This game, which came out in 1979\1980 is the primary example of some of the earliest Crpg design ever created. In of itself, the game play akin to an offline version of the Plato Mainframe of the late 1970s, which is to say that the story is reduced to an introduction, some paragraphs and finally an ending, the later being a departure from the Plato design. The gameplay is rather simple, you create a character and roll their stats, choose between two class and off you go. The specificity of these two classes is that the fighter can wield better equipment while the magic user can use magical items and spells which basically make the fighter a suboptimal class for a few reasons which will be explained later. The game is divided in two major part; the overworld, which allow you to travels between the villages, the dungeons and the castle. Villages and the castle are simply an interface and all villages are the exact same since there is no unique products for some town. All dungeons are also, quite literally the same, the only difference being their location on the overworld map. The dungeon itslef is procedurally generated, with sometime some error in the making of the seed( your lucky number) as sometime the only way to progress is through magic and\or items, making the fighter a literal dead end if your seed is bad. The rule of the dungeon is simple, the deeper you are, the more dangerous it is. as you progress through the quests, which is a bounty on a type of monster, you are naturally sent lower down the dungeon. The character progression is rather limited as your only way to get stronger is to get the best weapon for your class, which is done by the end of your first expedition, to finish a quest ooooooooor... Use a magic amulet if you are a magic user. doing so as a magic user make you able to request a particular action which allow the character to either become a frog, losing most of your stat permanently, or becoming a reptilian, which double your stats.
I would like to add before the beginning of the review that this game is such an historical piece of game design that its importance alone is worth the try. so first off, as an 1989 game, I can't judge the plot because there isn't any. it is fairly common in this year though. in fact, there is not even a proper tutorial! essentially, the game is just a series of level unrelated to each other and this is perfectly fine for its time. but what about the gameplay? here's the real deal. the game put 2 god against each other to conquer the map with their own civilization, you are the blue one of course. but how do you win? its fairly simple really, you just have to populate, I'm not kidding. the strategy to win every time is to create land with your power for you population to grow. that's it. you have set of power to help you like pandemic or earthquake but apart from that, there isn't much else. to be honest there's no reason to play this one except acknowledgement of how far we've gotten since then. but for its time, it was really good.
as you see in the title the main problem with this game is the general ability of explaining what to do. In paradox games, you generally get the hang of the beast within 1 or 2 hour... not with this one. This is the most confusing game I've ever played in my life. battle are not explained so you need to lose quite a bit to understand why you have lost and how to improve. simply put... this is kind of a risk game... kind of. its no "luck only" games but at the beginning, it certainly seem like it. the combat essentially revolve around good commander, tech and bonus due to the weather or the general geography. to understand what kind of weather does what... you need to guess since you can only see weather through a particular kind of map, which is, you guess it, not explained. so why did I give it 2 star instead of 1? because the game, in his core, work. the diplomacy is simple nowadays but really detailed for the time, the combat offer a deep understanding of general tactic in war and the games is full of historical details and info about the era. also, this is quite fun to change the timeline, like in every paradox game. this game is important for its legacy but that it. im going through a marathon of paradox game and this one is the only one that I can't recommend. if you want to play it, just be prepared, its really different. not a bad game to its core, but you need to decipher the beast to have fun. P.S... no, there is no guide. you need to figure it out on your own.
