Phantasy Star: Polar Exploration

 

I'm not a very good time manager.

    

Let's bring back a feature that I introduced here but never continued.

   

Overview of this session

   

• Flew to Dezoris and explored a lot of caves and the towns of Skure and Twintown.
• Learned I needed to find a Laconian Sword, Shield, Axe, and Armor.
• Bought an Ice Digger but never used it.
• Found the Laconian Armor in some compound.
• Explored the Corona Tower and exchanged my Amber Eye for an Eclipse Torch.
• Back on Palma, found the flute, then forgot about it.
• Found the hovercraft in Bortevo, used it to explore some islands.
• Found the Laconian Sword.
• Found the island town of Drasgow, explored a dungeon, bought a Gas Shield.
• Used the Gas Shield on Motavia to get to the town of Sopia. Learned about a hermit and the Mirror Shield.
• Found the Mirror Shield.
• Noah defeated a monk named Tarzimal in combat and got a FRD Mantle or FRAD Mantle.
• Went to the Tower of Medusa, defeated her, got the Laconian Axe.

    

Dezoris

 

The party begins our fourth entry a little rudderless. We know we need to find and defeat Lassic, but we don't know where he is or otherwise have clear guidance for the next step. We only know what's open to us. Our two major paths are to try to find a hovercraft on Palma, which theoretically should open more of Palma and Motavia for exploration, or go to the third planet, Dezoris.

     

Is the game trying to get me to go somewhere?

      

I choose the second option, as we happen to be next to our spaceship anyway. We blast off and arrive after a short flight. The manual map suggests that Dezoris consists of a bunch of mountains and canyons, with only a couple of towns and a lot of caves. As we land, we see the ground is covered in ice and snow.

   

The ship is supposed to take us to a city called Skure, but the "city" has only one thing in it: the entrance to a cave. We enter, follow a linear passage in which we meet a new enemy with an amusing name . . .

       

   

. . . and then come out in an underground city. I guess this must be the real Skure.

        

If it's underground, how do trees and grass grow? If it's not, where is the snow?

    

We find:

     

• The armory sells a wand, a laser gun, and a glove. We have just enough money for all three. The glove serves as a "shield" for Myau; the wand is supposedly the best weapon Noah can use. I don't know if the laser gun is better for Odin than the light saber. I guess it depends on how many enemies we're facing.

     

I'm still not sure why we're bringing a cat into battle.

      

• "Dezoris is a world of ice." I think I could have figured that out.

• "There are places in the mountains where the ice is soft and impassable to those on foot." Another need for the hovercraft? 

• "The Altiplano Plateau is at the top of the Ice Mountain." And there are Laerma Trees there, but I don't know what I need them for.

• "Arms made of Laconia conceal holy power. Lassic fears this power and has been running and hiding in different places in the planets of the Algol system." I guess I'll have to find some. Or I could smash my pot over his head.

• "The Dead Guaron Morgue have been called back to life! What fear!" How is a morgue "called back to life?" 

• "An eclipse occurs on this planet once every hundred years. A torch lit during an eclipse is called an 'eclipse torch' and is regarded as holy by the Dezorians." An American torch or a British torch? Because one is going to be a lot easier to keep in a backpack.

• "Most emigrants from Palma settle here."  

     

But are their children citizens?

    

• "I don't know a lot about this planet, but word has it that there is a town of native Dezorians in the far reaches of the mountains."

• "If you really want to kill Lassic, you had best find a sword, axe, shield, [and] armor made of Laconia." Okay, that's more of a quest than I had 10 minutes ago, though I don't see why more than one of those things is necessary.

     

The only way out is the way we came in. We hit the tundra for a little while, looking for other things in the area, but the only place not blocked by mountains is a cave to the south. Before checking it out, I'm curious what will happen if I use a "Fly" spell to teleport to the last place I visited a church, in Uzo. It turns out not only does "Fly" work across planets, but The Luveno is waiting when we arrive.

   

Knowing that I have the option to warp to safety when I feel like it, I enter the cave. We get attacked by Dezorians a few times, which look like "evilheads," which look like horror versions of the Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz. Most of the enemies that attack us are surprisingly weak given that you have to have completed a decent portion of the game to get here, but there are occasional white dragons, wyverns, and serpents.

      

Sorry to kill you, man. It's your planet.

    

After a brief single level, the cave spits us out into a hollow with another cave entrance. We take it. The same thing happens again. We exit our third cave in a much bigger area. I follow the right wall, take another cave entrance, and emerge in a small area with another town.

     

From one cave to another.

    

As with Skure, we have to travel through a brief tunnel before we reach the town itself, underground. It's called "Twintown," I guess because it has two major sections connected by a narrow passage. Its residents are native Dezorians. We find:

   

West Side:

• "The neighboring village are all liars! Don't listen to them!" Oh, I know this logic puzzle. 

• "To ze west of ze Corona Tower is ze Dezoris Cave. Our friends are in zere. Give zem our best, OK?" And from this moment, I hear everything else on Dezoris in a French accent.

• "Ze Corona Tower stands on ze far side of the mountain to ze north of zis village."

• "Laerma Trees grow ze Laerma berries. Zose berries are our most important food, but it shrivels up after a few moments unless it is put in Laconian pot." At least I know now what the pot is for.  

• "We of zis town hate Palmans."

      

Well, excuse me.

    

• "Do you know what Aeroprism is?" NO. "It lets you see another world."  

       

Moving between the sides of town.

  

East Side:

• "This town welcomes all Palmans. Yes, indeed, we do."

• "If you use a crystal in front of a Laerma Tree, it will become, yes, a Laerma Nut. Yes, indeed." 

• "Blue Laerma Nuts used in dyes. Yes, they are, indeed."

• "There is a spring of life in the Corona Tower. There is, yes."

• "You can warp from the 10th level of the dungeon under Dezoris, yes." 

• "The neighboring village are all liars! Don't listen to them!"

   

So I'm going to assume that one side is, in fact, all liars. Something about the way the east siders all qualify their statements makes me suspect it's them, but I'll be on the lookout for both possibilities. 

   

Here's an oddly-named foe.

    

There are two second-hand shops, one of which sells an Ice Digger for 12,000. After selling my excess stuff, I have 9,521. I'm not sure I want to take the time to come back here if I can help it, so I pop back into the dungeon that brought me here for some grinding.

   

You've seen me stop to grind in a number of places. Because this is a console game, which allows me certain exceptions from my normal rules, I've been doing it by putting the emulator in "turbo" mode, which allows me to just pound the "A" button to execute attacks in rapid succession. I time it, and a battle with 3 werebats at normal speed takes 20 seconds, including opening the chest afterwards, while in "turbo" mode, it takes 2. It's also easier to grind in dungeons because you just have to spin in place instead of having to walk back and forth outdoors. And this is the perfect place since there's a healer just outside the dungeon entrance.

       

Pausing to restore hit points.

    

So it's not more than 10 minutes before I have plenty of money—I actually overshot it by a few thousand. In a few moments, I have my Ice Digger, and I'm headed back out to the tundra. The Ice Digger turns out to be another vehicle, one with rotating grinding things (there's got to be a word for them) in front. It does not allow me to just plow through regular mountains.

     

I should be able to tear apart this town.

    

I take the cave network back to the large area and continue exploring along the right wall. Let me tell you something that starts to get annoying. Almost every enemy drops a flashlight, which the party picks up automatically and then has to manually drop from the inventory. Why not give the player the option to take something or not? 

    

One of the unique enemies here.

    

After a long trip, we come to some kind of compound tucked in the mountains. A Dezorian stops us as we enter: "What have you come for? Do you intend some mischief?"

     

A few minutes later, we walk into a pit trap and get dumped down to the next level. I have Myau cast "Exit" to take us outside, return to the same area, and see if the "TRAP" spell works in such situations, since there doesn't seem to be any way to use it to disarm chest traps. It does work. This comes in handy later when we encounter another one, reload, disarm it, and find a treasure chest with Laconian Armor on the other side. I give it to Odin, for whom I'm now glad I didn't pay 15,000 mesetas for the diamond armor.

      

I wasn't really expecting that my armor would talk much.

      

Feeling like what started as a side trip has been seriously worth it, we continue circling the land. Another small cave takes us to another large, open area, and from there to another compound. I think this might be the Corona Tower we previously heard about, as there are multiple levels. On the first, we run into several Dezorian NPCs, one of whom says, "Lassic lives in fear of the crystal possessed by the soothsayer named Damor. There is something special about it, without a doubt."

      

If we're lucky, there's beer in here.

    

The enemies are very difficult, including red dragons; titans; this tall, crystal sentinel-looking guy inexplicably named "Amundsen"; and the most badass-looking "centaur" I've ever seen in an RPG. I start running low on hit points and spell points, and I need to save enough to EXIT out of here and FLY home. I stop opening treasure chests halfway through the tower. 

     

I would love to know the backstory here.

Why not cover your hooves in armor, too?

    

We finally make it to the fourth or fifth floor and to the end of a long, winding corridor. Through a locked door, we find a Dezorian who wants to sell us an Eclipse Torch in exchange for our Amber Eye. I really don't want to have to come back here, so hoping that I don't need the Amber Eye somewhere else, I make the trade and EXIT back to the frosted landscape. I never found a place to exit onto this Altiplano Plateau.

       

I have no idea what this is for.

   

With our little life remaining, we keep exploring and come to yet another cave. A Dezorian meets us inside: "Be careful up ahead. At the break in the road, go to the left!" I do my best, but it's clear this is going to be a long dungeon, and I don't have the strength for it. I guess it didn't take me that long to get here. I can come back. I cast FLY and return to Uzo for healing and my ship, annoyed that I never found a place to use the Ice Digger.

 

Palma

     

All right, the hovercraft is supposed to be back in Bortevo, which I'm pretty sure I thoroughly searched looking for the stupid robot. The first thing we do is search an obvious place in Gothic for the flute and find it. Then we make the long walk along the coast and through the lava to Bortevo. By the time I get there, I would be willing to pay real money to ignore random combats.

      

(After finding the flute, I forget about it until near the end of the session. If used in combat, it puts an enemy to sleep for a round. I'd use it in an emergency.)

     

The flute enchants a reaper.

   

The hovercraft is literally in the first house I search.

      

Where was it last time I was here? A hovercraft is pretty hard to hide.

     

I'm not sure where to go with it, but I head outside to the beach, activate it, and start looking for any land masses I haven't seen before. It became clear on Dezoris that the maps in the manual aren't complete; or, rather, there are parts of them occluded by clouds. I focus on those areas. It would be nice if you couldn't get attacked while on the water, or while in any vehicle, but alas this is not the case.

         

Here I am, your special island.

       

I find and enter a pyramid-shaped dungeon on an island. This turns out to be the largest dungeon in the game so far, at least five levels, but with multiple interconnected sections and lots of pit traps. The enemies aren't too hard at first, but the traps in the chests that they drop keep doing massive damage. I eventually stop opening them. I do not stop opening chests that I find at the ends of corridors, as I figure they might have quest items. For a while, all I find are small amounts of money and burgers.

    

A rare battle in which I bother to use spells.

     

By the time I get to the fifth floor, which at the time I don't know is the final one, enemies are a lot harder, especially this "marauder" who has a spell that halves everyone's hit points. I hate fleeing from enemies because when it doesn't work (which is often), they get a free round of attacks. Fortunately, I persist, because when I reach the final room (again, after a long, winding hallway) and defeat a red dragon, I find a Laconian Sword. I give it to Alis, replacing her light saber.

     

Alis's loadout.

    

After a trip to Scion to heal, we jump back in the hovercraft to continue exploring the seas. It helps that the world wraps. I don't think there's anything to find in the rivers between islands, so I just have to explore the areas on the "outside" by bouncing between known points. Before long, I find an island in the southeast part of the map. It looks like a little town on a platform.

    

Beautiful sunrises and sunsets, sucks during a hurricane.

    

It is a town, it turns out, though not a big one. It's called Drasgow.

   

• "Long ago, I saw a giant rock float through the sky." Cool story, bro.

• "There is a magic sword in a tower on a forgotten island." Not anymore!

• "The top of the hill called Baya Malay is always hidden by clouds. Something must be up there!" I'm not even sure where that is.

• "You are daring to have found your way here even though the sea lanes are closed to ships." 

    

And there's a small dungeon, one level, no monsters. When I enter, an NPC says: "I hear they sell a Gas Shield here, but I don't know where the shop is! What a mess!" Confusing things, there's a guy who pretends to run a shop but then just says he was "pulling my leg."

     

What is it with stores in dungeons?

     

But there is a real shop, where a guy sells us a Gas Shield for 1,000 mesetas. I think I remember hearing about some place that had poisonous gas, but I'll have to go back through my notes.

       

We still have more to do on Palma. Now that it's easy to get around with the hovercraft, I return to the starting area, go north of Scion, and enter the walled compound with the locked door. It won't open to our Dungeon Key, but it does open to the "Open" spell. It appears to be some kind of prison. There are NPCs in cells along the walls:

       

• "All who face Lassic lose their souls to his magic!"  

• A Dezorian: "Have you found the armor in Guaron?" YES. "Well, aren't you something?"

• "It's foolish to try to get Lassic!"

• "Get me out of here? But it's in vain." 

• "Lassic is gonna sacrifice us! Agh!"

    

I don't know if she means metaphorically.

    

• "There is a tower at the top of Baya Malay. Something secret is hidden at the top of the tower!"

• "There are guards up ahead!" 

       

There are guards up ahead. They demand to see my Roadpass. When I hand it over, they declare it a fake and toss me in "jail," where an NPC tells me of a "way out." I look around and find a door that takes me back to the main entrance. So I guess that's out until I find a "real" Roadpass.

 

At least he's cheerful about it.

     

Motavia

I can't find any other new locations on Palma, so we FLY to Motavia. Motavia doesn't have an ocean so much as a lake. We take the hovercraft out to the middle of it and find an island with a single ant lion, but there's nothing special about that ant lion. We try talking to it, which doesn't work, kill it, and search its chest, but only get 8 mesetas.

       

This looks important.

   

Continuing our explorations, we find the gas field to the west of the lake. There is, inexplicably, a town in the middle of it. According to the first NPC we meet, it is called Sopia.

   

• "Before Lassic came to power, even our town had plenty." 

• "I am the head of this town. Because of the cloud of gas, we are cut off from other towns. We are therefore very poor. Will you donate 400 mesetas?" I'm not sure this guy understands how economies work, but I give him the money. "Thank you! According to our legends, the very shield Perseus used to overcome Medusa is buried on the small island in the middle of a lake."

     

Reaching the city through poisonous gas.

     

• "Hi, I'm Miki! Do you like SEGA games!" NO, they always find ways of breaking my immersion. "I can't believe it. If you don't like the game, why have you played so far?!" SEGA did not anticipate a blog that keeps track of win/loss statistics.

• There's a guy who wants a cola, which I happen to have. When I give it to him, all he says is, "Thanks! Come again!"

• "There is a monk named Tajim in the mountains to the south of the lake." That's actually interesting intelligence. 

• "I've heard that Palma is a beautiful planet. Is that true?" YES. "I'd like to go visiting someday."

      

With our new information, we took the hovercraft back to the island and searched cacti until I found the Mirror Shield. Just to confirm, I reload an earlier save and search the same cactus before visiting Sopia, and of course it's not there. I reflect that the information about the Mirror Shield was the only reason to go to Sopia, which in turn was the only reason to visit Drasgow. A CRPG like Ultima IV would have had the same chain of clues but also would have allowed the player to say, "Hey, there must be something special about that island," and search for it without the prompts. Which is the better approach? Discuss.

     

If I recall correctly, Perseus just used his actual shield, which he had polished.

     

The manual says the Mirror Shield should go to Odin, recommending the forthcoming Laconian Shield for Alis. I don't know if I mentioned this before, but the manual has a paragraph about literally every item you find in the game, including its statistics. This is helpful, but it also makes the game seem smaller, more linear, and more predictable. Anyway, at this point, there are only three items that I haven't found. The "FRD Mantle," the Laconian Shield, and the Laconian Axe. I wonder what "FRD" stands for. Usually, items abbreviated in the game are spelled out properly in the manual, but here the manual uses this abbreviation. Is it possible that the mantle is fried?

    

The issue becomes even more confusing when we find it. Chasing the "monk" rumor, we hunt around until we find a box canyon we've never explored, follow it to the end, and find ourselves in a three-level dungeon that takes about 45 minutes to explore. On its top level, we meet a wizard named Tarzimal who by his dialogue is Noah's master. He says Noah must pass his final test: "We will duel!"

   

Noah has to fight alone in the subsequent combat, which isn't difficult. Noah isn't a great melee attacker, so I have him use offensive spells. Once he's defeated, Tarzimal says: "You have become much stronger. You are well prepared. I'll give you a Frad Mantle as a gift. It protects you from danger!" I can't find "Frad" in any dictionary or acronym finder, so who knows.

      

The problem with using ALL CAPS is that I don't know if it's a FRAD Mantle or a Frad Mantle.

      

And Palma Again

At some point during all of this, I realize that I never finished the Medusa Tower that I started back on Palma, which I suppose is a good thing if I didn't have the Mirror Shield. 

   

The Medusa Tower is huge. Like all dungeons in the game, I get through it by just following the right wall, but it feels like I go up and down a lot more than makes sense. Anyway, after an hour or so of exploration and combat, I meet Medusa at the top of the tower. The Mirror Shield is never specifically mentioned or invoked, and we defeat her in regular combat. Maybe if we hadn't had the shield, she would have killed us instantly or something. On her body, we find the Laconian Axe.

    

I'll bet we were supposed to USE the Mirror Shield to turn her to stone.

   

Didn't someone say this game was short? I had really hoped to push to the end this time, but I'm out of steam. At this point, I've explored everything I can think of on Palma and Motavia, barring that compound where I need something to pass the guards. Still, with most of Dezoris already explored, I feel like I must be close. Everyone is Level 25 if that's any indicator.

   

Time so far: 20 hours

 

Game 545: Teldor (1989)

This sounds like a command you would have typed to access a BBS service.

        

Teldor

Germany
Efchen Systems (developer and publisher)
Released in 1989 for the Commodore 64

Date Started: 13 March 2025

Date Ended: 14 March 2025

Total Hours: 3

Difficulty: Easy (2.0/5)
Final Rating: (to come later)

Ranking at time of posting: (to come later)  

      

Here's our second German game in a row that had to be rescued from some fairly deep depths (thanks to Busca and LanHawk), and yet I found it surprisingly competent. Its mechanics are a bit simplistic, but it was inexpensive and short, and it seems to take its primary inspiration from Phantasie, maybe a little from Questron, which is a nice departure from the usual Ultima clones.

    

I couldn't find any documentation, but we can infer from plot developments that the game takes place on the world of Teldor and that the player's job is to end a demonic invasion that has flooded the land with monsters. Character creation consists of giving the character a name and then rolling for strength (1-5) and skill (1-30). It doesn't take many re-rolls to get near-maximum values in both attributes. All characters start with 50 gold, no weapons, and no armor, and at Level 1 with 100 hit points. 

      

The brief character creation process.

       

The game world consists of a single screen with three towns and two caves (one with two exits). You start in the southeast quadrant, near the town of Barad-Beleg, which I'm guessing means "Beleg's Tower" in Tolkien elvish. The city sells knives, axes, short swords, and leather armor. (You have enough opening gold for a knife or leather but not both.) It is also the only place with a healer who will fully restore hit points.

     

The game begins.

         

Monsters attack as you roam the forests and plains. Combat is very basic; your only options are to attack or flee. Fleeing always works, although about 25% of the time you take a small hit point loss. There really isn't any reason to flee at the beginning of the game, however, since the kobolds, gnomes, and dwarves that you face barely do any damage. After about 10 battles, I reached Level 2, which confers an extra 100 hit points, plus the ability to buy either +1 strength or +3 skill at the magic shops in the other two towns.

    

Fighting a giant spider. There are no monster graphics.

   

The interface is relatively easy to master. Movement is with the [;'/ cluster; the only other commands that work in the exploration window are I)nventory and Q)uit and save (which doesn't quit, only saves), plus A)ttack and F)lee when you meet monsters. Everything else is menu-driven. There is no sound.

   

Eventually, I was strong enough to make it up to the second city, north of the mountain range. Ar-Aelin sells long swords, bows, and chainmail, in addition to torches that you need to enter the cave.

   

As I continued to grind for these improved items, I found combat getting harder. As you level up, new enemies get added to the battlefield, though the old ones never go away, which I prefer. By Level 3, you're fighting orcs, thieves, skeletons, and sorcerers. By Level 5, you've got trolls and giants. By Level 10, which I think is the last level that new enemies appear, you're facing dragons, demons, basilisks, and vampires. None of these enemies have any special attacks or defenses, but the higher-level ones hit a lot harder. I started to lose more money in healing than I was making in victories, and I learned to flee from the battles that were likely to give me trouble.

     

Combat in the dungeon.

     

Water and mountains block access to the west side of the continent and the third city, so you have to go through a mountain passage. Things become more interesting when you do. This is the part of the game that feels most like Phantasie, with a dungeon that reveals itself bit by bit as you explore, and dots representing special encounters, messages, or choices. Some of the messages and encounters include:

 

• "You are in a cave beneath the long mountains. The cave system looks as if it were man-made."

• "Here is a prison cell. There is an old skeleton on the floor. What do you want to do?" You have options to search or leave. This encounter appears twice in the dungeon; in one, the skeleton comes to life and attacks; in the other, you get a little gold.

     

I enjoy little encounters like this.

    

• "A basilisk says: for 500 gold I will tell you a secret." If you pay, the secret turns out to be: "I heard there was a secret door." This refers to one illusory wall space in the dungeon, which you must find if you want to exit.

   

Finding an illusory wall.

    

• "Read the seven letters of the name from top to bottom."

• "Here you can see giants and vampires in camps."

            

Note the arrangement of letters.

     

Those last two clues come together in the most important encounter in the dungeon, where a demon asks you to give him his master's name. If you're wrong, you end up fighting the demon. But if you follow the first word in the left column for that last message, the letters spell out HERUVAL. I figured it out because no other message received in the dungeon made a sensible name. They all had too many vowels or not enough. Giving that name to the demon nets you 1,000 gold pieces.

    

That was generous. I would have settled for not dying.

   

You have to budget your hit points carefully in the dungeon, fleeing from tough encounters, because you're a long way from the only place that heals you. On the other hand, every time you level up, you get another 100 hit points.

     

After I exited the dungeon on the west side of the map, I visited the third city, Durlad, which sells magic wands (2500 gold) and elfin mail (5000 gold), plus ropes. Ropes allow you to cross mountains, so you can walk back to the beginning and visit Barad-Beleg for healing without having to go through the dungeon.

    

Durlad sells the best armor in the game.

     

The rope also gets you to the final dungeon in the northwest. An early message says: "You're finally in Heruval's dungeon. You sense evil all around you." The enemies are very hard in this dungeon—lots of demons and dragons—and the place is full of secret doors. At one point, you meet a "gigantic demon" blocking the way. After you waste a lot of hit points killing him, you realize there's just a dead end behind him, and the real way forward is through illusory walls.

   

I got sick of trying to grind for the final equipment, and I ended up exploring this dungeon too early. Heruval's chamber has a battle literally every step. When I finally ran into Heruval, he swatted away my hit points in three rounds. As I sighed and settled in for a long session of grinding, I realized that dungeons respawn after you leave, so the encounter where you get 1,000 gold is repeatable. By farming that, I got enough money for the best equipment right about the same time I hit the maximum level of 20.

      

I meet Heruval.

       

Once you have the elfin mail, hardly anybody can even touch you. I made my way to Heruval again and defeated him in half a dozen rounds. He gloated: "So you have defeated me. But that will do you no good, for you are imprisoned here! The devil be with you!"

     

My endgame character.

   

A few steps later, the meaning of his words became clear: "'Welcome! I have granted Heruval's wish. Here I am!' Before you stands the devil himself!"

      

Beating the devil.

      

The devil has about 3,000 hit points against the character maximum of 2,000, but with the best equipment, his go faster. I was able to defeat him with a few hundred hit points to spare. "'For defeating me, you may use the exit! But remember, I am immortal, unlike Heruval.' The devil disappears, snorting with rage."

   

You find a key after this battle, but the passage ends without a door. The game says that you think, "That devious devil." However, there's another illusory wall. Taking it reveals the endgame text.

  

The winning screen.

  

This is translated as:

    

The rock face before your eyes suddenly blur, and you feel dizzy. You feel as if you were first floating and then flying. You lose consciousness. Then suddenly you think you're floating on clouds. Below you, you recognize your homeland, the land of Teldor. Trees are blooming everywhere, and people are celebrating in the meadows. The cave entrance to Heruval's dungeon is blocked. You feel as if a voice is speaking to you!

"As you can see, you have freed Teldor from evil. The people will be eternally grateful to you. However, in Hell, the devil is loose! The one you defeated spews venom and bile over your victory. Volcanic eruptions are taking place on the surface, and new islands are forming. Beware of the devil's wrath! But now return to your homeland and live in peace on Teldor!"

      

Teldor earns a 19 on the GIMLET, nothing higher than a 3, but in many ways, this is a solid ten-dollar, three-hour game. When I was a kid, I would have gladly played it on a rainy Sunday. My imagination would have filled in the gaps, and I would have somehow turned it into a character prologue for the next game that I really wanted to play but couldn't yet afford.

    

Efchen Systems seems to have been a sole proprietorship of Martin Friedrich of Erlangen, Bavaria. He billed himself as "Sir Efchen, Knight of Elvendar" on some old discussion boards. I can't find him or Efchen attached to any games other than the three Teldor titles. Some web sites list them all as 1989 games, but I don't think that's the case. Friedrich sold the games for 10 DM (about $10 today) by advertising in magazines like Power Play, and the first ads for Teldor II don't show up until 1990. These ads only list Teldor and Teldor II, which doesn't make sense if Teldor III was already available. I can't find any ads that even mention the third game, but I'm guessing Teldor II is 1990 and Teldor III is around 1992. I previewed them a bit. Teldor II: Die Rache des Teufels ("The Devil's Revenge") offers a few interface improvements and small, explorable towns instead of menu towns, but otherwise seems largely the same type of game. Teldor III: Der Weg Zurück ("The Way Back") has the same graphics but offers a spell system and a multi-screen game world. I'll give them both a try in time.

  

Phantasy Star: Banallure

  

Me when I'm awakened at 03:00 by a crash in the dining room.

     

When I wrapped up last time, Alis had assembled her team and was trying to act on Noah's recommendation to find Dr. Luveno in the Gothic Forest. He had directed us to a manhole in the Palma spaceport, which took us to a dungeon, which took us to another continent. We found our way to a partly-ruined city which was called, groan, "Gothic"; hence, the Gothic Forest. All right, people, in the comments we have to come up with a term for when an RPG name originally sounds intriguing but turns out to be boringly literal. Examples: The Lords of Midnight takes place in a land called "Midnight." Perihelion takes place on a planet called "Perihelion." The Gothic Forest is a forest around the city of Gothic. I propose banallure or banalluring, but I'm open to other suggestions.

    

I started to explore a dungeon that an NPC later told me was called the Tower of Medusa. It's a bit too hard, and since I don't have any reason to be here in the first place (Luveno is supposedly in a prison called Triada), I give it up after a while.

    

Triada is south of Gothic, so I poke around the mountains until I find another facility. A robotcop takes my Roadpass shortly after I enter. The dungeon has no enemies, just NPCs in individual cells, some of which I have to open with my dungeon key. Some of them want cola to talk to me, just like the citizens of Gothic. What is with the cola shortage around here?

    

• "The tower deep in the Gothic Mountains is known as Medusa's Tower." I guess that's why she disappeared from the cave where I found Odin.

• "Spider monsters are actually very intelligent." I guess maybe I should try chatting with them in combat. More importantly, this clue sets up:

• "Polymeteral will dissolve all materials except for Laconia." This is spoken by a giant spider, no special spell needed or anything.

     

Why do your brethren just attack me?

     

• "I've got a friend in Bortevo. He's probably having a hard time because of the lava. Why not visit him?" Because of the lava, maybe?

• "On the far side of the mountain lies a pool of molten lava created by a volcanic eruption."

• "Do you know the robot Hapsby?" NO. "It's a robot made of Laconia, but it has been abandoned somewhere as being useless."

    

We find Luveno in one of the cells. "If you've come for help, you had best forget it. Leave!" he shouts. I leave, but I accidentally re-enter his chamber immediately because I'm always forgetting that the game doesn't spin the party around to face the other direction when it exits an encounter. In this case, it's fortunate, because he has something else to say on my second visit: "You want me to build a spaceship for you? Not a chance! I can't accept such responsibility." I actually did not know that I wanted him to build a spaceship. I guess it would help.

      

But for a subsequent mistake, my journey may have ended here.

    

On a third visit, he agrees to help: "I will go to Gothic Village nearby to make preparations. Come then. Do not waste worry on me." Isn't he in prison because he blew up Gothic Village? How can he just leave? Is imprisonment voluntary in this universe?

     

Back in the village, Dr. Luveno wants us to fetch his assistant, "likely hiding in the underground passage." We found him last time; he just told us to go away. We visit him and he agrees to help Dr. Luveno without any problems.

   

Now Dr. Luveno wants 1,200 mesetas to build the spaceship that we didn't explicitly ask him for in the first place. Still, it's less money than my last sword cost, so I guess it's worth it. He tells us it's going to "take time" to build, but we're wise to that trick by now. We just return to his house multiple times until he tells us The Luveno (I would think that I get to name it) is ready.

    

Joke's on you. We would have paid triple that figure.

     

"But you cannot fly a spaceship!" he drops on us. "You must find a robot named Hapsby. He can fly a spaceship." In the prison, we learned that Hapsby had been junked. I have no idea where to find him. I check around Gothic again, but there's no sign of him.

    

I start exploring the surrounding area. There's no way to go north. A southern route, ignoring the mountains, leads to the coast, which bends west and then north. We come to a large field of red, which is the pool of lava we heard about in Triada. I wonder how I'm supposed to get through it, and it turns out (unless I missed something) that the answer is: just walk through it. We take some damage, but not as much as we ought to take from lava. I don't even have to heal.

    

Let's just wade right into it.

       

The lava field spits us out near a dilapidated town and a cave. An NPC tells us that we're in Bortevo. The volcanic eruption has clearly had an influence on the place, as the buildings all look burned and crumbling, and the NPCs are all wrapped in shrouds. Many of the buildings have piles of metal in them, and one of the NPCs tells me: "In this pile of junk, somewhere, there is s'pposed to be a usable robot, but you know how rumors be." 

      

You should have built little round metal domes, like we do on Palma.

       

I find nothing else, so I try the cave. It turns out to be a passage to the northern continent. An NPC in the middle of it tells us: "Polymeteral is for sale in Abion." (Are they going for "metal" or "material"?) An NPC in Triada told us that polymeteral dissolves everything except Laconia, and someone else told us that the robot is made of Laconia, so I assume I'm supposed to find polymeteral and use it on one of those piles of junk to reveal the robot. It feels like a good prybar should have gotten us there, too.

    

I should perhaps note that all of these wanderings have been accompanied by copious battles, many of them with nicely-drawn and animated monsters like skeletons, ghouls, sphinxes, vampires, shellfish, octopuses, and giants. I've stopped really even noticing them, partly because none of them have any special attacks. I just pound the primary attack button, which by default selects "attack," and watch episodes of Bosch in another window while the combat executes. (Occasionally, I have to heal a character, more often because a chest is trapped than because the enemies hit very hard.) It's just so repetitive and boring and frequent that I can't imagine any player really takes the time to invest in "tactics." 

   

One of the tougher monsters in this area.

    

I hit a few dead ends trying to find a way out of here. Eventually, I notice a break in a rock wall and sidle through it. The coastline eventually leads us to another city, but it's not Albion; it's some place called Loar. Here:

   

• An armory sells heat guns, an upgrade from Odin's needlegun, and silver fangs, an upgrade from Myau's iron fang.

• "Do you know about Laerma trees?" NO. "They grow on the altiplano plateau on the planet Dezoris." Noted.

    

Let me guess. It's named after a guy named Bob Altiplano.

    

• "There is a village called Abion on the western edge on this island." Yes, that's what I'm looking for.

• "Have you heard of a gem called 'The Amber Eye'? Some say the Casba Dragon has one." Again, noted. I can't wait to find out what the Casba Dragon is. 

• "You are going to try to kill Lassic, I hear. That's great!" Does everyone know about our secret mission?

• "I have heard that a certain crystal will block evil magic." The Amber Eye, maybe? 

      

We're pretty low on health, so we welcome the presence of a hospital, even though we don't usually pay for healing.

   

Northwest of Loar is Abion. There:

   

• The second-hand store sells magic lamps (which I already have) and magic hats, which supposedly let us understand the language of monsters. That's the third thing the game offers to talk to monsters, yet it hasn't worked for me once so far.

• The food store, of all places, sells polymeteral for 1,600 mesetas.

    

We probably don't want to mix it up with cola.

    

• The armory sells laser shields. Alis, Odin, and Noah can equip them. I don't have enough money for all three.

• "Some cats, if they eat a certain type of nut, they become huge and can fly. It's really very weird." I agree.

    

Some people, when they eat a certain type of nut, think they see giant flying cats.

    

• "A strange man came to this town. He seems to be performing animal experiments. He brought a large pot or something."

• "I'd like to travel in outer space."

   

The town has a cave in it, so we check it out. It takes us to an island in the center of the town. The island has a building. We enter, and a guy in a weird suit immediately says, "Hey, bring that cat over here!" For some reason, I say, "Yes." The game immediately reports the result: "Myau died." The man, apparently not realizing that he's already killed Myau, gloats, "Oohh, ha, ha! The cat will die!"

      

At least it spared us a graphic depiction.

   

We then launch into combat with "Dr. Mad," who kills the rest of us.

    

I probably do not need to do what I do next, which is spend about an hour grinding for both money and experience. I think that with the right combination of spells, I could have defeated him the first time. Plus, I had no particular reason to kill any "Dr. Mad." But this place is so out of the way that I didn't want to have to go through the trouble of returning, either to kill this guy or to buy laser shields. So I fight enemies until I can do the latter.

    

I actually saved up enough for three laser shields and diamond armor.

    

I take this time to experiment with the new spells I've been earning along the way. Each character has a different selection of spells that they learn in a different order (Odin doesn't learn any). Here's my report:

     

• HEAL (A/2): Heals for 20 hit points, both in and out of combat. All healing spells are useful.

• BYE (A/2): Ends combat. Would be useful for no-win situations, but it's too easy to save and reload to worry about escaping individual battles.

• CHAT (A/2): Supposedly talks to monsters. I said above that I had never gotten it to work, but late in this session, I did get it to work on a tarantula. He gave me this hint:

   

Well, we're a spacefaring race.

      

• TRAP (M/3): Disarms traps? You don't really have a chance to cast it after battle, so I'm not sure how it works.

• FIRE (AN/4): Shoots two fireballs; each does about 8 damage. They sometimes hit one enemy, sometimes two different ones. A physical attack usually does more.

    

Alis's FIRE spell nails a tree that is apparently already dead.

    

• EXIT (MN/4): Exits the dungeon. I should have been using this more often instead of finding my way out.

• OPEN (N/4): Unlocks magically-locked doors. I haven't found any yet.  

• ROPE (A/4): Ties an enemy up for at least a round. Enemy has a chance of escaping it each round. I've found it very useful when I'm only facing one enemy. 

• TELE (N/4): Also supposedly lets you talk to monsters. I'm not sure what the difference is between it and CHAT.

• TERR (M/4): Terrifies an enemy and makes it ineffective. Useful, I think it fails a lot.

• CURE (MN/6): Heals for 80 points, both in and out of combat. Invaluable.

• FLY (A/8):  Takes you back to the last church you visited. I wish it always just took you back to Camineet instead. Not useful if you don't remember where you last visited a church.

• HELP (M/10): The only buffing spell, it raises an ally's combat effectiveness.

• PROT (N/10): Protection. I'm not sure how it differs from WALL.

• WALL (M/10): Creates a magic wall.  See above.

• RISE (N/12): Resurrects an ally. I didn't realize I even had this until recently.  

• WIND (N/12): An offensive spell that strikes three times.

• THUN (N/16). Shoots a lightning bolt that does around 30 points of damage to all enemies.

      

I still have some experimenting to do, but when I returned to Dr. Mad with my new shields and a better understanding of spells, I was able to defeat him without much trouble. (I said no to his demand for Myau, but he attacked anyway.) I had Alis freeze him each round with a ROPE, enhanced Odin with a HELP, and deflected his attacks with either PROT or WALL.

      

Wasn't this an Inspector Gadget villain?

   

From him, we looted a Laconian pot. I don't know whether that's the same one I sold earlier in the game. It sure gets around. 

    

We made the long walk back to Bortevo. I started searching buildings and using the polymeteral on each pile of junk. The fourth attempt produced a result: Hapsby emerged from the pile and offered to fly The Luveno. 

     

How do you know the name of the ship?

   

All I had to do now was find it. It turns out there's a western exit from Gothic that leads to a field where the ship is parked, but I go all the way back to the spaceport first before I search the city again and find the exit. They aren't happy with me at the spaceport. They confiscate my passport. I guess I won't be flying commercial anymore.

   

All right, everyone. Who has ideas for a new name?

     

The ship will go from Gothic to either Uzo or Skure. I've experienced neither of these places, so I try Uzo first. Uzo turns out to be on Motavia, the same planet as Paseo, where I still have to buy some diamond armor. An animation shows The Luveno take off, fly through space, and land just to the east of the city, which judging from the manual map is south of Paseo and on the other side of the impassable wall of ant lions. For fun, I take a quick trip to the northeast, to see if there really is one enormous ant lion in the middle of the pack, as the map depicts, but I don't find it.

      

"Gothic Uzo Skure" would make a good band name.

       

All there is, then, is to explore Uzo. Keep in mind that at this point, I have no specific goal except to find Lassic and kill him. There's been no intelligence about where he is or where the capital of the empire is.

    

• "There is a town called Casba to the south of here." And dragons from there must be Casba Dragons. Goddamn it, they got me again.

• "There are dragons living in the Casba Cave. These dragons have gems in their heads!" I was about to say it would have been cooler if they were zombies, but I guess the song wasn't out yet.

• "Have you heard about mantles made of frad fibers? They are light, but provide great protection." I'm beginning to think that the game is just making up words. 

• "Have you heard about the soothing flute?" I have! From a sphinx! "It's a secret, but I buried one on the outskirts of the town of Gothic on Palma. Don't tell anyone." No, I'll just go take it.

• "If you use a vehicle called the land rover, the ant lion will not be able to harm you." Just the price of gas.

The armory sells a light saber! I suppose if you're going to blend science fiction and fantasy, that's the first thing you'd want to include. Only Alis and Odin can use it. I'm not sure if I should buy one for Odin, since he's the only character who can use guns (which hit all enemies). The manual indicates that the best weapon for Odin is an axe, so I guess I can't keep him with guns forever. I buy two light sabers.

      

We head outside and go south, looking for Casba and this cave. We fight scores of crawlers, tarantulas, and other creatures on the way. We're in pretty bad shape when we find the city to the southwest of Uzo, then groan to see it ringed by mountains. Apparently, we'll have to go through the cave to get there.

      

Some kind of hovercraft would sure come in handy.

    

The caves are quite long, with multiple sections of multiple levels, but they're also quite linear, so I don't have to map it. Enemies are quite easy, about the same difficulty as the forest back on Palma—until I run into a blue dragon. I have to defeat him mostly without spells, as I need to save the few spell points I have left for CURE. Even then, he's not that hard. In his treasure chest, we find an Amber Eye.

       

When do consoles become capable of using more than eight characters?

      

The cave emerges in Casba, which thankfully has a hospital, which heals health as well as magic. Elsewhere:

    

• "Have you heard of the vehicle called the hovercraft?" NO. "It's a good thing to have. It moves across water." That would be a good thing to have, but we have to find a land rover first. Later, while checking the same building, I meet the same NPC and say YES. "I bought it in Scion on Palma but it seemed broken so I abandoned it in Bortevo. It probably can still be used, though."

• "There are legends of a mystic shield in a village surrounded by mist. It is the shield Perseus used in days to conquer magic beasts." I don't know if the game is talking about the Greek hero Perseus or a different character in its universe.

      

Yes, but why?

     

• "There is poison gas above the sea to the west. No one can go near there without some protection." I keep thinking maybe the game is coming towards an end, but every NPC I talk to increases its size by another 10%.  

• "Fierce dragons live in the cave near here, and I'm scared of them." I think I explored exhaustively, and I only encountered one dragon. You don't need to be scared of it anymore.

• "Don't believe your own eyes in the depth of the dungeons." I have no idea how to operationalize that.

          

Both churches and healers use crosses. I don't think that would be allowed in an NES game.

     

The land rover is for sale in the second-hand shop! I figured there was going to be some big puzzle associated with it. Somehow it sits in our inventory, but when we use it, the party icon changes to a vehicle. It doesn't stop us from meeting random encounters.

    

We take the land rover across the ant lion mounds to Paseo, where I buy the diamond armor I've been saving for. I discover that Alis and Odin can both equip it, but I only have enough money for one. I'll have to come back. 

   

Eat my treads, ant lions.

      

I also confirm with the land rover that the world wraps, which is ridiculous—it's far too small to represent an entire planet.

    

We take the ship back to Gothic, where I try the "Search" command at an obvious place at the end of a road and find the flute. I guess I'll go on to the third planet next. It would be nice to think the game is coming to an end. I feel like I've basically experienced it at this point. I have all the spells listed in the manual. Many more hours would feel superfluous.

   

Time so far: 13 hours