take notes. In some ways, this game goes Ultima IV-V one better by giving you NPCs you encounter randomly on the roads, too (dwarves that sell gems, farmers that sell food, merchants that sell teleportal objects, and knights, wizards, elves, and other characters that just have things to say), plus characters who stay in their houses and have to be roused by knocking on their doors--but only if other NPCs have told you their names.

An NPC in his home, with intelligence vital to the main quest.

But, as with everything else in the game, there were slight annoyances. I didn't like how NPCs disappeared at times, and you had to loop around a city multiple times to make sure you caught everyone. I didn't like that the NPCs never asked you anything back, giving you no roleplaying options. And I didn't like that almost everything they said was plot-driven. Ultima IV-V had NPCs who would chat with you a little bit, too, offering words of wisdom or funny observations. Magic Candle NPCs are also a bit soulless, even when you ought to be able to differentiate them based on things like race and job. Still, The Magic Candle outperforms almost every other game of the era when it comes to NPCs. Score: 6.

This clue was vital. Most NPCs respond to each prompt only once. Without this, I would never have known to keep asking the mad wizard the same term until he finally gave me the ring.

4. Encounters and Foes. Different types of monsters are described in detail in the game manual, and they do have different attacks and behaviors according to type. But with the exception of high-level and rare creatures like Dreads, I did find them somewhat unmemorable. There were no scripted encounters and no real role-playing options at any point in the game. Outdoor areas respawn after a few months; indoor areas don't. Normally, I regard respawning and grinding opportunities to be good things, but in this game there were far more monsters than necessary. Score: 4.

5. Magic and Combat. This is a tough one. On the one hand, as I described in an early posting, there are a number of tactical options in combat, ranging from party deployment, to intelligent use of mushrooms, to figuring out whether to use swords or bows, to casting the right spells. It's much more fun at the beginning, when your characters are undeveloped and your resources are limited. Towards the end of the game, you have enough money to keep a full supply of mushrooms stocked, which eliminates a lot of the need for careful planning: you can just go into every battle loaded up with mushrooms, cast all the spells you want (Sermins will restore that energy fast), and not worry too much about the consequences.

The magic system, as I covered recently, is interesting and well-balanced. Even when I got the mass-damage spells from the Zoxinn book, I didn't think they were overpowered; indeed, they compensated for the multiple-enemy part by reducing the potency of the spells. It's not as intricate as the D&D spell list, nor is spell use something that you have to manage as carefully as the Wizardry series, but it outperforms most games of the era, including the Ultima series. Score: 5.

Towards the end, combat was only really fun when the enemies were hard, and you had to bring all your resources to bear.

6. Equipment. Not the best part of the game. You have a selection of a few melee weapon types, two bows, and six or seven armor types. You upgrade your weapons when your strength allows it and your armor when you can afford it; both are rare. There is one magic weapon to find but otherwise you rarely get any development through equipment upgrades. There are a few other plot-driven equipment types, like shovels, ropes, boots, and teleportal objects, but once you have enough money you just buy some and don't really think about it after that. I didn't think the "wear & tear" system really added a lot to the game.

What would otherwise be a low score is redeemed a little by the mushroom system. There are eight mushrooms in the game, each with a different purpose, and using them in the right combinations is vital to surviving combat and navigating the wilderness. In some ways, it's not much different than a lot of other CRPGs, if you substitute "potion" for "mushroom," but it's still interesting. I'm not sure why the game made such a fuss about being able to find mushrooms in the wilderness, though. They're not that expensive to buy, and about mid-game you have more gold than you know what to do with. Score: 4.

The purchase options in the general store.

7. Economy. A little unbalanced. You get paltry gold from melee combat (more of it might have made battles less annoying) and heaps of gold from finding gems in dungeons or buying them from wandering dwarf traders. Mushrooms, spellbooks, and training are so vital that I was hoarding pennies during the first third of the game, but I never worried about money again after I started exploring the first dungeons. I like the gambling mini-game, but I never got a handle on a good strategy and it didn't help me much. Score: 4.

8. Quests. I do like the main quest. Although it's a variation of  "stop the big bad," it's an original one, with a unique ending. I like the multiple stages that you have to progress through to get to the end, and how after finding the Zirvanad, it's basically non-linear. There are only a couple of things that we might call "side-quests," like finding the sword Brennix or cleaning out enemy towers in towns. Although I normally like side-quests, I'm not sure they'd serve a significant purpose here, since you don't really need the extra development or cash--which is more a problem for those categories. I just wish we'd finally break into the era in which there are some choices and multiple endings for quests. Yes, we've had a few of them before, but it's still not a regular part of the CRPG experience.

I'm also going to toss in a point for the timer system, even though it hardly mattered. There aren't many timed quests in the era, and this system keeps you from completely abusing the game mechanics by, say, resting until your spellcasters have memorized 99 of every spell. My score of 4 for this category seems low, but I'm hardly ranking anything high in this era, and I won't until quests start offering some real role-playing.

I don't think this quite counts as an "alternate ending."

9. Graphics, Sound, and Interface. The iconographic graphics are reasonably good, and I like how occasionally you switch to a side-view for a special encounter. They certainly don't detract at all. The sound effects in the DOS version are awful. I think we're just on the cusp of the era when the PC speaker gave way proper sound cards like AdLib and Sound Blaster, and I look forward to hearing better sound soon.

The interface swiftly became second-nature to me, so no complaints there, except perhaps with the conversation system, which has two separate commands and boots you out of conversation after every successful keyword. I also find the inability to move diagonally (especially when enemies can) a bit unforgivable. Score: 4.

10. Gameplay. The Magic Candle features a large world, all of which is explorable from the beginning of the game. Although there is a natural geographic progression, the game is completely explorable from the outset, leading to a real tension as you extend yourself further from a comfortable home base. Features such as teleportals and ships keep from having to do too much backtracking over land. The dungeons, though perhaps a bit too large, are interesting to explore.

While I found the overall difficulty moderate, the combats are simply exasperating by game's end, and it drags on a bit too long because of this. I also can't see much replayability here. Yes, you could try a different party of PCs, but aside from a little extra challenge in combat, I think you'd have basically the same game no matter how you played. Score: 5.

The score stands at 49 right now, but hang on. We have to award some bonus points for something that doesn't fit into the other categories: the party-splitting option. Although Wasteland offered it first, this is the first game that truly makes use of it. I love how you can set a character to working a day job while his compatriots adventure; how you can keep a mage holed up in an inn memorizing spells while your fighter trains at an academy while your halfling wanders around town talking to the populace. It caught me by such surprise that I didn't really optimize how I used it until almost a third of the way through the game. I can't think of a single modern game that offers this option at this level (admittedly, I haven't played them all), and I liked it enough that I think it's worth an extra 3 points, giving a real final score of 52. That puts it in the top 14% of games and ranks exactly where I would have placed it in my preferences: above most games, but below the last two Ultimas, the two Might & Magics, Starflight, Wasteland, and Pool of Radiance.

I liked party-splitting far less when it was necessary to navigate dungeon corridors.

Although a lot of people seem to have forgotten about the game in the modern day, it was very well-received at the time. In an April 1989 Computer Gaming World article that combines plays on "flame," "wax," and "paraffin," Scorpia positively glowed about it. While noting the slow combat system and a few other negatives, she praises the game-ending ritual: "There is something very satisfying about a finale that does not require an anti-climactic battle or the passive reading of text on the screen." (Scorpia was never shy about spoilers.) She concluded that it was a "well-balanced CRPG with several good and original features." More than that, the magazine gave it its RPG "Game of the Year" award in October 1989--which really says something, because Pool of Radiance was another nominee. (While I agree with their praise for The Magic Candle's skill system and party-splitting, I can't even begin to agree that it's a better game than Pool of Radiance.)

Finally, the magazine re-visited the game in a superlative-filled November 1996 issue, in which it won the "Most Rewarding Ending of All Time." "Instead of fighting a massive battle at the conclusion," it says, "you enact a detailed ritual using--you guessed it--magic candles." Well, no, CGW; the final ritual involves only one candle, and you don't really "use" it. But while I liked the ending of the game, would it have been too much to ask for a massive final battle and the ritual?

(Incidentally, I was happy to see that Sentinel Worlds: Future Magic topped the list of "Least Rewarding Endings of All Time": "You win and immediately drop to the DOS prompt.")

This is the second game from developer Ali Atabek and the first from his own company, Mindcraft Software. His first game, Rings of Zilfin (which I won over two years ago), seems to have been set in a different game world but with many of the same terms, including the names of mushrooms. Mindcraft would go on to make 12 more games but only four CRPGs, and all of them set in the world of The Magic Candle: The Keys to Maramon (1990), The Magic Candle II: The Four and Forty (1991), The Magic Candle III (1992), and Bloodstone: An Epic Dwarven Tale (1993). That means I'll be returning to this campaign setting every year for the next four years.

Atabek went to Interplay in 1994 and only worked on one CRPG after that: a 1997 adaptation of the film Waterworld. It looks like he left the game business around 1998 and has held a number of consulting and software development jobs in various companies since then. He's currently an application developer with Eyefinity, an Irvine, California company that specializes in software for the eyecare industry.

And with that, it's time to move on. I think I need to make a NetHack posting or two before I forget how to play the game.

Magic Candle: Won!

Eternal imprisonment in a candle feels like cruel and unusual punishment, even for an arch-demon.

I know, I know. Last posting, I was remarking about how much of the game I still had to play, and now I've gone and won it. Believe me, I'm disappointed. I still had "Snuffed," "Flicker and Dim," and several as-yet-not-worked-out plays on birthdays and "can't hold a candle to" to use as posting titles. But I was getting a little fatigued with the game (and frankly, judging by the drop in comments and traffic, I think you were, too), so I made a major push to get it done before the weekend. The "major push" involved about 20 total hours of gameplay over the last 48 hours, which was a little excessive even for me.

There were no consequences.

The Magic Candle ended up having two major "halves." The first half is a process of game world exploration and character development, culminating in the discovery of the Zirvanad, the book that describes the ritual we need to restore the Magic Candle. The second half of the game is a process of traveling around the land and gathering the various rituals and items specified in the Zirvanad. When I last posted, I had discovered about half of the items, and I slowly assembled the other half while visiting the large island of Upper Deruvia and several dungeons.

To make a long story short, I:

1. Returned to the unicorn on the island Heavenly and, using Sherro's High Call, summoned her and got the Green Ring of Order.

2. Explored the dungeon of Bedangidar. On an upper level, I found the elven sorceress Somona and rescued her, sending her back to her queen at Theldair. On a lower level was a magic sword called Brennix, once owned by the warrior Zilbann, that I gave to Giauz. It was, as far as I can tell, the only magic weapon in the game. It did up to 99 damage per attack, which was far superior than the long sword I'd been wielding previously.

You'd have to be really committed to role-playing to say "no" here.

 
3. Returned to Theldair and got the Elven Dream Dust from Somona.

For some reason, Somona had been trapped as a bird in a gilded cage.

 
4. Took a boat from Merg to Kraken Bay on Upper Deruvia. Explored. Found both the temple and the sleeping area of a god and got some statistical boosts from him.

5. Went to Shiran, the city of wizards. I was told I need a magic circlet to get Shir-Aka ash. I searched my notes and found references to it being in the possession of the Ogre King. Bloody hell--why didn't I notice that when I was at his tower? I returned to Shadrun, which turned out to be a good thing because a scroll in the tower had the words for the Bubble of Captivity. I got the Circlet from the Ogre King, returned to Shiran, and got the ash.

Technically, I got twigs from the Shir-Aka tree, which turned into ash.

I also picked up a Zoxinn spellbook while there, which had a lot of mass-damage and mass-heal spells, most of which I hardly used.

The mass-damage spells were very draining but occasionally fun.

 
6. Explored the tower of Thakass on Wizards' Isle. At the top, spoke to the "Mad One" and got the Blue Ring of Power.

It was a real struggle.

 
7. Wandered around and spoke to various NPCs until I got the clue I needed to the cloak in Kharin. Found the cloak in Crezimas, which I had already cleared. At this point I needed to get to the dungeon Sargoz. I had a teleportal combination but no origin point. Based on an obscure note I had taken, I tried it in Thakass and it worked.

8. Defeated Sargoz--the longest part of this journey. It was very hard. There were tons of water locations, snakes, magic barriers, and tough enemies. There were no stairs from level to level, so I had to find and map teleporters. I had to keep resting in rooms to replenish spells. I kept running out of "Fear" and "Freeze" which were the only things protecting me from high-level enemy spell-casting demons. I ran out of arrows and some mushrooms. The toughest battles of the game were at the end of the dungeon, and in my state I had to reload three or four times.

A difficult battle against Dreads and other demons.

I finally made it to the Furnace of Hades, used the cloak to protect myself from heat, and got the White Amulet of Light.

I felt like something by Orff should have been playing here.

 
9. Journeyed to the three "brick houses" containing levers needed to raise the Sunken Isle. Left one party member at the first two, pulled all the levers simultaneously, and reversed the journey to pick up the party members.

What are we supposed to make of an island raised by three levers? Is it just a bit of goofiness, or is Deruvia a world constructed by a superior technological civilization?

10. Visited Sunken Isle and read the Ritual of Awareness in a book in a brick house there.

Can you make anything out of these words? I don't think they're anagrams.

  
11. Re-stocked one last time and headed to the Hidden Vale to defeat Dreax.

Hidden Vale is surrounded by mountains. I had to teleport in.

 
I was surprised to find that the room with the Magic Candle wasn't at the end of a dungeon or something. You just wander into the castle in the Hidden Vale, and there it is. You don't get any kind of dialogue with Dreax, which is too bad.

 
The ritual takes a while and proceeds through multiple stages of using items and bellowing chants. The Zirvanad outlined it fairly clearly, and the only problems I had related to misspelling the long, foreign words. The ritual basically created a "Bubble of Captivity," transferred Dreax from the Candle into it, restored the Candle, and transferred Dreax back.

The Bubble of Captivity. Ignore the screen corruption on the right. That started happening late in the game every time I saved.

When I was done, I didn't even get a "NOOOOOOO!" from Dreax--just a whisk to King Rebnard's castle, where the court feted us, the king designated us "Heroes of the Candle," and we received warning of another archdemon raising forces in the lands across the seas. I was sorry that Min and the PCs I used as cheap labor couldn't be part of the proceedings, but otherwise, as CRPG endings go, it wasn't too bad. The trend lately (I mean lately on the blog) has been to dump the player onto a "You Won!" screen without any fanfare.

Couldn't it be "Heroes of the Flame?" That sounds cooler.

  
If you're interested in a half-hour video of the final stages of the game, here it is. It starts in the middle of Step 9 above. If you want to skip right to the restoration of the Magic Candle, it's at 23:30.

You'll see me avoiding almost every combat. After Sargoz, I don't think I fought more than three. There was no point. My characters were already maxed, or nearly so, in their skills, and an abundance of gems had long removed any need for money. In this, the game reminds me unfavorably of the Questron series, including Legacy of the Ancients, where the only reason to fight anyone was that they were standing in your way.

The teleport spell helped to avoid mind-numbing combats.

As you can see, I was needlessly worried about the number of days left to finish the game. I started with 999 and ended at 718, which means my quest took 281 days. Even if I'd started on "hard" level, with 600 days, I would have ended at 319. And, as it's been pointed out, there is a sorceress in the Royal Castle who can give you more time. I can't imagine what I'd have to do to need all that time. I do confess, though, that there were times in which I hauled my party all the way across the continent to get some clue, then restored a save rather than hike all the way back. In retrospect, I guess that was a kind of cheating, but even then I don't think I would have come anywhere near to running out of time.

I couldn't finish up without experimenting with the ways to fail in the game. They are:

1. Full-party death or death of the lead character ("Lukas" by default, "Giauz" in my case) without resurrection in time. They amount to the same thing, since when the full party dies, so does any hope of resurrecting the lead. (I didn't cover this much before, but when a character dies, you have to cast resurrection pretty quickly. Otherwise you're off to one of the castles for a replacement.)

2. Time runs out. When this happened, I expected that the game would give me some kind of  message about Dreax rampaging across the land, but it doesn't. In fact, you can still go into the Hidden Vale castle and find the completely-melted Magic Candle:

The game still lets you perform the ritual--up to a point. You can trap Dreax (I guess he didn't have anything better to do but hang around the fireplace), but when you throw the Shir-Aka ash and chant the ritual necessary to restore the candle, "Nothing happens!" The only way out of the game at this point is to break the bubble as in #3. Thus, the end of the counter puts you in a "walking dead" situation rather than ending the game outright.

"So...um...hey, Dreax. This is awkward."

By the way, it took bloody forever to check this out. It's not easy to run down the timer for 700 days. You can put the characters to sleep, but they wake up every 80 or so days complaining about hunger and you have to go buy more food. If you're sleeping outside, there's a risk of ambush; if you're sleeping at an inn, the owner kicks you out every two weeks. It took longer to run out the clock than it took to write all of this posting and most of the next one.

3. You get Dreax imprisoned in the Bubble of Captivity but then walk into the bubble, breaking it. Dreax escapes and immediately slaughters your entire party with spells.

Dreax stands triumphant over the slain party. My, he looks bad-ass.

I confess I was a little disappointed with the ending, for reasons that weren't the game's fault. In my YouTube video on gameplay, a commenter said, "Dreax might be a nice guy, you never know [sic]." I thought he might be spoiling the ending and that there would be a twist in which it turned out that Dreax was unfairly imprisoned. I also thought that maybe the gods would show up and have something to do. I'm also a little disappointed by the lack of a final battle before facing Dreax. I feel like I did a lot of character development for a combat system that peaked 8 hours before the endgame.

But while it was a little anti-climactic, I did enjoy the process of the ritual. Most modern games wouldn't allow you to screw it up, and would make the overall process a lot simpler. I liked that I had to take extensive notes and consult them for the proper order of things. I only wish Dreax had offered some reaction rather than simply dancing around.

On to the GIMLET!

Magic Candle: Abra Cadabara

The party picks up a new member after dropping the halfling Min. Min walked sadly away, desperately wondering what he had done to deserve abandonment after trying his best.

The more I play, the more I realize that The Magic Candle has one of the better-balanced magic systems in the games I've played so far. Its combat spells are neither so much weaker than melee attacks that the mage occupies a second-class role (e.g., Ultima IV, Demon's Winter) nor so much more powerful that you find yourself blasting through hordes of enemies (Might & Magic). (Though ask me again once I get the powerful Zoxinn spellbook.) It has a few required spells ("Repel" and "Pierce" for dungeons), but most of the non-combat spells fall in the "helpful-but-not-essential" category, thus avoiding the problem you have in so many games in which the magic-user is someone you have to haul along to heal, cure poison, and teleport.

At first, I thought the mechanism for learning and casting spells was needlessly complicated. First, you have to buy a book of spells to have access to them. Then, you have to spend time "learning" individual spells, much as in Dungeons & Dragons games (the system is known as Vancian Magic); this can range from as little as 1 minute to as much as an hour depending on the character's magic level and the spell strength. Even having learned it, you have to go through a step of "recalling" the spell to memory before finally casting it--a process that depletes between 1 and maybe 60 energy points.

I realize now that this complexity is carefully calculated to prevent an overbalance in magic power. Sermins (which restore energy to 99) are fairly cheap and plentiful, so if you didn't have to "learn" the spells first, you could essentially cast without penalty. The learning system forces you to treat spells as precious resources to be managed, much like your supply of mushrooms. The "Recall" step forces you to think more tactically in combat. Since "Recall" often takes a round, you can't switch between spells willy-nilly. If you think one of your characters is going to need a "Shield" boost in a couple rounds, you'd better get on it now. (A carefully timed Gonshi mushroom, though, can allow you to both recall and cast in the same round.)

Nehor's stock of spells. I should probably have him specialize a little better.

Despite my admiration for the system, I've been under-utilizing spells, particularly combat spells, and so I decided to force myself to cycle through all of them and get familiar with them. Some things I've determined:

• Wow, is "Freeze" useful in combat. I've been relying primarily on "Fear," which keeps enemies from attacking for a few rounds. But "Freeze" also keeps them from defending. It's worth the 26 minutes it takes Eflun to memorize it and the 44 energy it takes him to cast it.

• Spells make overland travel a lot simpler. I have really become sick of combat, but a combination of "Locate," "Confuse," and "Teleport" makes it much easier to avoid outdoor enemies.

• "Assess" is a useful spell at the beginning stages of a battle, particularly with unfamiliar enemies. It keeps you from wasting other spells later on, attacking pushover enemies with powerful magic.

• I had barely noticed "Weaken" when reading the manual, and it's actually one of the most useful spells in the game, stripping enemies of armor and shields. It takes virtually no time to memorize, too.

"Locate" helps to avoid tiresome combats.

As with many games, there are some spells that under-perform. "Heal" is obviated by plentiful potions. "Vision" tells you what monsters are inside dungeon rooms, but since dungeon rooms always have monsters, and usually tough ones, you'd be crazy not to load up on mushrooms before heading in anyway. "Disappear" seems like a good idea (it turns a character invisible in combat), but rarely do I find enemies targeting a single character enough to bother with it.

I had planned to replace Min with another fighter, but I changed my mind and decided to replace him with another spellcaster instead--someone who would memorize only combat spells and be merciless with them in battle. I picked up Dokar at Crystal Castle; of the three available there, he had the best statistics and the most useful book. I hated giving up on Min after he'd received so many stat upgrades, but even with them he was a lousy fighter, and a few sessions with a charisma teacher got Rexor up to 99. Another advantage to a wizard is that he can carry (but not use) arrows: I'm always running out of them in dungeons.

Dokar performs well in his first combat.

In my journeys since my last posting, I have finished circling about mainland Deruvia and the southwestern islands. I still have one dungeon to explore (Bedangidar), but otherwise my next stops are all in the northeastern islands. My specific journey is highlighted on the map below and includes:

My travels since the last posting.

• Shadrum to Port Avur via teleportal chamber
• Overland from Port Avur to Sumruna. Sumruna had another enemy tower inside the walls, and I had to conquer it to get in good with the residents.

 

• Boat from Sumruna to Isle of Vo (where I found the second Obelisk)
• Return boat to Sumruna
• Overland to Kharin. I found a sleeping god on the way but didn't have the chant to wake him. In Kharin, ordered Methreal (that's how the game spells it) armor for all my characters.
• Kharin to Crystal Castle. At this point, I realized that before I dumped Min and replaced him, I needed to train another character's charisma.
• Teleportal chamber from Crezimas (in Crystal Castle basement) back to Port Avur.

 

• Boat from Port Avur to Fubernel, then walk to Bondell.

Rexor learns how to win friends and influence people.

 

• Bondell to dungeon of Khazan, where I used teleportal chamber to go to Yberton, near the Crystal Castle. Here, I replaced Min with Dokar.
• Crystal Castle to Kharin to pick up armor.

 

• Kharin to Theldair.
• Theldair to Merg, then (because of a clue) back to Theldair, where I got Sherro's High Call, the chant needed to summon the Unicorn and get its ring.

Queen Fay's court.

Between Theldair and Merg, I heard lots of information about Somona the Sorceress, counselor to Queen Fay of the elves, now a prisoner in the dungeon Bedangidar. Apparently, Somona is the only one who can help me with Elven Dream Dust, so I'll have to go rescue her. Unfortunately, I don't have the chant needed to enter the dungeon yet; I'm told a dwarf has it, and I suspect he's back down in Kharin.

This monk is about as helpful as Smith the horse.

If you've lost track of what I'm doing on the main quest, right now I'm trying to assemble all of the items and chants I need for the ritual to restore the Magic Candle and keep the archdemon Dreax imprisoned. These are the items I need, and the clues I have:

1. Ritual of Awareness: found in a book called Zilmaeron, kept in the Tower of Ruhan on the Sunken Isle. To get to the island, I need to "raise" it first by simultaneously pulling on three levers (via party-splitting). I have the locations of two of them.

2. White Amulet of Light: Tombul the Merchant in Delkona sold it to the merchant Faruk, who gave it to the knight Farahd from Sumruna, who lost it in combat and thinks it's in the Furnace of Hades on the dungeon Sargoz. Sargoz, the "Lost Dungeon," cannot be accessed by anything except a teleportal. I can get there from Lake Kumalis or the tower of Thakass. I found a teleportal combination in Khazan, but I don't know which starting point it assumes. I also assume I'm going to need to find a stolen elven cloak, which "protects its wearer from the hottest flames."

Unless it splits six ways, my characters are going to have a bit of a brawl.

3. Green Ring of Order: The Last Unicorn has it. Now that I know Sherro's High Call, I can return to her and get it.

4. Blue Ring of Power: In the tower of Thakass on Wizard's Isle, held by the "Mad One."

5. Bubble of Captivity: No idea.

6. Elven Dream Dust: Have to rescue Somona from the dungeon Bedangidar, but I have to find the words of entry first.

7. Crystal Dust: Already obtained it from Crystal Castle.

8. Three Words of Will: Written on three obelisks. I have two of them.

9. Shir-Aka Ash: Said to be kept by the wizards in Shiran.

A wandering elf breaks the fourth wall by telling me numerically how much charisma I need to speak to the wizards of Shiran.

Still a long way to go, then. I think my next moves will be to head to Lymeric to get the Ishban spellbook for Dokar, get the ring from the Unicorn, explore Bedangidar, and head to Shiran.

I'm still enjoying the game, particularly the plotting, but I am heartily sick of combat, which is another reason I'm glad I have Dokar to shake things up. I also wish there were more side-quests in the game (the  only ones that really count are the enemy towers in some towns), and more ways to develop your characters. Although there are no "levels" in the game, I feel like I'm at the equivalent of max level, with plenty of the game still to play.

Magic Candle: On the Water

Well, this sucks.

You'd think after hundreds of games, I'd be a fairly savvy CRPG player, but every once in a while, I do something so bafflingly stupid, it's hard to imagine how I successfully start the game each time. This one tops even the time that I had to burn my Ultima V party to death to escape Lord British's chambers.

Check out the screen shot above. My party is in the middle of a river, and Eflun has just run out of "Walkwater" spells. Thus lacking, I can't move an inch. After I realized my predicament and swore, I decided I'd better kill the game and restart. But in an epically bad force-of-habit moment, I saved the freaking game before quitting.

"Surely you've been using multiple save game files this whole time," you say, confusing me with someone who's not a drooling imbecile. No, my last other save game file is more than 20 hours ago, before I even found the Zirvanad, before I awakened the gods in Crezimas and Khazan and got nice boosts in statistics, before a lot of things.

Yeah.

Am I missing some way off this river? "Teleport" doesn't work in dungeons. I can't camp to memorize more spells. None of the characters can touch land. Please, someone tell me some obvious solution that I've overlooked.

While we're thinking of that, let me catch you up.

An amusing moment in Crezimas. Fortunately, I had a shovel and used it to find a nice cache of jewels.

When we were last together, I was exploring the dungeon of Crezimas on the far side of the continent. It took forever to clear, partly because I ran out of arrows and had no idea where to get more--although the mushroom problem was solved with a plentiful number inside the dungeon itself. When I finished, I was rewarded with some Crystal Dust from the queen. Please remember that the meth epidemic had not visited the U.S. in 1989.

Within the dungeon, I found a teleportal combination to return to Pheron (the starting area, with the Royal Castle), which I used. Essentially back at the beginning, I had a decent grocery list of things to find for the ritual, and a few clues where to find them:

• Ritual of Awareness: Said to be in the book called Zilmaeron in the Tower of Ruhan on the Sunken Isle. To raise the Sunken Isle, I have to pull three levers all at once. One is in Darvale.
• White Amulet of Light: No clues.
• Green Ring of Order: Kept by the Last Unicorn on the island Heavenly. Need to learn Sherro's High Call from an elf to summon it.
• Blue Ring of Power: Said to be in the tower of Thakass on Wizard's Isle, far to the northeast.
• Bubble of Captivity: No idea.
• Elven Dream Dust: No idea.
• Three Words of Will: On obelisks. I've found one; there's another at Vo.
• Shir-Aka Ash: Kept by the wizards of Shiran

This is going to involve some party-splitting.

Rather than try to check these off methodically, I decided to engage in some free-form exploration and work my way around the land more-or-less counterclockwise, picking up clues as I went. I began by re-visiting Keof, Bondell, and Delkona and had planned to go to the Isle of Giants after Khazan (where I'm currently stuck).

Bribing my way into Delkona.

Delkona was a city in lockdown because of rumors of enemy spies. I was able to bribe my way in. The source of the enemy threat wasn't hard to find: a multi-level tower in the middle of town. I fought my way to the top, killed everyone, and got a 15 point boost to my charisma for this town only.

If my halfling didn't already have 99 charisma, this might be useful.

It's not a long report, and I'm afraid things are going to be like this for a while. I've already told you about all the gameplay elements, so all that's left is to talk about the plot, but the game is so slow going that I can summarize the major plot elements from 20 hours of gameplay in about three paragraphs.

Large battles with multiple magic-users take a long time and sap arrows, spells, and mushrooms.

 
Frankly getting sick of all of the battles. I have a strong sense of not accomplishing much with them. Most of my characters are maxed in their combat skills, and the game doesn't otherwise award experience. Gold collected from slain foes is paltry unless they're guarding a chest full of gems.

But all of these concerns fade to nothing if I can't get off this damned river. The idea of starting over to a pre-Zirvanad state is heartbreaking.