Al-Qadim: The Genie's Curse: Summary and Rating

 

That horse is false advertising.

            

Al-Qadim: The Genie's Curse

United States 

Cyberlore Studios (developer), Strategic Simulations, Inc. (publisher) 

Released 1994 for DOS

Date Started: 23 June 2026

Date Ended: 24 July 2026

Total Hours: 24

Difficulty:  Easy-Moderate (2.5/5) on default, but user adjustable

Final Rating: 38

Ranking at time of posting: 477/585 (82%)

   

Summary:

     

Al-Qadim is an action RPG with minimal RPG elements drawn from the short-lived Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting of the same name. The PC is a young corsair (one of the character "kits" in this setting), engaged to his caliph's daughter, looking at a bright future. But his family is disgraced (and his bride kidnapped) when the family genie goes amok. To restore his family's honor and save his betrothed, he must discover the shadowy cabal that is freeing genies from their oaths.

    

This single-character game has fairly minimal RPG elements and plays more like an action/adventure than an RPG. Character attributes are fixed; inventory is very limited; dialogue options all seem to vector to the same conclusion. The character gains experience and levels up, but leveling doesn't make a palpable difference in battle except that the character gets a couple of additional sword moves. The titled orthographic viewpoint (single axis only) and many of the graphics (as well as the desert setting) are reminiscent of Dark Sun: Shattered Lands (1993), while the plot, Arabian setting, and some of the action sequences evoke Quest for Glory II: Trial by Fire (1990). It's a fun game for its length, but not a great RPG experience, and it doesn't feel much like a Dungeons & Dragons title.

   

****

   

Well, I never did hear back from Herb Perez. It's too bad because one of the first things I would have asked is whether Al-Qadim started as a Dungeons & Dragons game or whether they grafted the name onto a product already in development. My guess is probably it did start with D&D in mind, given the histories of the companies and the principal authors, but Al-Qadim seems to have been given more leash than any D&D title I can remember since Hillsfar. Among the oddities:

   

• Leveling only makes the character stronger to the extent that it conveys extra maximum hit points. (The "extra sword moves" are only really valuable to the extent that you stupidly let the character get surrounded by enemies.) 

• Attributes don't matter at all. I don't think the game even knows what they are. I inspected the save game files and while I found values for experience, max hit points, and current hit points, I did not find any of the attributes.

• The corsair class is supposed to be able to dual-wield, use thief skills, and employ numerous non-weapon proficiencies, none of which appear in the game.

     

Why would anyone pay for healing when you can get healed for free on your ship?

      

• The Al-Qadim setting makes extensive use of social status, which is quantified. It isn't even mentioned in the game.

• Experience points are doled out quite liberally for solving puzzles and quest steps; little of the player's experience total comes from enemies. 

• Only a couple of the other Al-Qadim-specific classes make any appearance in the game, principally sha'ir, and they don't behave like sha'ir in the manual. I didn't see any familiars, for instance.

• Zakhara is supposed to be a melting pot of races. While there was a mention of dwarves (in passages that could have easily been CTRL-H'd), I saw no one but humans in my explorations. Admittedly, the graphics perhaps aren't detailed enough to differentiate some of the races.

• Nowhere in the game does it actually confirm where the action takes place. No map appears. You sail from island to island by menu. The official map of Zakhara does have a lot of archipelagos, but none of the names match up (admittedly, many of the islands are unnamed).

        

The "game world" in list form.

         

• "Shards" seem to be purely an invention of the game. 

• What we learn about genies, the way they are called, and what they can do don't quite seem to align with the rules in the Arabian Adventures sourcebook. 

• A "Zaratan," as has been pointed out in the comments, is a giant sea turtle in the sourcebooks.

• Many of the other creatures that you would expect based on the sourcebooks make no appearance. In particular, there isn't a single camel or Arabian horse.

          

The authors made the cyclops Arabian by putting the word "desert" in front of it. Also: what does he narrow?

        

So even though "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, 2nd Edition" is displayed prominently on the box, I don't really see it. That isn't necessarily a complaint—I'm hardly a D&D purist—but it does hint at why the RPG elements of this one are so under-baked. If it had started as a Prince of Persia sequel, I'm not sure I'd be surprised. 

        

Curiously, I find myself lamenting the absence of the social status system the most—not because I like such systems, of course, but because from a role-playing perspective, I enjoy defying them. While I was in the middle of Al-Qadim, I wrote a paean to American faith in individualism and individual progress. Such faith is a core part of my own ideology and identity, and thus I always enjoy stories in which an individual comes up against a rigid system and refuses to kowtow to it, leaving pompous nobles to sputter at his insouciance. I understand that Robert Jordan was planning to write a series of novels set after The Wheel of Time in which Mat Cauthon would travel to the Seanchan Empire; that's the kind of story I would have enjoyed.

     

You get some "sassy" options with the caliph, but they don't lead anywhere.

       

As I head into the GIMLET, my feelings about the game are relatively neutral. It was easy to play and write about; it moved along at a good clip; and it offered a more complex plot than the typical RPG. On the other hand, it didn't really have any of the things I like about RPGs, so it felt like I was doing something that was modestly fun but otherwise unrelated to this blog. I would expect the GIMLET to hover just at or below the "recommended" level (say, 35-40), but with such low scores in the core RPG categories (2, 5, and 6) that it doesn't really qualify for that label. Let's see: 

         

Category	Assets	Liabilities	Score
1. Game World	Setting in Arabian mythology is rare among RPGs.  Strong story. Character's place in the world is clear. NPCs generally react to plot developments.	Not a lot of lore to the setting explained in the game. Some major elements left enigmatic, such as the basic nature of the human-genie relationship.  Game world is small and limited.	5
2. Character Creation and Development	Standard experience and leveling. Some levels come with a new sword move.	Only character creation choice is the name. Attributes not used. Character does not get intrinsically much more powerful.	2
3. NPCs	Large number of NPCs, many with strong personalities. Talking with them advances the plot and fills in the lore. Full-sentence dialogue options with some minor role-playing choices.	Dialogue options are mostly illusory.	6
4. Encounters and Foes	A few original monsters. D&D bestiary is always well-varied. Light navigation puzzles and a few role-playing encounters.  Can encounter as many enemies as you want via traveling.	Game does not incorporate most special attacks/defenses. Puzzles are mostly facile and role-playing encounters are rare.	5
5. Magic and Combat	A couple of combat options: sling, sword (with different attacks), shards.	Not nearly enough options. Battle is not tactical; just a lot of running around.	2
6. Equipment	Sword, sling, Ring of Protection all get some enhancements. Potions and shards.	Very under-developed. No armor, wearables, choice of weapons. Many of the potions don't seem to really work.	2
7. Economy	It exists, and there's a gambling game. Potions and shards are a money sink.	No complexity. Far too generous. Only really need it to buy quest items.	3
8. Quests	Clear, multi-stage main quest. Some side quests and side-areas. A couple of places where the player has multiple ways to approach a quest or quest-stage.	Quest path is generally linear and does not offer many choices. No ending choices or alternate outcomes.	4
9. Graphics, Sound, and Interface	Nice graphics. Not "immersive" but definitely pleasant. Adequate sound effects. Support for keyboard, mouse, and joystick.	Mapping both attacking and other actions to the same key was a bad decision. Menu does not adequately differentiate selected and unselected options.  Sound effects relatively rare. No background sounds.	4
10. Gameplay	Good length. Flexible difficulty.	Very linear. Not much replayability.	5
Other/Total			38

       

Longtime readers will know that I don't include music in category #9, and I usually play the game (as I did here) with the music turned off. However, I took the time to listen to the soundtrack later, and there are some unbelievably good compositions on it. I don't know a lot about eastern music (other than the double-harmonic scale, quarter tones, etc.), so I can't tell you what references it makes or what traditions it evokes, but it's complex and subtle, with beautiful MIDI work that really draws out the individual instrumentation. You can listen to it here; I particularly recommend Track 6, with its complex drum rhythms. Credits go to Eric Heberling, Rob Wallace, and Nada Lewis; Heberling also did The Elder Scrolls: Arena from the same year and is currently working on The Wayward Realms, a forthcoming game from Arena's developers.

       

"Al-Qadim whisks away traditional role playing on its magic carpet" is how Petra Schlunk's August 1994 Computer Gaming World review begins, which is an accurate sentiment. The review echoes everything I've said about de-emphasizing exploration, character creation and development, equipment, and combat tactics in the name of more streamlined action gameplay. She liked the originality of the setting, as I did. "Some might appreciate the attempt to lighten up role-playing," she concludes. "But many hard-core fans won't be amused." She lumps the music in with sound, though, in saying that they "could be a bit more robust." I think that's fair for sound effects but not the music.

       

I don't think much of "a complex, pre-generated character," and "tightly-woven storyline" just signals there are no player choices. But they're right about "grand cinematic musical themes."

          

I looked over Wikipedia's and MobyGames's summary of other reviews, which average around a B-/C+, but the general theme is that it's an inoffensive enough action game but not much of a CRPG. I gather it generated the same type of discussion as the simplification of character attributes and the move towards more action-oriented combat in Skyrim or Fallout 4. Some reviews worried that the game was a harbinger of the future, and they already started to lament the loss of more traditional titles, both RPG in general and D&D in particular. Many who think that RPGs hit a major slump in the mid-1990s (I don't have an opinion on this yet) will find common ground in these reviews. But, honestly, it's a bit obnoxious to blame an individual game for an industry-wide trend. Al-Qadim did well with its own intentions.

          

Despite it selling nearly 100,000 copies, my sense is that Al-Qadim didn't leave much of a legacy. Any influence it had is impossible to detect among hundreds of console games that were already offering the same approach to gameplay. I don't think there was an explosion in Arabian fantasy among CRPGs in the later 1990s. It certainly didn't do anything to prop up the Al-Qadim tabletop setting, which aside from one 1998 offering published its last module the same year. 

    

SSI will continue to squeeze everything it can out of the D&D license for a couple more years, and I will dutifully play all of them. We may see an SSI/Cyberlore partnership again as early as 1995, with World of Aden: Entomorph; otherwise, Cyberlore will go off in its own direction, specializing in fantasy strategy and simulation games before getting out of the business in 2005. 

    

I'm a bit annoyed that we never had any resolution on the duck.

  

****

   

Previous entry in this series

     

For further reading: 

 

My index of games played by lineage has all other Dungeons & Dragons titles.

The Internet Archive has the Al-Qadim: Arabian Adventures source book. 

 07/30/2026

Game 493: Dungeons & Dragons: Warriors of the Eternal Sun (1992)

 

"Of" the Eternal Sun?! We just found out about the Eternal Sun!

        

Dungeons & Dragons: Warriors of the Eternal Sun

United States

Westwood Associates (developer); SEGA (publisher)

Released 1992 for SEGA Genesis
Date Started: 18 June 2023

     

It's been a while since we had a console game. When I took a break from Serpent Isle, I went looking for something that would contrast well with it, and Warriors of the Eternal Sun came up in a random roll. As I researched it, a lot of things recommended it for play. First, it's a Dungeons & Dragons title, and D&D usually serves up satisfactory RPGs. Second, I believe it's the first console-exclusive D&D title since the two Intellivision games in 1982 and 1983, neither of which really had anything to do with D&D. Thus, it's the first authentic console-exclusive D&D. 

   

Third, the developer was Westwood Associates, a studio that got a rocky start (BattleTech: The Crescent Hawk's Inception, Hillsfar) and always seemed to be in the shadow of Strategic Simulations, their frequent employer and publisher. But by the early 1990s, the company had matured and was responsible for the first two Eye of the Beholder games (1991). Warriors comes on the heels of those successes, right as the company was being acquired by Virgin Games, just before it published Lands of Lore (1993).

   

What can men do against such reckless hate?

     

Warriors was one of two games that Westwood wrote for consoles in 1992; the second was Dungeons & Dragons: Order of the Griffon for the TurboGrafx-16. I'm relying on Wikipedia's information that the former was released in July and the latter in October to designate Warriors as the first. Both games are set in the Mystara campaign setting, appearing here for the first time in a video game. Westwood would have had to get permission from SSI to use the D&D license; you can almost picture SSI saying, "Whatever--we're not using that setting anyway."

        

Apparently, the duke doesn't have a single mage capable of "Fireball."

    

Those with more detailed knowledge of D&D will correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that the Mystara setting is used as the default setting for the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set starting in 1981, although at that time, it was just called "the Known World"; it didn't take the name "Mystara" until 1991. My further understanding is that Mystara is a fairly generic fantasy world, much like Greyhawk or the Forgotten Realms, and that it uses the standard D&D classes, spells, and many of the same monsters. I understand the races are a bit different (one blog I consulted said there are a lot more "furry races") and there are no gods--only very powerful beings with godlike powers.

   

But perhaps the most important difference is that Mystara has an inside and an outside. The world is hollow, with a red sun (the Eternal Sun of the title) at the center, and the denizens of the two sides don't typically interact. The inside has become sort of a giant reservation for creatures threatened with extinction on the more volatile outer world. 

        

Things look grim for the castle denizens.

       

It is in this Hollow World that Warriors takes place. The four player characters are liegemen of a Duke Hector Barrick, who has been fighting a losing year-long war against goblins. (I imagine they either have some help or goblins are a lot stronger in Mystara.) Just as the goblins are about to overrun the castle and the defenders are all expecting to die, the ground rumbles, there's a flash, and the castle's occupants suddenly find themselves in a pleasant valley with a horizon that slopes upward on all sides. They have been transported to the inside of Mystara through methods unexplained and for reasons unknown. I assume they came from the outside of Mystara, but I suppose it's possible that the castle was transported from one of the other D&D settings; the manual doesn't specify.

      

I'm glad it didn't land on top of an orphanage.

      

The game uses Basic edition rules, which combine races and classes. You can be a cleric, fighter, magic-user, or thief--all of which are human--or a dwarf, elf, or halfling. Judging by what the manual says, dwarves are basically just fighters, elves are fighter/magic users, and halflings are fighter/thieves. Any choice can be male or female. I don't know what levels are achievable in this game, but all the demi-human classes have level caps, so I decided to throw ambiguity out the window and create a four-character human party. And for no particular reason, I decided to make them a sisterhood.

  

Character creation also has you choose a color, from three selections, one of them for some reason represented twice. You can roll the standard set of D&D attributes as many times as you want. The rolls are favorable; I never saw anything less than 9. At the same time, 18s are extremely rare. Characters have two active slots to which they can assign weapons, spells, or active abilities. Nobody starts with more than two.

     

Creating my final character.

             

My party is:

   

• Vanya, a fighter. She comes with a sword and shield.
• Sarah, a cleric. She comes with a mace and a "Turn Undead" spell.
• Zoqui, a magic-user. She comes with a staff and a "Magic Missile" spell.
• Mezzy, a thief. She comes with a dagger and a "Hide" ability.

      

After character creation, the party is tasked by Duke Barrick with exploring the new environment and finding allies. Gameplay begins in an axonometric interface inside the duke's castle. The character icons and movement looks like it must have been inspired by Ultima VI. You control the lead character, and the others fan out behind her, moving as necessary to get around obstacles. The directional pad controls movement; the "A" button performs most actions and acknowledges messages. The "Start" button brings up a more extensive menu, which mercifully includes an "Options" selection where you can a) turn off music independently of the rest of the sound, and b) change the hit point bars to actual numbers.

    

The duke sends us off.

        

Controls are, of course, a lot simpler since we're using a three-button controller rather than a keyboard. NPCs speak automatically when you near them, and they only speak one line. If you belly up to a store counter, it's automatically assumed that you want to shop there. The castle has an armor shop, a weapon shop, a magic shop, a caravan master, a temple, and a number of other buildings where NPCs work and live.

      

I don't know what this is about.

    

From the NPCs wandering around, I got:

   

• We all wish you well in your journeys.
• Some spells don't work in this new land.
• The beastmen have a camp to the northwest.
• The beastmen come from the north.
• I've heard a rumor there's a monster in the city's dungeon.

          

I thought he meant some city out in the game world. I guess he meant this city.

       

• Good luck on your journeys!
• The beastmen bear ancient markings.
• Beware of the swamps.
• Equip yourself well before venturing forth.
• Praise the maker that we have been spared.
• The duke is a kind and patient man.
• There are dinosaurs in the swamps.

     

There's also a graveyard, with four open graves prepared for the party members. That was considerate. Each of the stones in the graveyard has a punny rhyming epitaph worthy of any Ultima game.

        

• They came, they saw, they died.
• Here lies Todd. He angered a god.
• He's dead Jim.
• Eric was given to roam; all that's left is this stone.
• He boasted of his might. But death was his plight.
• This dwarf was much feared till he tripped on his beard.
• A thief that did fink has become quite extinct.
• He quenched his thirst but the water was cursed.
• Many ladies he cherished, and now he has perished.
• Here lies Louise. A thief shouldn't sneeze.
• Here lies Dwight. A knight he did smite.
• His wandering eyes soon caused his demise.
• Here lies poor Mel. He cast the wrong spell.

    

The graveyard makes me wonder about the specific nature of scooping up the castle and dropping it into the Hollow World, like how much soil and bedrock was included in the teleportation, and why it didn't just leave a big mess when it was deposited in its new location.

     

I guess the duke doesn't have much confidence in us.

              

After exploring the castle, we head outside. An overworld map shows us the entire valley. The castle seems to be situated on a large island surrounded by rivers. I head east for a little while and face my first overland battle against a giant leech. More on combat in a bit, but suffice to say for now that it's like Gold Box combat but with non-discrete movement. We get damaged by this one creature, and it occurs to me that we don't have any armor, so we head back to the castle to buy some (they only have leather). We also rest, which takes about two days. I hope there's no time limit on the main quest.

       

Our first battle.

     

In return expeditions outside, I keep doing well against individual monsters but am slaughtered by larger groups. And I know there are dungeons somewhere, but I can't find any. I want to show at least one dungeon shot before I end the first entry, so I take a look at the hint book to see where the closest one is--and it turns out there are dungeons right in the castle. In fact, there are three in the duke's throne room alone. I don't know how you're supposed to find them. The entrances are hidden by the oblique view and just look like walls.

         

The game world--or at least part of it.

      

If you didn't know that the company behind Warriors had also made Eye of the Beholder, you could probably figure it out from the dungeon exploration. Unlike in the outdoors, the movement in dungeons is by discrete tiles. The graphics are very similar, and combat works similarly to any Dungeon Master clone, albeit with simplified controls. You switch between characters with the "C" button and use the readied weapons, abilities, or spells, with the "A" and "B" buttons. (Using either "A" or "B" automatically switches you to the next character after the attack executes. I'm not yet sure if that's a benefit or a drawback.) I haven't experimented enough to try it yet, but I suspect you could do the "combat waltz" if the room was big enough. You can't pause except to enter the menu, so you have to be relatively quick with your fingers.

      

The first dungeon battle.

      

The first "dank dungeon" has just a few cells, one with a beastman and one with a giant rat. The message window gives atmospheric messages as you explore, which I like. The entire dungeon is only 6 x 6, and with worm tunnels. I tested for secret doors even though I didn't find any obvious "holes," and I found one. It led to a small cell with a pair of Gauntlets of Ogre Power. A random party member picks up any items you find, but you can transfer them later. Lesson learned: secret areas may be found even when they would create "razor walls." 

        

That must have required some real dexterity! Wait. I haven't made the precursor joke yet.

         

Other dungeons may get bigger, but an automap keeps track of your progress, so you don't have to map. I'm curious if there will be any Dungeon Master-like puzzles. The other two "dungeons" in the throne room are just guard towers that lead to nothing.

   

Now that I know what to look for, I find a third dungeon (technically, a tower) in the cemetery. "This tower has been converted to a crypt," a message reads as we enter. It is quite short--a few rooms housing the "noble family of Sperry Glen" and "the remains of King Offord." A secret door leads to the remains of a fighter who has a +1 chain mail. In a final tower in the northeast corner of the castle, I found a +1 sword, which I give to my thief.  

       

The game is funny if you add the phrase "with chopsticks" after all its messages.

        

Thus slightly better equipped, we set out again, avoiding for now the beastmen's camp to the northwest. I don't know whether the "world" map shown in the game is the entire gameworld or just the starting area, but either way, I print it so I can explore it systematically and take notes. It looks like the only way off the starting island is a bridge to the southwest. I decide to start there and work counter-clockwise around the island, which I'm hoping will ensure that I'm at least Level 2 before I hit the beastmen again. 

    

I don't find anything in the wilderness except combats with boars, giant leeches, panthers, flying vipers, giant racers (a kind of snake from the graphic) and beastmen. In the turn-based combat, characters and enemies go in an order of initiative that must have some random element to it. During their turns, characters can move (not indefinitely, but I'm not sure how to figure out the maximum), attack, cast a spell, or use a skill or item. The one major difference from the Gold Box is that there's no consideration of personal space. Characters can walk and stand on top of each other to get into melee range. 

   

Injuries and death are handled at the temple for no fee, which is handy. Walking back there can be kind of annoying. I assume that's quintuply true when I'm exploring the more remote parts of the valley. 

      

For a second, I could have been playing Serpent Isle.

        

It becomes clear that my mage is going to take forever to level up, so after my fighter and cleric hit Level 2, I give the beastmen camp another try. By slowly approaching from the west, I manage to encounter them in an advantageous arrangement where I can attack a couple of the beastmen close to me while the others take several rounds to even get into range. The strategy works, and I'm able to wipe out the beastmen. It helps that their THACO is pretty bad.

       

Would assume "hairy" was a defining trait for "beastmen."

     

With nothing else to hold my interest on the central island, I cross the bridge to the mainland. Halfway across, the game tells me that my mage and thief are nervous about crossing. I assume that's because they're still Level 1. I explore gingerly and run into parties of hill giants and grizzly bears. I'm able to kill a couple of them individually, getting my thief to Level 2 and my fighter and cleric to Level 3. But a large party soon tears us to pieces, and I suffer my first full-party death.

         

Who are "the townspeople" in this scenario?

Why can you resurrect us individually but not collectively?

      

I reload and return to town to find that the shops have new items. I'm able to buy better armor for my fighter and cleric and missile weapons for everyone. That should open up some more combat tactics. I'm looking forward to the mage getting more than one pathetic magic missile.

       

The weapons shop offers a lot more than when we landed.

      

So far, it's all right. I like the backstory and setting, and it makes as good use of D&D mechanics as any console game we've seen so far. Like any console game of the era, those mechanics are simplified from what you'd expect on a PC, but that doesn't mean it's bad. I've come to realize that console gaming can offer a relaxed experience that only requires half your attention in a way that a good PC game doesn't--the difference, perhaps, between watching a movie and reading a book.

   

Alternating between Serpent Isle and Ambermoon has been getting a little tiresome, so I'm going to mix things up with this third one for a bit. Any bets on which I finish first?

   

Time so far: 3 hours

    

 

Game 459: Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991)

    

Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves

United States

Sculptured Software, Inc. and B.I.T.S., Ltd. (developers); Virgin Games (publisher)

Released 1991 for NES, 1993 for Game Boy

Date Started: 1 June 2022

Date Ended: 5 June 2022

Total Hours: 5

Difficulty: Moderate -Hard (3.5/5)

Final Rating: 23

Ranking at Time of Posting: 194/460 (42%)

    

Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991), starring Kevin Costner (who, unlike some other Robin Hoods, does not speak with an English accent), may be one of the dumbest adaptations of the legend, but it will always have a special place in my heart. In the summer of 1991, I was attending AIT training for the Army Reserves in Fort Gordon, Georgia. As someone who bristles at even minor constraints, I found Army training difficult--hopefully the closest I will ever come to being in jail. AIT was easier than basic, partly because we had weekends free, and as soon as the drill sergeant announced "Dismissed!" on Friday evening, I jumped in a cab and headed for the local movie theater in Augusta. I spent weekend after weekend that summer watching mostly the same movies over and over again: Terminator 2, The Naked Gun 2½, Backdraft, The Rocketeer, Doc Hollywood, Regarding Henry, The Doctor, and Robin Hood. I probably haven't seen it since then, but I think I could still rewrite the screenplay from memory.

 

This video game tie-in is a rare (for the era) NES title created by a U.S. developer: Sculptured Software, based in Salt Lake City. Founded in 1984, the company specialized in action, sports, and racing games for 1980s microcomputers. At the end of the decade, they pivoted to console development and never looked back. They had no experience with RPGs except for handling the Commodore 64 port of Microillusions' Faery Tale Adventure in 1988, but they smartly hired Mike Breault (Pool of Radiance) to help design the game. Originally titled The Legend of Robin Hood, it was slated for a 1990 release through Mastertronic's Acadia Software label. (This prototype version can be found online and on YouTube.) Publication was held up by Mastertronic's merger with Virgin Games, by which point the forthcoming film had been announced. Virgin licensed the new name from Morgan Creek Productions and mandated changes to the game's plot and graphics to better fit the film. The result is an odd half-adaptation that both needs the film to explain some of its plot developments but diverges from the film in numerous places.

    

As you may know if you've read much about Robin Hood, the reality of any historical character of that name is hotly debated. Most of the historical references date from the reigns of Edward I (1272-1307) and Edward II (1307-1327), although there are some that go back to the 1260s. The earliest fictional ballads have him active during the reign of an unnumbered "Edward," which could be as late as 1377. (Edward IV reigned from 1461-1470, but by then historical ballads of Robin Hood had already appeared.) Ballads and stories start to appear in complete form in the late fifteenth century. From the earliest, the Sheriff of Nottingham is the primary antagonist. Other characters, like Friar Tuck and Maid Marian, are added to the legend as the years pass.

       

That time is called "pretty much all of human history up to the Enlightenment."

    

In 1598, playwright Anthony Munday, a contemporary of Shakespeare, wrote two plays that rolled the dates of Robin Hood's life back to the reign of Richard the Lionheart (1189-1199), and specifically his 1190-1194 absence on the Third Crusade and subsequent captivity. It is Munday who makes Robin a dispossessed nobleman, specifically the Earl of Huntingdon. In 1795, an English historian named Joseph Ritson assembled a volume of all the Robin Hood stories and ballads he could find. In a preface, without much evidence, he argued that Robin Hood was born Robert Fitzooth in the village of Locksley in Nottinghamshire and that he had "some sort of pretension" to the earldom of Huntingdon. Based on Ritson's account, the character appeared in Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe (1818) as "Robin of Locksley."

      

An axe doesn't seem like the right torture instrument for this situation.

      

The game follows the movie's curious choice to accept the Third Crusade setting (specifically, 1194) but to eliminate the character of King John. We are made to believe that the Sheriff of Nottingham himself has his eyes on the English throne, as if such a thing were remotely possible. The fractured development of the game is evident in the backstory, in which you, as Robin Hood, "were fighting in the Crusades when your friend Peter Dubois was captured and imprisoned for stealing bread." You try to free him by taking the blame yourself only to find yourself in prison beside him. This is a silly misinterpretation of the opening scenes of the film, in which Robin and Peter are prisoners of war, and Peter is accused of stealing bread from another prisoner. Anyway, the game begins in the "Arab prisons," in a cell where Robin watches his friend being tortured by a man with an axe. A sword lies temptingly on a nearby hearth, and your first task of the game is to snatch it and whack the guard, who dies in one hit. Peter, looking like a fuzzy Rod Stewart, proclaims that he is "free at last!" and joins the party. Searching the guard reveals the key to the cell.

      

Thank God Almighty.

            

The game uses an axonometric perspective with (aside from the portraits) acceptable graphics. It transcends its hydlike roots by offering a fairly complex set of commands accessible with the START button, including "Talk," "Look," "Take," "Search," and "Player." The latter brings up a character and inventory screen with an Ultima VI-esque paper doll for equipping weapons, helmets, armor, leggings, and boots. (Regrettably, only some of these are ever used.) Maneuvering around this screen, pretending the pad is a mouse and the "A" button is a mouse button, is a little annoying, but as good as could be accomplished with a controller. Robin starts at Level 1 with no experience, 100 hit points, and no gold. Everything you carry adds to your encumbrance and decreases agility.

      

The game's menu.

      

Azeem is chained in the next cell. You have your first role-playing choice when you choose to free him, but you can't win if you don't. (Azeem was created for the film, although perhaps based on a character from the Robin of Sherwood TV series named Nasir. In an original draft, Azeem was "Aslan.") He tells you of a secret exit beyond another door, and a hidden key to that door.

      

This doesn't look much like Morgan Freeman.

      

Opening the door puts you face-to-face with another guard, which instigates the game's dueling system. Many enemies are fought on the main screen with a simple slash of a sword, but some boss fights take place on a side-view screen in which you can move back and forth, attack, duck, and jump. Obstacles like tables and bridges offer both advantages and disadvantages. While I appreciate the complexities of the system, I found that if I just faced the enemy and kept pressing "attack," he'd walk into my sword often enough for me to win.

    

The "duel" screen.

       

I played long enough to note that the sound effects were adequate, then turned the sound off. Like most Nintendo games of the era, it features constant music that you can neither mute (independently of the sound) or diminish. If I had been a father during this era, I would have banned the console for this alone. 

    

Escaping the dungeons puts you in a maze of catacombs. Most of the game takes place in mazes like this. Monsters (here, Saracen guards) spawn continually, but never more than three or four on the screen at a time. (The game's use of relentless spawning recalls the developer's previous experiences with Faery Tale Adventure.) If you're aligned appropriately, attack with the right timing, and don't let any creep up behind you, you can inevitably kill them before they can get to you, although sometimes it takes several hits. When they die, enemies explode in a satisfying (if slightly unrealistic) display of blood and bones. They occasionally leave corpses on the screen, which is always a sign that you can search them for some item or another.

Two enemies approach from the north as a third one finishes exploding from my blade. Nearby, someone has dropped an apple.

      

When your dexterity fails, enemies strike their blows, and you lose hit points. These are easily replenished with food, bandages (which comically look like Band-Aids), and potions frequently dropped by enemies or found in the corners of the mazes. I mostly found I was so overloaded with these items that I could use them as soon as I found them.

 

Occasionally, at scripted moments, the game takes you into a mass combat in which all characters in the party appear on the screen at the same time, fighting larger masses of foes. You control one character while the others roam around, attacking on their own. It's the only time where allies fight and lose hit points, but they can't permanently die.

 

Mass combat at the exit. The white, red, and green(?) figures are allies; the blue(?) ones are enemies.

     

No matter what type of combat you're fighting--regular, dueling, or mass--combat is relatively easy. The difficulty with this game comes from the accumulation of small mistakes. There's no way to save your progress. After you die, you can hit "continue" to start over again at the beginning of the level, but only twice. For a game that doesn't allow saving, its overall length is a bit unsupportable. I suppose I occasionally had five free hours as a kid, but it's pretty rare today. Thank the gods for emulators with save states.

       

When your third life is lost.

     

After you kill about 20 enemies in the mass combat, Peter dies a scripted death. Title cards relate how Robin and Azeem spent 10 months finding their way back to England. Action picks up again in a forest "near Hadrian's Wall," which I am obliged to note is nowhere near Locksley or Nottingham. An old man relates the situation.

 

Apparently, in this game, the enemy's name is "Sheriff Nottingham."

    

The game from here is extremely linear, with almost painfully small areas to explore and quests that resolve in minutes. At Hadrian's Wall, which has maybe six screens, you find a few items, including your first bow, and rescue Little John's son from Sir Guy of Gisbourne in a mass combat (Guy escapes at the end). The portrait of Guy looks more like the Sheriff from the film (Alan Rickman), and later the portrait of the Sheriff looks like the film's Guy (Michael Wincott).

 

You look more like the Sheriff.

      

A quick transition forest leads to Castle Locksley. Robin promises Azeem hospitality but is dismayed to find that the castle has been sacked and ruined, his father crucified above the entry door. The castle is swarming with, I don't know, wild dogs or wolves or something. Bats and rats are also a problem. In a side-chamber, you find Duncan, Robin's old servant, who has been blinded. He joins the party (you can equip him, and he will actually fight) and gives Robin his father's medallion. A title card relates that the trio bury Robin's father.

    

Well, this is gruesome.

    

Moving west, you reach Maid Marian's Castle. I had to look up a hint to find that wearing the Locksley medallion is the only way to convince the guard to let you in. You can find chainmail and some potions in the castle, but no combats. Eventually, you meet Marian and give her Peter's ring. (She doesn't attack Robin in armor as in the film.) She suggests that you go hide in Sherwood forest. The Sheriff's men raid the castle after the conversation, and you must fight your way free. Some of the men have crossbows for the first time, which adds a challenge to combat. You get a saddle from Marian and have to "use" it next to a horse to make your getaway.

      

How is this remotely possible? Where is John? Where is the Great Council? How were the chancery and exchequer persuaded to go along with this?

     

There is now one of two horse riding sequences in which you flee through the forest ahead of the Sheriff's men. You have to jump at vital moments to avoid obstacles, not unlike the similar minigame in Hillsfar (1989). The problem here is that mistiming a jump results in a death. I can imagine that back in the day, many players who skillfully avoided death in combat met their demise on the other side of a rock. It must have been infuriating.

       

I know I'm colorblind, but are these rocks blue?

     

I have no idea what kind of animal was attacking me as I explored Sherwood Forest. Giant rats, maybe. The forest maze brings you to a bridge, where you're challenged by Little John. This brings you to the second duel screen of the game. There's a similar scene in the movie, of course, but both combatants fight with staves in the film, while here, Robin has whatever you've equipped him with. Robin's sword has a much longer reach than Little John's staff, so the battle is fairly easy. Upon your victory, Little John joins the party, bringing a staff that spins continuously when you hold down the "A" button, which makes you effectively immune to any enemy that relies on a melee attack.

      

Isn't that just like a commoner? Brings a stick to a sword fight.

      

You're automatically taken to Sherwood forest, where several Merry Men are busy chopping down trees and planning a camp. From this point, every time you leave Sherwood, you end up going directly to your next quest. This means you can't backtrack to any previous areas, which has some unfortunate consequences if you fail to pick up a crucial item. 

    

Time with your new friends is interrupted by the arrival of a man who begs you to rescue his fiancée from the evil baron who has kidnapped her. This is the part where the game starts to diverge from the film a bit. There's a small forest area that you have to conquer before you get to the castle.

    

This is what Robin Hood looks like, by the way.

      

The baron's castle is the most colorful and detailed map of the game, and it features more of the crossbow enemies. There were lots of bits of furniture that I would have liked to search, but the constant spawning of enemies ruins the fun of exploration. The baron is getting married in a chapel on the first floor, but you have to fight your way up to the second floor to find a letter from the baron to the Sheriff of Nottingham, admitting that the bride has been kidnapped. There's a mass combat on the second floor rendered almost too simple with the bow. The baron capitulates after a duel.

       

Finding a crucial piece of evidence.

      

Returning to Sherwood, Robin finds a new quest: wild boars destroying the fields of nearby villagers. You fight through a small forest map with a few wild boars before encountering the chief boar in a small hut with a skeleton. The staff makes the boar fight trivial; he just keeps advancing into the spinning staff and getting knocked back. Searching the skeleton--which looks just like those in Ultima VII--produces Locksley Armor, a Locksley Bow, and a bag of gold. Who was this guy? The Locksley Bow fires a burst of three arrows at a time, which is a marginal improvement over hitting the "A" button three times rapidly.

    

Just like in the movie.

    

You return to Sherwood and find that the Merry Men have been hard at work building tree huts. One of them tells you that a fellow has gone missing in the woods. In a forest map bisected by a river, you find him dead by a well. A letter from Mortianna, the Sheriff's witch (unnamed in the film, I think) says "Let this be a warning." To the east, you find a length of rope that lets you down the well. 

       

Why are you chopping down a tree that has a hut in it?

      

The well takes you to a series of caverns where you fight rats, snakes, and bats. The caverns lead to a dungeon where Little John claims he can smell druids. Among a few chambers, you find notes with a credit list for the game and a warning that the Sheriff is targeting villagers who help Robin Hood (who hasn't really done any banditry yet!). Mortianna confronts you at the end of the small dungeon and says that she protects the Sheriff and a giant skeleton, which you cannot beat, protects her. The skeleton is indeed immune to normal weapons, leaving you no choice but to return to the well, the outer forest, and ultimately Sherwood.

     

This must have been a deleted scene.

      

Back home, you hear that Marian wants to meet with you and is at a chapel to the south. You fight through animals and guards in a small forest area. Once you arrive at the chapel, Marian gives you a special Druid's Dagger and warns that the Sheriff is raising an army.

    

In Sherwood, an ally informs you that the Sheriff's tax carts will soon be rolling through. It turns out to be a trap set by Guy of Gisbourne, who taunts you with the fact that he killed your father. You defeat him in a duel and recover the Locksley Sword. Friar Tuck, accompanying the wagons, joins the party. The Merry Men loot the wagons and their taxes.  

   

Guy lies dead next to the Locksley Sword.

         

Sherwood now has wooden walkways connecting the tree huts. Marian meets you there but only coldly announces she's taking Duncan back with her to her castle. Meanwhile, an ally tells you that the Merry Men need a weapons master, and a nearby hermit fits the bill. 

       

Another forest segment, curiously bereft of enemies, follows. At the end, you meet a hermit who agrees to join you if you defeat him in combat. Another duel follows. The weapons master jumps and somersaults around a lot, but he's otherwise no harder than the typical enemy. He agrees to go back to the camp for 200 gold. You do accumulate gold in this game--I had 550 at this point--and there are only a couple of places to spend it. This is the only necessary one. Coming so quickly on the heels of the wagon robbery, there's no way you wouldn't have enough gold.

     

Next crisis: A flu has spread through the camp. Friar Tuck knows of a pond with magical healing waters. Strange creatures live in the pond. The "strange creatures" turn out to be giant frogs that hurl some kind of magic bolt at you. To get the water, you need to have picked up a flask in the weapons master's hut. I thought I had, but it wasn't there when I got to the pond. I had to look up how to hex edit one into my inventory.

 

Maybe "giant frogs" is the wrong call.

      

Bringing a flask of the water back to camp heals the people. The next objective is to stop an evil baron, looting his way through the countryside. You fight through a forest map to reach the village, where a mass combat ensues. Victory allows you to confront the baron, who turns out to be the same evil baron from the interrupted wedding. He challenges Robin to a duel, which goes predictably.

      

Duncan is waiting when you return to Sherwood, reporting that Marian has been kidnapped by the Sheriff, who intends to marry her. At the same time, a bunch of Celts invade the camp. Another mass combat takes place, and even if you "win," the Celts overrun the camp and force you to regroup in the forest, learning there that some Merry Men were taken captive. If you return to camp, you find it on fire, with an ally bearing news that the Sheriff plans to hang the captured outlaws. One of the huts has a "disguise" in it.

       

There's another forest, followed by another horse segment, before the party reaches the Sheriff's castle. NPCs in the area talk about the upcoming marriage and hanging. You have to don the disguise to avoid a bunch of needless mass battles.

        

Except you don't.

      

It took me a while to figure out what to do in this area. There's no way to get up on the gallows platform to rescue the hostages, and guards just turn you away from the castle gates. You have to attack the guard, it turns out, which prompts a mass battle. Afterwards, you can enter the castle.

You explore the castle, fight a bunch of guards, fight a couple of mass battles, and eventually meet Mortianna and her skeleton again. This time, you can kill it with the Druid's Dagger. Mortianna just explodes with a "nooo!" once her skeleton dies. 

     

Beyond her is the Sheriff, who quotes a little dialogue from the film before attacking in a duel. As usual, the strategy of standing still and swinging away carries the day.

       

The final battle.

      

Once the Sheriff dies, a final cinematic shows Robin and Marian getting married.

     

"Marry Robin of Locksley to Marian Dubois" would make things less ambiguous.

      

King Richard shows up to give away the bride but otherwise doesn't thank Robin for keeping his throne secure. There's a final, hilarious animation that shows Robin leaning in for a kiss, which clearly disgusts Marian.

       

"I can't bear to look at that mullet."

     

Overall, the game is pretty bad. Everywhere, there are signs of cut content. There are never any helms or boots to put on those portions of the character portraits, for instance. The manual mentions shields, which never appear. You find more chest keys than chests, and there are only two places to spend the gold you accumulate--one on a scripted event, and one on a useless chest key. It hardly makes sense to give party members experience levels and hit points, since they only act in mass combats and can't actually die even there. Individual combats are too easy, but expecting the player to last over five hours with no saves and only three lives is a bit too much.

  

The only place you can voluntarily spend money.

    

It doesn't even work very well as a movie companion. There's no character to any of the characters. Each of the party members--Azeem, Duncan, Friar Tuck, and Little John--has only a few lines after they join the party. Neither the Sheriff of Nottingham nor Maid Marian are present enough in the game to feel that they're the protagonist's great love and great nemesis, respectively. Will Scarlett is absent entirely.

But where it fails most is as a Robin Hood game. To me, Robin Hood has two defining qualities: he's a master archer, and he gives to the poor. Any Robin Hood game ought to have an archery minigame or otherwise a complex archery mechanic (and indeed the prototype seems to have one) and a method of distributing gold to peasants, perhaps for information, perhaps for other character boosts.

        

For a game that doesn't have much to do with archery, it features prominently on the box.

      

The worst of it is that if MobyGames is to be believed, there isn't a single Robin Hood RPG after this one. I'd love to see an open world game using these characters. It would be just like a medieval Far Cry. Robin comes home from the Crusades (or escapes from prison) to find Prince John oppressing the populace. Nottinghamshire is divided into several zones, each ruled by a lieutenant, including Guy of Gisbourne and the Sheriff. Robin completes a variety of missions to rob from the rich and give to the poor, with mechanics favoring stealth. Giving gold to the poor rewards the player with information about wagons to rob and castles to loot. Once John's position has been weakened enough by the Merry Men, the showdown commences. The whole thing writes itself.

        

A mid-game character sheet.

      

There are a couple of things that I like about the game and wouldn't mind seeing in more NES titles. First, while Robin doesn't have any attributes, he does get stronger and faster (as well as hardier) as he levels up. Too many NES RPGs and quasi-RPGs offer only increases to maximum health as a reward for leveling. Second, the more complex commands and character sheet work well mechanically. They just aren't used very well by the content of this particular game. I give it a 23 on the GIMLET, with the best score (4) in "Graphics, Sound, and Interface" and the worst (1) in "Economy" and "Gameplay." It's far too linear, too long for a game that doesn't allow saves, and not replayable.

   

****

   

Sorry for the week off, everyone. I had a personal emergency. I played this very early in the month but only had time to write it up now. I'll get back on track this week and get started on the next Werdna entry.