Enchantasy: Obstacles at Every Turn

 

Well, it had better @#$*! not be "fantasy!"

       

Things are dark in the land of Savallia. The king has just died. The prince is missing. The king's brother, Duke Hawthorne, may try to seize the throne. After thousands of years of peace, evil forces are roaming the land looking for the Eternal Grimoire, an indestructible spellbook of immense power. The Mage's Council has tasked my party of four friends, led by a mage's apprentice, with forestalling all of the above.

    

In the last session, my party became complete, and I worked out a task list based on what NPCs had given me so far. I had meant to finish exploring the city of Tiernan first, and in particular to find the treasure map that Harry stole from Duke Hawthorne and gave to Boris, but in the intervening days, I forgot. I start this session by marching the party back to Keldar so that we can search the dungeon for Joey, the missing child.

   

We fight plenty of battles along the way, of course. I still like the combat system, but battles take a bit longer than they really need to. The primary culprits are missile weapons and spells, which absolutely crawl through the air towards their targets. You're about to say, "Well, then, crank the emulator," but the only way to truly speed things up is to crank the emulator so high that it over-reads all your inputs.

         

Trying to kill enemies with missile weapons before they get into melee range.

       

Another problem: 99 arrows (the maximum that you can carry at one) go fast. The stack is gone in three or four battles. The author probably didn't want players over-relying on arrows, which admittedly make many battles far too easy. I'm going to have to carry backup slings (which require no special ammo) for longer expeditions in which I want to use any ranged weapons at all. 

       

Chester reaches Level 2 on the way. Leveling brings an extra point to both strength and dexterity (the former allowing you to equip better weapons and armor), boosts to maximum health and magic, and a single training point to spend on the game's six skills: Weapons, bows, magic, lockpicks, language, and first aid. There are trainers in Keldar for all of these except "Lockpick," and when we finally reach the city, I train Chester in "Magic." This gives him two new spells: "Weaken" and "Cure Disease."

       

Yes, that's why we came to a training hall.

     

The entrance to the dungeon is in the upper-left corner of the city, behind a locked door. The game offers several ways to deal with locked doors. One is picking, which requires a pick and brings up a little minigame that I don't understand and have not yet won even once. The second is using a key, which requires no skill but causes the key to disappear. Some doors can't even be opened with keys but do open to a special "skeleton key," of which I have only found one. Anyway, the dungeon door opens to a regular key.

      

It appears that outdoor battles are all random in their locations, intervals, and compositions. In contrast, dungeon battles (at least most of them) are fixed in these variables. Thus, we only make it about five steps before we're attacked by a party of 10 cursed rats. The party doesn't come close to killing them, not even one, before they overwhelm and kill us. Since their square is in the middle of a corridor, these rats have to be defeated.

     

My first attempt is not promising.

       

I spend a little time grinding near Keldar. Jared and Rodell each reach Level 3. This raises their strength enough that they can wield long swords instead of short swords, and probably better armor, too, although Keldar doesn't sell any. Let me offer some praise for the economy. A lot of games tend to over-inflate it; but in Enchantasy, a gold piece is really worth something. Weapons and armor tend to cost around 10 gold pieces. Training costs 5. Potions are in the single digits, even for strong ones. I think that if nothing in your game costs 1 gold piece, there's no reason not to reduce all your fractions until the cheapest item does--and that's what this author did. There's a similar economy with hit points: enemies routinely have only 4 or 5, and the weakest attacks routinely do only 1.

       

While marching around Keldar looking for enemies, I notice for the first time (because I've been using roads until now) that overland travel is far more restricted in Enchantasy than most Ultima clones. You can't travel through most trees. The result is the feeling that you're traveling through a dungeon with outdoor textures. Maybe this is just true for the area around Keldar, though. I don't go far.

     

I find a grave at the end of a forest path.

      

At first, I think my grinding strategy is going to work, since you get a level every 100 experience points, which of course comes faster as you get stronger. But when I'm still unable to make a dent in the rats after several levels, I move on up the road to the king's castle, in whose dungeon I hope to find the king's stolen tiara. Again, I've forgotten something: the impassable lake of fire that greets you the moment you enter the dungeon. Until I deal with that, there's nothing to do here, and none of the NPCs in the castle have any hints.

   

Thus, we go up the road to Macino and our third objective: search the dungeon for the burglar Blaze and the jewelry he looted from the jewelry store. The entrance to Macino's dungeon is across the hallway from the closed jewelry shop.  Our first battle in the dungeon is with a ghost, a bat, and an insect horde, so that's a lot more promising.

        

A typical dungeon battle.

            

The dungeon ends up being simple enough that we can explore without mapping. There are maybe a dozen combats--we have to leave at one point for more arrows--and a few rooms with small treasures. As I noted in a previous entry, secret doors are indicated by subtle changes in the wall pattern. I found one in the castle, which revealed itself when I S)earched for it. In this dungeon, I find one secret door, but I don't have to search: I just walk right through it. It leads to a chamber with a teleportal. I've already determined that you need "telegems" to activate them (this is perhaps another Magic Candle influence). Lacking such gems, I leave it alone for now.

    

Another room produces a mystery. There's definitely a shift in the wall pattern, and when I cast the "See Secrets" spell (which I got, along with "Lightning Bolt," on my next level-up), it shows a couple of question marks in the squares with the new pattern. But I can't get anything to happen with them. I try looking, searching, opening, knocking, picking, using my pick-axe and shovel, but nothing works. 

    

Clearly, something is there.

       

I don't find Blaze anywhere else. I do find, behind a locked door, an unnamed thief NPC who will train "Lockpick." Thus, between Keldar and here, I have all the skills covered. Blaze is either behind that mysterious secret door that I can't figure out, or he went through the teleportal, or he was never here in the first place and one of the other rumors is true.

       

And he sells lockpicks.

       

Now I waste a bunch of time going all the way back to Tiernan because I thought I remembered that they sold leather armor. They only sell leather robes, though (which only mages can wear), and Chester isn't strong enough yet. While visiting a general store to restock on food, I find a possible solution to my "wall" problem above: dynamite. I buy a stick, planning to return later and try it out.

      

I'll just take some rations and . . . hey, what's that in case #6?

     

In the meantime, I do what I should have done at the beginning of this session and explore Tiernan. It's a small town, and I spoke with most of the NPCs last time. I find Boris in a house on the west side; when I knock at his door and say I'm looking for BORIS, he says, "That's me! Come on in!" He tells us that Harry's name was "Dan" before he changed it. Boris had the treasure map that Dan stole from the Duke, but he's since passed it on to his friend Duffy in Portsmith. (As a youth, Portsmouth, New Hampshire was my backyard. This spelling irks me, even though I know there are other places that use it.)

     

Back in the Macino dungeon, dynamite does the trick and opens the wall. (For fun, I save and first test it on a regular wall, but the game says, "The wall is too sturdy!") On the other side lie two locked treasure chests, one with a Gem of Life, one with a training pass. I apparently can use the training pass to let any character train a skill, as if he or she leveled up. The Gem of Life seems to be for resurrection. So the enterprise does not help me solve the quest of Blaze and the jewelry store burglary.

    

I blast open a wall.

     

I save the game and then use the telegem on the teleporter, winding up in a new dungeon somewhere. I explore cautiously. I fight one battle, not too hard, then find a chest with another telegem. A secret door leads to a regular door which I cannot open with my picks or keys (not even the skeleton key). I wonder if dynamite will work on that. Having accomplished nothing, I reload from before I entered the teleporter. 

     

I really thought that ball would raise one of my attributes.

            

We head back to Keldar to see how we fare against the cursed rats now. They still kill almost all my characters before I've killed the fourth of 10 rats. But I notice something different this time: enemies are not capable of walking across the bodies of slain characters. In this particular battle, I had lined up my three non-mages vertically in a hallway that was only three spaces tall. Once they're dead, none of them can cross the bodies to get Chester. It takes forever to kill them one at a time with my sling, but I do it, intending to then resurrect the dead characters. Then I discover that when a character dies, he loses all the experience gained towards the next level. I decide not to keep the victory and reload instead.

        

Blocking my foes with the bodies of my friends.

            

Time for a change of scenery! With a little help from the one-armed bandit, we sail to Hazlett and then from there to Portsmith. This is the first place I've been that is inaccessible by road from the first continent. Portsmith is a port city with ships to Hazlett, Aramon, and theoretically Shaaran, but that boat is apparently under repair. The city has a full set of services, including a training center and a guy behind a locked door who teaches "Lockpicking" without making me go through a dungeon.

      

The city's centerpiece is a library of 7 levels with dozens of bookcases and NPCs. I dutifully search all of the bookcases and find nothing. All the NPCs but one tell me to shush; they're reading. But there are also a lot of books open on tables, and they give me a bunch of game hints. In short:

     

• Pirates exist and are organized into some kind of society.
• There's a lot of gold in caves.
• About teleportals and telegems.

        

This is about two hours too late.

     

• Savallia may have been visited by aliens from other worlds.
• There are magical wells in the "far outreaches of Savallia" that boost attributes (some Might and Magic influence?).
• I should be able to find horses grazing in random fields. I've been wondering where to use the M)ount command. I keep expecting to find a stable in one of the cities. I guess you're meant to wrassle them yourself. 
• A grid of origin and destination ports for ships.

       

Let's just hope this is current.

      

• Legend says that a Baldric, wielding the Mystic Sword, slayed the Darklord. His resting place is a mystery.
• A note about the onyx stones that return you to the entrances to dungeons.
• Islands on the fringes of Savallia remain mostly unexplored and may have great treasures.
• Thieves who specialize in lockpicking may be found in the dungeons.
• Things about the Eternal Grimoire that I already knew.
• Many years ago, an explorer named Yeoman claimed to have been transported to an unknown land by a whale. 

   

There's a librarian named Kathleen who seems ready to answer questions about other subjects, but I can't find the right keywords.

   

In the tavern, I decide to see if the game supports intoxication. It doesn't appear so, but I did learn that if you buy enough rounds, the bartender stops trying to sell them to you and instead lets you engage him in normal conversation. Unfortunately, I don't get anything useful out of this one.

   

Elsewhere, a man wants me to free his nephew, Trent, from Duke Hawthorne's dungeon. Audrey, who's from a village on Hawthorne's island, is having trouble getting back home, as ships are no longer traveling there; she's heard about a pirate south of Dalia who will help.

          

Or I could spend 45 minutes at the casino.

     

Speaking of pirates, I find Duffy in a locked house, but he tells me that some pirates robbed him of the treasure map. When I ask about the pirates, he refers me to an authority on them, Vernon, who lives on an island south of Kadaar. He makes an allusion to whales, making me think that this is where the whale will take me if I can find the horn to summon it. My quests are starting to assemble into a kind of chain.

       

Knocking up another NPC.

      

The armory has leather suits, copper shields, and longbows. My fighter, thief, and ranger aren't strong enough for the shields, but they are for the other upgrades. While buying them, I run into the game's inventory limit, which is apparently 25 common items. Items like potions and onyx stones don't stack, so there's a disincentive to carrying too many of them. I sell some excess stuff to the wholesaler. I wonder if there's any benefit to carrying quest items like letters or books after you've already read them.

    

There's a mage's guild in town--I didn't know there were any more outside Keldar. The man in charge is named Howland. He tells us to inform him as soon as we've found the location of the Grimoire. In his locked apartments, we find a power sling, which has a weapon strength of 2 versus the regular sling's 1 (but versus the long bow's 7; I guess I won't be abandoning bows and arrows after all). That's a decent upgrade for Chester, who hasn't been contributing much to combat.

       

Absolutely, random person who I've never heard of! I'll just turn the all-powerful spellbook over to you.

      

Miscellaneous notes:

   

• I said I was going to spend a lot more time searching things in towns, and I did. I recovered a lot of keys, some food, the occasional potion, and a couple of onyx stones. Onyx stones return you to the entrances to dungeons.

    

It's also a bit of a pleonasm.

       

• On the way from Tiernan to Keldar, we found a house occupied by a "Translator," who said he'd translate any document for 5 gold pieces. This may be an alternative to a high "Languages" skill.

• Some beds are depicted as permanently occupied. If you try to speak with the sleepers, they just say "Zzzzzz" to all your questions. I don't think there's any way to wake them up.

• As per the last session, I supplemented my combat-related earnings with the occasional visit to a casino, where I could reliably make about 30 gold in 5 minutes.  

• Most NPCs remember if they've spoken to you before, and their dialogue changes in small ways to reflect that. 

      

Well, get one, you moocher.

      

• One of the fountains in the castle courtyard is a healing fountain.

• Walking up to windows shows you the insides of structures. 

        

Cool.

    

• Fleeing combat is relatively easy. Any character can initiate it by hitting R)un. You get kicked back to the previous square. If it's a random wilderness combat, you successfully skip the battle, but if it's a fixed dungeon combat, it just begins again when you re-enter the same square.

            

Do you have to rub it in?

      

So I wrap up this session not having accomplished very much, but I'm about to go away for a few days, and I need to write about this session before I forget. The game's AOL page did warn that it's a 200+ hour game. Even accounting for hyperbole, I'm guessing we're looking at something close to the 33 hours it took me to win Antepenult last year than to the quick game time of most Ultima clones. Still enjoying it, though.

    

Time so far: 10 hours