Game 250: Cosmic Soldier: Psychic War (1987)

The title screen doesn't waste any time getting into the story.

    

Judging by western PC releases, 1987 was the year that JRPGs started to rival their western counterparts. Dragon Slayer (1984), Hydlide (1984), and Xanadu: Dragon Slayer 2 (1985) were all goofy affairs best described as "proto-RPGs," but 1987 brought us The Ancient Land of Ys, Sorcerian, and Zeliard. None were contenders for "Game of the Year" or anything, but I found them all fun in their own ways, and they each introduced interesting elements not seen in western RPGs. Ys is the first RPG I know, for instance, to introduce occasional boss battles in which all the rules change and you have to figure out new patterns to defeat them, a dynamic that lives today in games like Dark Souls and Lords of the Fallen. Zeliard is the only RPG/platformer hybrid that I know of. Sorcerian is a rare side-scrolling RPG.

Cosmic Soldier: Psychic War is not up to the level of its 1987 colleagues, though it does have a number of original ideas. The game is the sequel to a 1985 title (Cosmic Soldier) released only in Japan; my understanding is that they feature similar gameplay, though the sequel improves the graphics and interface. They concern the titular soldier, who takes missions from "the Alliance" to stop the evil machinations of the "Quila Empire," somewhere in a star system called "KGD" in the 36th and 37th Centuries.

In addition to the party members he can recruit along the way, the main character is accompanied by a scantily-clad android who offers various types of advice and assistance. In the first game, this included the ability to have sex with her (with accompanying on-screen nudity) in exchange for increases in power. We saw the same dynamic, though with an actual human slave, in the reprehensible Rance (1989), and I wonder if the later game copied from Cosmic Soldier or if there's another origin to this trope.
       

A screenshot from the first game.

    

Either way, I don't see any sex options in Psychic War, although it's possible they were simply removed for the western release. I can tell that the developers changed at least one related element: the android (Kayla), who inexplicably always remains on-screen, is wearing a tank top in the western release instead of a string bikini in the Japanese original.

After a brief character creation process in which the player has no choices but the name, the main character and Kayla dock their ship, Century Parody, at a space station called Samar. I haven't been able to find a manual for the game, but my understanding from various web sites is that the Quila Empire has developed some kind of machine that can read (or perhaps influence) brainwaves. It's on one of at least 5 stations in the same region, and the player can jump among them, hunting for the device and killing enemies along the way.
     

The "full party death" screen. I guess the Alliance only has one Cosmic Soldier.

    

In the hallways of the stations (or, at least, the first one), you run into both NPCs and enemies. The line between them is blurred, as you can attack NPCs and convert enemies to NPCs if they surrender. When you encounter them, the game gives you a nonsense word that I at first took as their names, but I guess it's their races or classes or something, because if they join you, you specify a name. If you're not looking for party members, you can just talk to NPCs (including surrendered enemies), and they might give you a quick line of dialogue.
     

Meeting a "Jiftok" NPC. I can either convince him to join me or ask for a hint.

   
For those who join the party (up to 3), each class of NPC has different psychic abilities, which are basically spells. These come into play during combat and exploration. For instance, the protagonist comes with "Beam," which is a basic psychic attack, and "Teleport," which allows you to escape from battle. Other NPCs might come with "Shield" or  non-combat powers like "Marker" and "Mind Jump," which together serve as a mark/recall spell. I assume some of the game's powers are developed by leveling up. There apparently are guns in the game, but I gather they either serve as amplifiers of psychic energy or alternatives against a few monsters who cannot be psychically damaged.

Mostly, NPCs serve as living shields for the PC. When combat begins, the player holds down the SPACE bar to simultaneously execute the "Beam" attack or ENTER to execute a "Shield" defense. The cowardly PC hides behind everyone else, so all the NPCs take any enemy damage first. Since there seem to be no other combat tactics, I guess you just have to hope that your NPCs and hit points hold out against the enemy's. The dynamic feels more like some kind of tug-of-war than traditional RPG combat. Speed is vital in the combats, particularly as the enemies get more difficult. If you don't realize you've entered combat and hit the SPACE bar immediately, the enemy gets a few free seconds of unfettered blasting.
    

Simultaneously blasting, and taking damage from, a "Paluka."

    
Slain enemies don't seem to drop items, but perhaps I just never found the "search" option. As far as I can tell, there isn't any economy in the game, except perhaps the "yontry" that also serves as a healing potion. Judging by a few sites I translated, inventory also seems limited in the game. Most of it consists of puzzle items like ID badges and VIP cards that you need to progress through the levels.

Kayla seems to be useless at the outset of the game. There's a menu command for "Ask Kayla," but it provides no options. My understanding is that later in the game, you can find special items like mappers, sensors, and decoders that Kayla can operate, but overall a lot of screen real estate is wasted on someone with such limited functionality.
     

The repair shop owner hints that Kayla will become useful later.

    
I didn't hear any sound effects during my session. It does have music, changing from exploration to combat tunes. Both wear out their welcome quite fast, as does the game's fondness for 1980s California slang: "Bogus!" it cries, when describing an attack by an enemy or "Bodacious!" when you find a useful item.
      

"Most outrageous!" upon finding a card.

     
The graphics don't break any ground. The corridors all adopt the same futuristic pseudo-Death Star look, the protagonist and his allies are goofy and cartoonish, and if Kayla is supposed to be attractive, then I congratulate the 1980s teenagers who found her so.
     

A map of the first station level.

     
I started my session by exhaustively mapping Samar. The base level was 16 x 16, but with a lot of unused space. Most of the rooms are generically titled "press rooms" or "radar rooms" and such, with nothing in them, but you run into the occasional "bio room," where you can get healed, and other special places like the space dock.
     

I'm not sure why I have to "think fast" to use the elevator.

     
Elevators went both up and down, but to a variety of much smaller levels (or sections of levels), some only a couple of squares. There was an equipment repair shop on a lower level section and a "relic shop" on an upper-level section where a guy wanted 3 "yontry," basically a healing potion, but I hadn't found any so far. He also suggested that I bring him the "PY map."
     

The weird relic store dealer.

     
During this period, NPC hints told me that the relic shop owner "keeps a secret"; that I can find yontry in "Zellwal's NRS Room"; that I should learn how to use the "bio-sleep" rooms; that I should free someone named Houzz from jail on Sivad; that Sivad also has a "VIP Room" and the station's defenses are weak; and that our mission (or at least that NPCs) is to "destroy Melser."
      

An NPC offers a hint.

      
I burned through a lot of party members during this period and noticed that every new one started at 0 experience points, so I suppose it's probably better to heal the ones you have rather than letting them die as meat shields. As for my own character, I seemed to get exactly 1 experience point for every enemy we killed, but none for those who surrendered and we let live.

When I ran out of places to explore on Samar, I entered the launch pad and blasted off for Sivad, station of the supposed "weak defenses," where I was killed immediately by a much tougher enemy than I'd faced anywhere on Samar--some kind of robot, I guess. Either the intention was that I grind for a while on Samar or I'm missing some other dynamic in the game.
      

Chet levels up.

     
Playing around Samar some more, I finally leveled up when my experience hit 20, doubling my maximum power and ESP. Around this time, I realized that killing relatively helpless NPCs offered the same experience rewards as dangerous enemies, so I just circled the outer rim of the station, blasting everyone I came across. It took me 80 more kills to get to the next level.
    

Sorry--I don't get stronger by you surrendering.

     
At this point, I was able to navigate Sivad without dying. The enemies there continue to deliver just one experience point per kill. In a room past a maze of elevators, I found a safe with a "Map PO." Later, in an "enemy office," there was a "VIP card." About this time, I hit my six-hour minimum and had to decide whether to continue with the game.
      

I guess heroes don't just turn around and leave.

      
Oh, there's a place for games like this, I guess. They offer a break from the standard high-fantasy dungeon crawler, with their swords and armor and magic missiles. The problem is, I like that kind of game, not weird sci-fi titles with bare-bones plots and goofy cartoonish little protagonists. Still, lacking the manual, I might be missing out on some cool features, so I'll at least give my commenters a chance to offer what they know about the game before cutting it off.

      

Blasting off to other ports.

     
You may have noted that this is my 250th game. That's something of a landmark. I probably should have arranged for a more meaningful title to take the spot, but there was nothing obvious in my upcoming list, and I was having a hard enough time finding time to play and blog in May without adding the pressures of some kind of commemoration, too.

Still, it's a big number. When I started this project, I'm not sure I was even aware that this many RPGs existed. I'd probably only ever played 30 by that point--some addict!--which means in the last 7 years, I've increased my RPG experience by more than 700%. At least the blog gives me something to show for it.

The Magic Candle II: Burning Bright

This sign wasn't kidding. I probably cast 200 "Repel" spells in this dungeon.

   

For this most recent session, I basically looped the same track as the last one, crossing items off my "to do" list and correcting the previous mistakes along the way.

Knowing I needed an elf to find favor with the goddess Oraniana, I decided to return to the Elven village of Llendora. I was getting sick of Subia's ineffectiveness by now, and I wanted to replace her with someone with better charm and capable of casting spells. After cycling through several elf options, I settled on Lupi, who came with strong music skills (in case I ever wanted to explore that), and some magic and bow skills. Her charm was high enough that I could propel it to 12 with the "Glamour" spell (see below). More important, she had her own little side quest to retrieve a lost magic bow, "Darkfinder," from some monsters' "catacombs." I knew of only one town with "catacombs" in them, and I was headed there anyway.

       

Don't be; I'm just min-maxing.

     

I felt bad about getting rid of Subia for role-playing reasons, but then I rationalized that choosing the best team for the job is role-playing.

At this point, I noticed it was October, when Ziyx said he'd be done with his new "Emenad" spellbook. I returned to him, but there was a glitch. Though he bragged in several dialogue options about having finished the book, when I asked for it specifically, he kept saying it would be done in October.

I returned to Ussa, where a mage was selling the book, and was able to buy it for quite a bit of money. I gave it to Lupi and started having her memorize its powerful spells, although ultimately her magic wasn't powerful enough to make the most use of it, and I transferred it to Eflun.

     

Like her player, Gia is colorblind and not always sure what she's talking to.

     

Before Ussa, I stopped back in Telermain and briefly picked up Perin, who has been slaving away the entire game at a metalworker's. He had over $6,000 by now, enough to make up for the cost of the spellbook. It's worth pointing out that I haven't been dealing with my multiple party members as efficiently as possible. I could have left Perin with a mindstone so I could contact him remotely and give him orders. I could have had him meet us at one of the many strongholds on the continent with his proceeds, rather than trek all the way back to Telermain to see him. But in a game with no time limit, the need for such efficiency isn't as pressing.

       

Hey, Perin. I'll just be taking everything you've earned in 3 months.

      

Back to the trail we went. With Lupi "Glamoured" high enough in charm, I talked to a few NPCs in Wanasol I couldn't talk with before. From a mage named Pharus, I got a song called "Sambali" which is supposed to help with doombeasts, if I ever face them again.

We woke up the goddess Oraniana south of Wanasol, and since I had an elf in my party this time, she looked on us with favor and increased our dexterity, agility, intelligence, and resistances. Unfortuately, I still didn't have the right password for the god sleeping in a temple above the chasm. I have one I haven't used (KIMYABIN), but I'm not sure who it goes to.

     

It's about time a god did something for me in this game.

     

And with a ruby now in hand, I was able to bribe the goblin leader in Deadwood and get the password to the catacombs. They were one level, but very large. In them, I found the magic conch shell that will supposedly get me to the southern islands and Lupi's "Darkfinder" bow. Ironically, she's too weak to actually wield it. I'll have her hold on to it in case I find a god who increases her strength.

     

Is this really "your" bow, Lupi?

     

Someone else in Deadwood (I took bad notes) gave me the password to the fortress at Maratul, and an anonymous comment about maximizing "Teleport" range with a Turpin mushroom turned out to get me to the island. For some reason, I had been under the impression that "Teleport" always just presented a 3 x 3 grid. Boy, was I wrong.

        

Enhanced by a Turpin, I can "Teleport" anywhere.

     

Most of this session took place there, in a dungeon of 8 levels with an insane number of teleporters, spiders, and snakes. I hate the spiders and snakes because you have to keep casting "Repel" to get rid of them, and you have to do it for every damned one in case he happens to be blocking a key teleporter or treasure square.

     

One section of Maratul had me teleport away every time I got near this chest.

     

To pass the time, I decided to experiment more with spells, especially now that I have (I think) all the books. I spent about 7 days resting and continually memorizing a variety of them and then tried them on monsters I was in no danger of losing to.

The spell system in The Magic Candle II is unchanged from the original. There are 7 spellbooks with 5 spells each, and you have to possess the physical book (it's a tradeable object) to memorize the spells within it. If you don't own a spellbook, you can rent one at a couple of wizards' lodges, but resting there is a pain. You can also occasionally get batches of spells from magic fountains in dungeon rooms.

      

Memorizing a spell in "camp."

     

Memorizing spells takes from minutes to hours--time when the rest of the party is usually sleeping--so mages spent a lot of time hopped up on Sermins to restore their energy. The time it takes to memorize a spell is dependent on the characters' magic skill, as is the power of the spell when cast, as is the amount of energy needed to cast it. A Turpin mushroom will cause the next spell to cast as if the caster has 99/99 in magic.

      

This screen shows some of Eflun's memorized spells, how many minutes it will take to memorize them, and how much energy they will consume when cast.

      

A lot of spells are binary--they either work or don't. "Repel" is one of these, as is the "Pierce" spell that makes magical energy barriers go away. I guess the game's nuclear option, the "Destroy" spell, also falls in this category. A good strategy is to have lower-magic-skill characters memorize these.

    

"Repelling" a corridor full of snakes.

      

Up until this point in the game, I had barely experimented with offensive spells, mostly because the combination of Mirget and Gonshi mushrooms plus the "Jump" spell turns my party into an unstoppable force that can wipe out most enemy parties in the first round, and none of these resources costs much to replace. No offensive spell, even at max power, improves upon a good warrior with a Mirget mushroom (which causes max damage in the next attack) in her system.

There are a handful of exploration spells without which the game could not be won. If you don't have "Repel" to get past the magic spiders and snakes, "Pierce" to get past the magic barriers, and "Walkwater" to cross ponds and streams in the dungeons, and "Disguise" to enter enemy-controlled towns, you simply wouldn't be able to win the game. "Soulspeak" is also necessary to talk to a few NPC ghosts, and "Restsoul" is essential to permanently kill undead. Otherwise, you'd have to flee combats with them because they keep getting up every round until the spell is cast.

     

In the midst of an ambush, a "Restsoul" permanently kills a skeleton.

     

Part of me rebels against the idea of mandatory magic in the game. Even though I wouldn't dream of playing a game that offers magic without a magic-using character, I resent a bit that I must have magic ability. I like the idea that a game can be won with a party of just fighters or something.

     

It's mandatory, but the game gives me a choice anyway.

     

A few spells make travel and exploration a lot easier. "Locate" shows you the positions of enemy monster parties so you can avoid them; "Confuse" keeps them from attacking. (Monsters are easy enough to flee without them, but it feels cowardly that way.) "Teleport" gets you to hard-to-reach places. "Glamour" elevates a character's charm ability and lets him talk to NPCs who would otherwise ignore him; I forgot about it until just recently. "Sense" warns you of ambushes in dungeons; I'd almost call it essential.

      

I don't think anyone requires charm higher than this.

    

The most useless spell in the game is "Vision," which you cast before you enter a room, and it tells you that there are enemies there.

      

In other words, it's the same as every other dungeon room.

     

There are a few combat spells that are not essential, but I wouldn't want to live without them. "Jump" is chief among these, instantly putting melee fighters in hacking range of priority enemies, who tend to start way in the back. It's almost game-breaking, really. Without it, you'd have to strategize a lot more, and perhaps use a greater variety of spells. "Shield" is necessary to create magic shields around party members to protect them from magic damage. At this point in the game, I find that I use "Heal" and "Resurrect" only rarely, usually when I've screwed something up or forgot to cast "Sense" often enough to detect ambushes. I'm glad they exist. "Energy" is an odd one that acts like a Sermin spell and restores the character's energy to 99. Since casting it takes less energy than it restores, it feels like it ought not to work, like a perpetual motion machine.

     

I'm glad this spell exists, but I'm sick of having to cast it every 10 steps.

     

On the offensive spells, my experiments confirmed my belief that the non-damaging offensive spells are just a waste of time. "Fear," "Weaken," "Freeze," and "Drain" all perform as promised, but not better than jumping a melee warrior next to the same enemy and hacking away.

     

They probably wouldn't have done him much good in the first place.

      

Similarly, the damage spells mostly underperform melee attacks, even with high magic skill (or a Turpin). "Fireball" is probably the best, but we're talking 50 damage to more than 60 from a good melee attack. (And melee attacks don't run afoul of enemies' shields.) "Shatter" and "Acidball" suffer from the same problem.

For these reasons, even the so-called "powerful" spellbooks fail to impress. The "Zoxinn" spellbook has a bunch of spells that duplicate other spells in the game but affect everyone instead of just one character or enemy, usually at lesser power. "Zapall" is "fireball everyone"; "Zengrl" is "heal everyone"; "Zishoxe" is "shield everyone"; "Zefoar" is "area-effect fireball"; "Zutyun" is "weaken everyone." They're impressive, but they take so long to memorize and cost a lot of energy and I simply find that I rarely need their power. 

One spell that I admit I like is "Forget." Gaem demons often cast it against my party members as their first action, when they've ambushed me and I don't get an opportunity to kill them first. It causes the recipient to forget all copies of whatever spell he currently has in memory, which sucks when you've just spent 8 hours resting to memorize 60 "Jump" spells. It can even make a battle unwinnable if the spell in mind is "Restsoul" and you're facing undead in the same enemy party. Anyway, getting hit with it is so infuriating that I occasionally like to cast it back on the Gaems, causing them to "Forget" their own "Forget" inventory.

      

How does it feel!?

      

That brings us to the "Emenad" spellbook that I waited so long for. There's some awesome stuff in here, theoretically. "Betray" turns a foe against his party. "Summon" summons an enemy creature to fight with the party. "Terrify" causes all monsters to flee. "Double" makes a duplicate of a party member, with the same skills and equipment, for the duration of combat. "Timestop" causes the enemy to lose a combat round. Each of these costs about 50 energy but would definitely be worth it for a really tough battle. I just haven't encountered any of these yet.

Emenad's crowning spell is one called "Destroy" that simply obliterates any enemy--at the cost of every other spell that the caster has memorized. I have a couple of them memorized in case I really need it, but I've yet to find a single enemy who could last a round against a couple of Mirget- and Gonshi-enhanced fighters "Jumped" next to them.

    

Killing one enemy wasn't quite worth it.

    

Two more notes:

• I still don't understand the music system. Lupi successfully used the "Morning Mist" spell to charm some bargs for a few seconds, but since you can't take any other action when the spell is playing, that didn't really seem to help me. They were just as hostile when the spell was over. Maybe it cost them the one round? If so, the music system isn't really worth the time.

      

Some bargs are briefly enraptured by a song.

    

• My characters have largely stopped getting skill increases even though I've switched some to secondary weapon types. I figured skills level fast when they're low (as in the beginning of the game) and slow when they're high, but now I'm wondering if the speed of leveling isn't based on the totality of all the characters' skills.

      

This is getting almost formulaic.

    

Maratul culminated in another encounter with a ghost--this time the mother of one of the doomed forty--who gave me a gray scroll to use at the Candle of Pain. I just need to find the right library to record the correct incantation, then return with it to Ruz, which I've already cleared. I'm still not sure where the Candle of Anguish is (for which I have a pink scroll), but I have some southern islands to explore, so maybe it's there. It's about time to be wrapping up, so let's see if I can push through to the end for the next posting.

Time so far: 52 hours

Game 249: L'Anneau de Zengara (1987)

See below for the inspiration. I have no idea why there is a jawa in the background.

      

L'Anneau de Zengara

France

Ubisoft (developer and publisher)

Released in 1987 for Amstrad CPC, possibly for Atari ST

Date Started: 30 April 2017
Date Ended: 1 May 2017

Total Hours: 9

Difficulty: Moderate (3/5)

Final Rating: 16

Ranking at Time of Posting: 36/253 (14%)

Ranking at Game #457: 88/457 (19%)

Not so long ago, I made fun of Ubisoft's humble beginnings with an RPG called Fer & Flamme (1986), a bizarre title with a horrid interface and a combat system I couldn't figure out despite multiple tries and several commenters trying to help me. I gave up on it without having made much progress, hoping I would never see its like again.

Well, here we are with The Ring of Zengara, Ubisoft's follow-up, credited to the same developer (Hervé Lange), using the same interface and overall design and mechanics. Although it does not appear to be a direct sequel to Fer & Flamme, it does support importing a character from the earlier title, but only one, as this game features a single protagonist instead of a party. It is scaled down in ambition in other ways as well, with only a single city (of three areas), one structure to explore, and no outdoor areas.
    

This image is literally the best part of the game.

      
The game takes place in the legendary city of Zengara, capital of its kingdom, and home to the Palace of a Thousand Dreams. The only fly in the ointment is a thief lord named Shadar, who lives in an impenetrable tower in the city. The bandit is so powerful, enigmatic, and undefeatable that the kingdom has basically given up trying.

The protagonist is given as an adventurer who one day came upon a wounded man. As he tried to tend to the man, the victim's ring slid off his finger and attached itself to the adventurer's, refusing to come off. Before dying, the man whispered that salvation could be found in Zengara.
    

I will later come to rue that strength total. The game doesn't allow you to capitalize the first letter of your character's name. That should be worth -5 points.

     

Character creation options seem roughly the same as Fer & Flamme. You can be a warrior, magician, elf, thief, knight, cleric, dwarf, or "tinigen," apparently the French answer to hobbits or halflings. Attributes are strength, intelligence, wisdom, and dexterity, assigned from a pool of 40-45 points. Together, these determine your chances to throw grappling hooks, climb, persuade, and find traps. Those skills are all new to this game and, as far as I can tell, completely unused except for perhaps finding traps.

As its predecessor does, the game gives you the ability to purchase armor (coat, helm, and shield) during the creation process, but the armor isn't with you when you start the game. The initial purchase just adjusts your armor class score and subtracts from the money you have to spend in the game itself. Spellcasting types can also choose from a selection of spells during this process.
     

Choosing from various spells.

     

The game starts at the gates to the city, and it's not a very big city. You can go right to a provisioner's store, left to an old wizard named Valdor who has some lore to impart, and straight ahead to the tower entrance. Four squares, total. I was expecting a huge, sprawling city like the one in Fer & Flamme.

     

The player enters the city.

     

The provisioner sells a small selection of weapons--dagger, sword, and axe, of which the sword is best--a vest, and a grappling hook. He buys items, too, but since he's the only one who sells anything, I'm not sure why you'd need to amass gold.

      

The merchant and his paltry selection.

      

The old man fills in the story of the ring. In the distant past, a King Turkas had it fashioned for his beautiful wife, but enchanted so that if she ever cheated on him, a demon would appear to kill both her and her lover and damn their souls to wander eternally in limbo. Unfortunately, she cheated. When Turkas found the massacred bodies, he touched his dead wife's hand, and the ring slid to his finger, and the curse passed to him, as it has passed from person to person through the generations, each one damned to wander limbo upon death because of the queen's original sin.

     

The game does a decent job with its dialogue options.

     

At some point, one of the ring-bearers, a wizard, devised a spell to break its curse. He wrote it down on a scroll, but the scroll was stolen, and he eventually died like all the others. The implication is that Shadar stole the scroll, and I need to brave his tower if I want to save my own life.

Therein lay my first problem: getting into the tower. The front gates are guarded by an orc, and my knight couldn't defeat him no matter how many times I threw myself at him. Unlike Fer & Flamme, which similarly didn't allow me to win a single combat, this game at least showed that the orc was taking damage. I just couldn't kill him before he killed me.

    

The death screen came up a lot in the game's few combats. It says that you're doomed to wander limbo and never find the peace due to a valiant warrior.

     

Combat is pretty simple and boring. When the screen first loaded up, I thought I was in for a Karateka-style action sequence, but it turns out that the screen is static. You can choose some preparatory options like equipping a different weapon, casting a spell, or checking your stats, but after that (unless you flee), you just hit "combat" and watch the messages go by indicating who hit, who missed, and how much damage they did. Damage not only depletes your original pool of 1,000 hit points but also your strength, which can be recovered by resting.

     

An orc guards the way in.

     

Combat might take 20-30 turns to resolve, and annoyingly, you can't just hit "combat" and go make a sandwich or something while this happens. The game runs the turns in batches of 1 to roughly 6, and after that you have to keep choosing "combat" if you want to proceed. I guess this is to allow you to flee if things aren't going well. I don't really understand other aspects of what's happening in combat. Sometimes it will show several successful attacks from one side or the other, but no one loses hit points for the round.

Unable to defeat the orc with my first character, I tried a few other options, including a magic user whose spells didn't seem to do anything. Finally, I had luck with a warrior who had 20 strength, 18 dexterity, and hardly any intelligence or wisdom. With the orc dead, I was able to enter the tower.

      

My character attacks and misses.

     

The game's interface is as obnoxious as Fer & Flamme, relying entirely on the mouse. Moving left or right with the joystick, you scroll through the available cursors at the bottom, with options to move in each of the four cardinal directions or up and down, check inventory, check health, check the character sheet, search the room, pick up or leave items, purchase or sell items, open a door, give something to an NPC, fight, cast a spell, talk, use an item, or save the game. The developer couldn't even be bothered to map the directionals to the keypad arrows. But there are places where you have to type answers, so it's not like you can ignore the keyboard entirely.

The tower levels aren't very big. The first one only had 10 rooms. A key dynamic when exploring rooms, just as in Fer & Flamme, is to repeatedly search them. This game breaks down its search options into chercher and fouiller, which translate the same ("search"), so I don't know what the difference in quality is in French. In the game, chercher basically tells you what you've already discovered, or is immediately visible, and fouiller conducts a more in-depth search of the room for items and traps. Annoyingly, you have to choose fouiller repeatedly in most rooms before you find anything, and even then, you may not have found everything. I adopted the practice of selecting the action about 12 times before giving up, and if I found anything, I'd select it 12 times again just to be sure.

     

In a bedroom, several searches found me the mirror (which is never used), but it took me a dozen more to find the crucifix, too.

    

Some traps took me up to 30 searches, but if I missed them, I'd die, reload, and keep searching until I found them. This is perhaps the one place in the game that uses one of the four skills on the character sheet.

    

This took me like 5 minutes of pounding the same command.

     

Some of the objects you find are food and drink, and you need them because you get hungry and thirsty over time, and unlike the previous game, this one offers no place to buy nourishment.

     

My inventory on the second level. I don't think that grappling hook ever comes into play.

     

At this point, I should mention that the game introduced a game-breaking bug when I entered the tower: passing through the door wiped away all my hit points. I assume this wasn't intentional, because I'm pretty sure that initial pool of hit points is supposed to carry you through all of the game's combats, perhaps with a boost from an occasional healing potion (I found one on Level 1). As I explored, I kept dying randomly as I moved from room to room, and I realized it was because hunger and thirst deplete 1 hit point per move, and I didn't have any.

    

My hit points are all gone for no reason.

    

This made my next combat, with another orc, interesting to say the least. I had to win by save-scumming, capturing a save state every time I did damage to him, and reloading if he did damage to me. Later, when I encountered a werewolf, that strategy became untenable, and I had to edit a save state with a hex editor to give myself an adequate number of hit points to proceed.

The indoor areas are generally banal rooms showing several potential exits, but a small percentage of them have more carefully composed "scenes," often with an NPC to talk with. These scenes are more likely to contain items to search for. Like Fer & Flamme, indicators on the top of the screen show which way you can go from each room, but the indicators don't include locked doors, so you have to watch for those and open them with the key icon.

     

One of the "scene" rooms.

      

Along with some food and valuables I'm not sure I need, I found a key on the first floor (there were no monsters) that brought me to the dungeons, where there was another combat against an orc.

    

I hit the orc and do 52 damage.

     

The dungeons held two prisoners. First, a crazy mage named Krook insisted that Shadar was his master, and that the thief lord might not be human. It is rumored that his father is a demon named "Procus" and that he is immortal. The tower is supposedly only 6 levels (I don't know if that includes the dungeons.) He repeated word-for-word some of the things that Valdor said about the ring.

    

Any thoughts as to what he means by "le secret de l'ombilic"? I get "the secret of the umbilical cord."

     

The second prisoner was a "lovely young woman" named Shahela. She said she was starving and I gave her some bread. She said she was from Thulynte (the kingdom from Fer & Flamme) and that Shadar had kidnapped her after murdering her father. She had overheard that there might be a werewolf among Shadar's guards.

     

Shahela wants me to stop asking her questions and give her some food.

    

As I left her cell, she followed me, and from then on piped up occasionally with a comment.

     

I'm beginning to grow on Shahela.

     

Level 2 of the tower had some bedchambers, including a nice scene from a balcony.

    

     

The way up to Level 3 was guarded by a face on a wall. The only thing I could figure out to do with it was to "mount a cross" (which I'd found in one of the bedchambers) on the wall. When I did, it came to life and posed a riddle.

If see it, it is not for me
If use it, I do not pay for it
If make it, I do not use it
If live in it, I have no choice

I'd like to say I'd figured it out via logic and creativity, but I'd heard this one before. I typed in the correct answer (COFFIN) and moved forward.

    

I'm not sure what the cross had to do with anything.

      

Level 3 brought me face-to-face with a loup garou, which seems to be a mandatory monster in French RPGs. When I faced it the first time, I hadn't yet hex-edited my character, and he slaughtered me in one round. I had no chance of using the save-scumming trick with him, so I gave myself the hit points I thought I deserved and was able to defeat him in a couple of tries.

     

I battle a werewolf while Shahela cowers to the rear. Pick up a sword, woman!

    

In a nearby armory, I found another sword and dagger. The sword's statistics indicated it was twice as powerful as my original.

     

This upgraded sword would only be used in one more combat.

     

The fourth level is where I hit a dead end. The level is a small maze. I couldn't find any items within it. There is one locked door I cannot get through. There are three staircases up, but they just go to two 3 x 3 areas on the fifth floor with nothing in them. A hint file I later found on an Amstrad CPC site suggests I was supposed to encounter a thief on the level, but he never appeared.

      

The Level 4 maze where my experience ended.

      

By this point, it was clear that the game wasn't much of an RPG. I had been amassing experience from the few combats (you get experience with every successful blow, in fact), but my character remained at Level 1. The hint file suggested there was only one more combat to come, with Shadar himself. I saw no place in which the grappling, climbing, and persuasion skills would have come into play. (If you try to even use the grappling hook anywhere, the game chastises you about doing that indoors. This happens even if you're outside.) There's no point in trucking any of the valuables you find back to the shop for sale because he doesn't sell anything that you can't afford at the very beginning anyway. Even the inventory-style adventure puzzles aren't good. The game simply doesn't make use of all of its limited mechanics during its short, unsatisfying plot. In that, it reminds me of the later Saga. Perhaps the developer intended the engine to support further adventures to come.

     

The CPC site points out that the main game screen was clearly inspired by this Conan cover.

    

We can piece together what should have happened from the hint file and one screenshot. It appears that I was supposed to meet a thief on Level 4 and give him some money to join my party. In return, he would open the locked door I couldn't open. At some point after that, I needed to remove a grille covering a way up, a feat that apparently requires 15 strength, so screw you to anyone who started with a character lower than that. Some more navigation would follow, bringing me face-to-face with Shadar. It sounds like this wouldn't have been a regular combat (meaning there are only 3 normal combats in the game); instead, he was going to try to stab me but Shahela would have intervened, and perhaps then I would have killed him through the regular combat screen. The shot below shows some lingering messages from the combat screen, in any event.

I found a winning screen on the same site with the hint file. It indicates that Shadar is dead, his wealth belongs to you, you've found the scroll that will release you from the curse of l'anneau de Zengara, and you get to make out with Shahela. I was really hoping it was going to turn out that Shahela was Shadar (they share the same first syllable and everything), but the game wasn't quite that clever.

     

The winning screen, which I did not achieve.

      

30 years later, this company somehow has the Assassin's Creed and Might and Magic franchises.

L'Anneau de Zengara earns an 16 in my GIMLET, doing best in "game world" for its decent (if unrealized) plot and NPC dialogue system (both 3) and worst in its lack of character development, featureless combat, boring monsters, and useless economy (all 1). I found the graphics at least..."intriguing"; well-detailed if not well-composed. I subtracted two points for making it seem like a variety of characters could do well in the game, when in fact you need an ultra-strong he-man to even get past the first battle.

     

The box emphasizes the connection to Fer & Flamme as if that was a good thing.

     

Reviews at the time were pretty poor as well, judging from comments Lange made in a 2011 article. He never really "got it." His next pseudo-RPG, B.A.T. (1989), would have a lot of the same problems (see my coverage), including a host of RPG attributes and skills that never play a role in the game, a paucity of combats, and a senseless plot. That game also features NPCs who tag along with you and occasionally pop their heads into the frame to comment.

We'll be continuing to check out the state of French RPGs in 1987 with at least three more titles, maybe four, continuing with something called Inquisitor: Shade of Swords. Up next, though, we'll see if I can make heads or tails of a rare-for-the-era Japanese RPG with a western PC release: Cosmic Soldier: Psychic War.