dungeonbuster.bsky.social
Seeking adventures from the archives of the past, one story at a time. I love taking a look at the history of RPGs, the tales they spin, and in shining a light on these from time to time in my threads. Let's explore together!
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Lucienne's Quest, despite some rough spots, is still something of a interesting RPG among the very few that made it onto the 3DO. A rare gem for the console that may not have knocked the mailed socks off of veterans, but for a few others, something of a charming crawl that was still worth trying.
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A year later in '96, a version of Lucienne's Quest would release for the Sega Saturn but only for Japan. It also underwent a name change becoming "Sword & Sorcery" and receive a lavish, animated intro starring Lucienne and the friends she would meet while remaining the same game at its core.
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The lighthearted RPG had a mix of reactions though the game as a whole wasn't quite as well received, especially when compared to other RPGs at the time on other platforms. As EGM noted in their review, it largely stood out because of the 3DO's lack of RPGs while Gamepro noted "it needs help."
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It even had a day/night cycle and during the journey, Lucienne would meet many characters that may join her adventure. Night even had a particular effect on one of your companions, turning them into a wolfman. Players could even pick power levels for spells similar to games like Wizardry 6.
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In combat, players can move their character on one side of the isometric battlefield mostly to take cover behind obstacles or other characters to protect them from direct attacks. As long as an enemy is in an attacker's line of sight, they can still initiate an attack, jetting across the gap.
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Lucienne's Quest joined a small handful of RPGs on the 3DO. It mixed 3D poly environments and 2D sprites that make up its turn-based world of adventure, but despite the 3D battles, tactics are more of a matter of eyeballing lines of sight to foes rather than chess-like positioning.
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Ginga Denshou did its best to immerse players in the same way that certain other RPGs in the West had also done in a time when physical extras contributed as much to the experience as the games themselves. A neat, space faring chapter from the Nintendo's disk-based adventures from the past!
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Ginga Denshou's formula would also be something of a precursor to Compile's Guardic Gaiden (aka The Guardian Legend) which came out on the Famicom two years later in 1988 (and was also the sequel to a 1986 shooter also by Compile) featuring a transforming hero challenging a runaway planetoid!
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There were also stores with upgrades and NPCs with 'warp' codes to quickly travel to each planet. While on-foot, oxygen slowly depleted and could only be replenished from capsules dropped for enemies. Players could even mix certain medicines together to create a nice heal (or halve their life!).
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Gameplay was split into two phases -- the overhead shooting to get from area to area and an on-foot phase to look for clues. One thing that the game did to keep pushing players to progress was to limit how much gold monsters dropped per "planet" and its collected areas.
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It came with an audio tape with lyrics, a novella, and the idea was for players to use these in tandem with the game to help figure out clues such as translating strange symbols that may be discovered. If you're curious about the music on the tape, take a listen!
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Ginga Densho was a bit different. As Covell notes, Ginga Densho was a special game -- it was ten times more expensive than the usual FDS game (which were typically ¥500 at the time) and wasn't sold in an FDS kiosk. The reason was that it wasn't just a disk game. It was a game packed with extras.
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The Famicom Disk System was a peripheral for the Nintendo Famicom in Japan that allowed it to take disks (or "Disk Cards" as Nintendo called theirs) which were considerably cheaper than cartridges. FDS owners could purchase blank disks and buy new games by having their disk rewritten at a kiosk.
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By 1986, the Nintendo Famicom's immense popularity in Japan created something of its own problem when it came to the expense of creating cartridges to meet the demand. Like any company, Nintendo looked to ways to help offset costs and in early 1986, introduced the Famicom Disk System.
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Chris Covell created an unofficial English patch for the game and released it in 2015 and even has a personal web page dedicated to the game with instructions and hints on how to play it. Covell's also a big fan of retro (like the Amiga!) with a number of personal projects listed there, too.
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The Bard's Tale III is remembered as the epic end to a trilogy of iconic dungeon crawling adventures filled with loot, puzzles, and floors filled with monsters making it a favorite for many. But for Interplay in '88, it was the end of one chapter and the beginning of another
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Bard's Tale III proved successful with a relatively warm reception. CGW's Scorpia noted in her multi-page review/hint guide that although she felt that the puzzle flow had improved on top of the series' tried and true formula, "hack-and-slash still dominates more than it should."
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BT3's copy protection included a code wheel (credit: mocagh.org). Going to another world challenged you to match up four clues to find the right number code. This in addition to hoping a sibling didn't stick your disk holding your precious characters to your fridge with a magnet just because.
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The Bard's Tale III released on fewer platforms than its predecessors (no NES port this time) and, like before, each had their differences. The Apple II version featured a neat, animated intro while the ports to PCs like MS-DOS systems could boast better graphics and sound.
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(Volume warning)
Combat was still king but it also brought a few neat things such as an automapping feature, even more powerful spells and mage classes, improved thiefy abilities, a starting dungeon for huge gobs of XP farming, and the option to transfer characters from CRPGs like Wizardry I-III.
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Michael Cranford, who designed the first two Bard's Tale titles, had left Interplay leaving longtime veterans such as Rebecca Heineman to fill in with a story by Michael A. Stackpole. It went huge with bigger dungeons, battles, more spells, monsters, and a perilous journey across multiple worlds.