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Got busy and couldn't post reviews for a while, but I was reminded of old DOS games, so I'll post a few of those too.

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Game: Excelsior Phase One: Lysandia
Developer: Castle Software
Platform: DOS (later, Windows)
Year: 1993
Website: http://www.excelsior-rpg.com

The first thing you'll notice when starting up the DOS version of this game is that it looks like it has graphics, but those graphics act remarkably like text. It's a clever trick on the developer's part to be able to make a game world that's this large with this much variety without exceeding the capabilities of the computers of its time -- it actually loads up a custom font, so sprites are just two-character sequences and item icons are just one. This gives it access to more colors and higher resolution than what CGA graphics were capable of producing.

Of course, the game was released in 1993, and Super VGA graphics were pretty standard at this point, so the cleverness of this trick isn't as significant as it seems. Still, it allowed the game to run on older hardware, which was surely a significant plus at the time, and even in 1993 it was still pretty common to have painfully low memory limits and tightly limited disk space, and using then-current graphics would have dramatically limited the scope of the world.

And it really is a huge world! It's not only big by the day's standards, it's still pretty sizable by modern standards. Three castles, 19 towns, 7 multi-floor dungeons, and a bunch of other smaller locations. The overworld map is like 50 megapixels.

It's missing a lot of modern niceties in open-world RPGs. The lack of a quest log makes it a little tricky to keep track of what you're doing. And the quest chain isn't all that noteworthy in its own right -- collect the three amulets, join the Resistance, collect the three items you need to defeat the big bad (each of which sends you off on a multi-step series of side quests), then use them to clobber the boss and win the game. But the story is told well, and the frame story outside of the in-world story is interesting. (You're a rookie extradimensional cop, basically, and your job is to go to worlds where other extradimensional threats have disrupted the proper way of things.)

There's a reasonable variety of equipment, a large list of skills, an even larger list of spells, and several playable classes. Magic has an alignment system, with MP costs determined by how closely your alignment matches that of the spell you're casting, and each cast pulling you a little bit closer to the spell's alignment. Combat is turn-based, and unless you have the ability to attack twice in a round each turn consists of either moving one step, casting one spell, using one skill, or making one attack. Do one of these things, and then every monster in the world gets a turn, even the ones you can't see. This means that if you try to play it like a Zelda game you're going to get your butt kicked, but if you stop and think and act strategically it's hard but (assuming you grind sufficiently instead of rushing it) more or less fair.

The puzzles are much less fair. They're about what you would expect from adventure games of the era, which is to say obscure and mindbreaking and you probably will want a guide. You CAN solve it entirely with the hints in the game, but it takes the kind of lateral, not-entirely-logical thinking that has fallen out of favor in modern gaming.

But overall, if you like this genre of RPG, then Excelsior Phase One is an excellent example of the type -- solid mechanics without being overcomplicated, a better story than most, and enough variety to keep things interesting.
Games by Coda (updated 10/1/2023 - New game: Adrift)
Art by Coda (updated 8/25/2022 - beatBitten and All-Nighter Simulator)

Mega Man: The Light of Will (Mega Man / Green Lantern crossover: In the lead-up to the events of Mega Man 2, Dr. Wily has discovered emotional light technology. How will his creations change how humankind thinks about artificial intelligence? Sadly abandoned. Sufficient Velocity x-post)
Old Posted 09-04-2019, 01:07 PM Reply With Quote