I cant believe that the original box of the game included the maps!!!! hahaha...I passed the game with my friend playing it over a period of years....drawing our own maps to find the solution! I even feel prouder now :D very hard game to finish...
I was already thinking the game sounded kind of Souls-y with the "drop stuff when you die" business. Now I wonder if Miyazaki played this back in the day.
Caverns of "Peligro", Caverns of "Malicia", "Muralla", "Almas". It has a mixture of english with spanish. Peligro = Danger, Malicia = Malice, Muralla = wall, almas = soul. Maybe it's the same in portuguese
@JeisonRS I do now! I was informed of that a couple of times very soon after I uploaded this. It makes sense, now that I know. And thanks, I'm glad you're enjoying!
"It will run on any computer's with 640k RAM" No kidding, I've played it a lot in my PC-XT with a CGA card, a green monochrome monitor and a PC speaker. When I got my friend with a 386 with VGA and Sound Blaster 16 to install it on his computer, my mind was blown.
The claim that the game is straightforward because the dungeons have a linear order ignores how NOT straightforward it can be within each dungeon. What with doors transporting you back and forth between toroidal scrolling areas, doors that take you to part of the next dungeon, beating a boss and having to find the next town in the next dungeon, towns that have two doors into different parts of the same dungeon, shoes that let you reach new parts of the dungeon, keys, and mandatory backtracking near the end of the game.
If you've got your maps, it is a bit more straightforward, but I remember getting to the fire levels and having to figure out how to deal with the heat currents and one way passages. It was rather crazy. And yeah, it was awesome getting those items that allowed you to skip basically the entire level once you got to the next town. It didn't make the fighting harder, but it did give a sense of progress.
Every time I really old LGR vid like this pops up in my feed I realize just how long this channel has been going for, and how different the old style was. I should set this up on my Steam Deck for another play through.....
That cover was deliberately changed for the west for marketing purposes, but when you look at Duke Garland in the cut-scenes, he looked great compared to that trashy viking on the front cover. You can also tell there was no communication between the western box cover artist and whoever commissioned them. They took one look at the game and interpreted the Dukes Winged helmet as a horned helmet and just decided he was a viking. Glad I didn't see the cover in my childhood, all I knew was what I had seen in game. Played on and off, but I couldn't end up beating it until I was maybe 15 as I got lost in the fire cavern, but after playing dungeons and dragons a little bit I realised I could map the cavern out! Finally beating that game was amazing.
Thanks, Clint! I don't know how I missed this review back when it was first posted, but I am glad it came up in my recommendations. I've been trying to find this game for years but couldn't remember the title. Now I know!
As nice as the MCGA graphics are, I feel running in EGA mode with Adlib sound/music is the most authentic to the PC-8801 experience. No matter how you play it, the game us awesome. To think later they would later grace us with awesome stuff like Grandia and Lunar..
The fact that the game is Japanese explains the cover art, and the viking even though the protagonist looks more like Sir Graham from King's Quest. White Washing was the name of the game, when it came to porting anything non-western to a western audience in the '80s and '90s.
This was my childhood!!!!! That cave music was amazing. I came here because my sister was like "Hey remember that game like Zelda, what was it called?" and instantly I was like "Zeliard". I used to play this game all the time. I loved it. I wish we had more games like this. :D
Zeliard! I played the crap out of this game on my PC XT in CGA. I remember it being insanely slow to load. I also remember how amazed I was when I brought this game to my Mom's office back then and played it on her work computer, I think it had EGA and an actual sound card! Seeing the box artwork is really nostolgic too, awesome review!
@dave4shmups Yes! The Tandy 1000 series is almost 100% IBM PC compatible, as well as compatible with the PCjr and Tandy games, for enhanced graphics and sound. Amazing machines, hope to review it soonish.
@dave4shmups Indeed they do, and depending on what your preference is (or amount of certain types of floppies you own) your machine preference may vary. There will be a Tandy 1000-series review sometime in the coming month or so.
Maybe this makes me a bit of a dork, but old school game soundtracks/scores like this really get me pumped. I could listen to loops of some of these levels and those of games similar to this for hours.
I'm a big fan of fantasy themed games & this one seems like a really good one. Review was great. It was nicely done and had enough information about this game. Keep up the good work. Golds!
Oh boy, did I spend months on this game when I was a kid. Off course I had an illegal copy and therefore no maps of the labyrinths, so I had to find my way on my own.
Almost seems like this game was translated into Spanish first, then into English using the Spanish translation. There's a lot of clues in the Spanish words everywhere... Alma is soul, muralla is wall, malicia is malice, peligro is danger, and the bosses have Spanish names (cangrejo just means crab). How curious!
Silpheed and Firehawk II : The Second Contact also had beautiful Tandy music. oh, and Grandia on the playstation was incredible -- music, gameplay, humor, originality. Game Arts did some good stuff!
@phreakindee Awesome to hear you haven't played it, you'll be surprised by the quality especially for the trademark. For the time it was awesome, it was fun because the game played differently everytime played. I don't know, selfishly I just want to see you review as I think you would show deserved appreciation. Thanks man
@MrMinecrafterEXTreme I said "practically any computer", and was referring to MS-DOS IBM PC-compatibles. So no, the PCjr won't run it that I know of. It would need 640k RAM and a Tandy mod, and in that case you may as well just use a Tandy.
Wow. Blast from the past! My dad bought Zeliard a long ass time ago and I thought it was about the coolest thing I'd ever seen. I almost thought it was a figment of my imagination until I saw this clip. Thanks!
@Xbox360Rulesz I hope to at some point, as soon as I get the games! I know they're free, but I love reviewing them in their original form and showing the packaging/extras.
Zachery Hysong Really outside of Ys 3: Wanders of Ys, I don't see much of a resemblance I personally think it shares more in common with the Dragon Slayer series mainly Dragon Slayer 2: Xanadu to Dragon Slayer 5: Sorcian and maybe a bit of Cadash.
Looks pretty similar to Faxanadu for NES. Also a sidescroller/RPG/Metroidvania. It was released a month before Zeliard in Japan. Even starts the same way in front of castle walls and talking to people in town.
Classic game. I had no clue what to do when i was young and played it (english not my native language, nor did others of my family have the ablity to read/speak it). Got as far as the 3rd or 4th boss and then couldn't progress for some reason. Not sure. Was given save games by older family members, but still never finished. Have fond memories of it though!
Today I did something extra geeky. I fired up Zeliard on a Pentium machine with the game configured for VGA and Adlib, and on a Tandy 1000 TL/2 with an EGA card/monitor and, of course, Tandy sound chosen in the game config. I synchronized the music once the game started (took a bit of pausing a few times) and listened to both simultaneously. I have yet to pick a winner. The developers and music composers showed off how a well written soundtrack can be great regardless of sound hardware!
Nice, I didn't know about this game and it actually looks pretty fun. It looks like how I wish Zelda II would've been, ha ha. I really enjoy your older game reviews, LGR. Especially the MS-Dos games from the 90's. I remember so many of them from my childhood. Have you ever played Zone 66, Space Chase (fun, but pretty annoying sounds), Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure, Block Man (unique puzzle game; simple to play but not simple to beat), or Gate World (kind of flawed but has a unique atmosphere)? I didn't see any reviews for those, so just throwing them out there if you aren't aware of them. I noticed you like Jazz Jackrabbit, which is also one of my all time favorites.
@Ubersnuber It's pretty big, around a dozen labyrinths and about as many towns, each with new enemies, things to find and buy. You could really spend hours getting into Zeliard, it's one of those you really might need to make your own maps for as you go along (or just download some). The Roland cards work with the game too, though I still prefer Tandy and Adlib modes personally!
+DUC DOAN Same here! We owned the original floppy disc and I would play it ALL the time, along with the original Duke Nukam and Biomenace.... we got a box set of games during a sale.
Young Clint forgetting to mention Game Arts :p Most if not all of their games were of pretty high production quality, the programmers they had knew the hardware and made good use of it, see also their console games.
Ah, Zeliard... Spent so much time on it. I'm prone to starting and not finishing games, but that one I decided to complete. And it was fun at the time. Except I stuck at some point. Spent DAYS trying to find where to go next. It was not only pre-internet, it was pre text gameguides on BBS', so I got stuck good. I'm still pissed. Not gonna try it nowadays, though. I do remember controls being annoying.
This game reminds me of _Ys 3: Wanderers From Ys_ for the SNES (and other systems but I know the the SNES version.) Side-scrolling action RPG. The fantasy-themed border around the game screen. Your life bar and the enemy's life bar at the bottom which are even placed the same. Great tunes.
Played the heck out of this game in 1996 on a 286 in monochrome - even without a decent sound card the audio was really neat. I got to the end - found the lava map the toughest tbh.
@Foxhack Yup. Malicia means wickedness, muralla means wall, peligro means danger... I´m pretty sure that there are much more. Nice review BTW! The game reminds me a lot of Ys III
oh man i spent hours playing this game as a kid, i got it several years after it's initial release in a gameing five pack with slipheed, which never worked, and two of the firehawk games and thexder. it was really rad but seeing as how i got it much later i had no useful map and wandered around for days before finally giving up.
What used to annoy me most about the Viking on the cover is that it's completely different from Duke Garland you could see in the intro sequence. As if the artists just took a quick peek at the gameplay and thought that's enough. :p
Well you're correct, but this doesn't scroll, it moves in chunks. If you look carefully, the screen moves block by block, it's not a true smooth scroll.
I'm happy to see you review this game. I enjoy all your vids cause it takes me back to my younger years. I played this game like crazy and I think more should try to enjoy this game. For the time it was awesome. Anyway, I want to suggest Dick Tracy for pc. I know its a known trademark but it was surprisingly good. Just a thought.
I played this a lot as a kid. We had the map and everything. Fantastic game but the section in the forest trying to find the hidden item in the tree was hell.
This is one of my favorite videos of your channel. Every time you review or play any old classic fantasy themed games I almoust scream in joy. I'm a huge fantasy nerd & I love to watch videos of different fantasy games, old or new. RPG, Strategy, Platformer, FPS, anything goes for me with sword & sorcery. Hopefully you'll show us more from your collection someday. I'll be there to enjoy it.
Couldn't agree more, this game was one of the first games I've ever played. And what's funny, even my mom played it through once, although she had that map where my dad had marked all the secrets and stuff. Still I don't believe it was an easy task for 60's girl. Zeliard, it's just an awesome game. I think it still holds up very well compared to many modern games when it comes down to gameplay, difficulty, variety and looks. When I first played darksouls I was probably two or three hours in when I had to take up Zeliard, cause in it's own way it reminds me of it. Both being great games with annoyingly challenging parts and all the originality. I have to come back for this game soon.
q306005 Grandia was amazing for ps1 Game arts was very very underated game was fun wish it was a little bit more challenging my second fave working designs game was popful mail the game play was meh but the interactions with the Characters is what kept me playing it and the funny storyline for its time it was great what they did with the sega cd anyways happy retro gaming :)
One of the few games I played through completely in the early 90's. One thing I find odd about many of these low res games from that area is that they often have giant frames around the action, limiting the already limited resolution. Wolfenstein 3D also did this.
This game was originally designed for the NEC PC-88, and even the DOS port can be run on the oldest of IBM PCs. Both machines are very bad at making the screen to scroll, and the CPU has to do all the work. So to make it work reasonably well, they had to "cut corners" (appropriate pun :D ) by making the moving parts of the screen smaller, and doing the scrolling in blocky increments. As for Wolfenstein 3D. The screen size affects how fluidly the game runs, depending how strong the CPU in your PC "is" (as in, was, in the early 90s). It can be adjusted in the optios menu. The most minimal CPU requirement for Wolfenstein 3D is theoretically an 8MHz 286-er, that was built into PCs around 1985. Wolfenstein 3D came out in 1992. You could still play it on a 7 years old machine with like 5 frames per second if you set the screen to the size of a postage stamp, instead of like 1 frame per year if the playfield was any bigger. That sounds like quite a huge backwards system support for a game like this. But people keep forgetting that Wolfenstein 3D was originally not a AAA title, it was a low-budget shareware game practically given away for free (you chose to send them money or not), and the shareware market was targetting those with little money. But it also turned out to be a technical wonder and a big hit overshadowing any AAA PC game, but that's a different story.
You can use ykhwong's DOSBox build to play this game. ykhwong's DOSBox build supports Roland MT-32 emulation and it play really well. The graphics can be further improved if you enable scale2x, hq2x filters etc. etc. in ykhwong's DOSBox build settings.
Have you ever played Sorcerian? That was my first PC game (which unfortunately didn't play properly on a 486 - had to play it on a 386). Also published in the US by Sierra, but was originally from Falcom, who make the incredible Ys series of games. Sorcerian was, and is still, one of the most unique RPGs ever made, as your characters aged and you could eventually replace them with descendants. Great game and very much worthy of a look if you haven't given it one already.
best game of my childhood, i played this on an IBM and the music sounded much better though!
It's still a great game. At least if you still got that old map and marked everything down the first time.
Ah, 2010 LGR. Truly the classics...
Piefav2 bet of the bet...
Before he got apparently tired of retro gaming. lol
This gets even more classic when you're watching this in 2019.
@@ThomasNimmesgern yes
you tell that to me, from 2014?
This was by far and away my favorite DOS game ever. I still have the soundtrack in my head from time to time.
This game had an epic soundtrack! But the later levels were brutally difficult, with illusory walls and one-way wind currents.
I cant believe that the original box of the game included the maps!!!! hahaha...I passed the game with my friend playing it over a period of years....drawing our own maps to find the solution! I even feel prouder now :D very hard game to finish...
It's still tough with original map as well
Fun fact: “alma” means soul in Portuguese. So you are a soul collector as they drop from enemies
Alma means apple in Hungarian, so it sounds like you are collecting apples in this game :D
So its like dark souls?:)
I was already thinking the game sounded kind of Souls-y with the "drop stuff when you die" business. Now I wonder if Miyazaki played this back in the day.
Caverns of "Peligro", Caverns of "Malicia", "Muralla", "Almas". It has a mixture of english with spanish. Peligro = Danger, Malicia = Malice, Muralla = wall, almas = soul. Maybe it's the same in portuguese
Who else is watching & enjoying this in 2020? 📺😊
Remember this one from my childhood. Great game, and definitely worth its weight in "Golds".
@JeisonRS I do now! I was informed of that a couple of times very soon after I uploaded this. It makes sense, now that I know.
And thanks, I'm glad you're enjoying!
"It will run on any computer's with 640k RAM"
No kidding, I've played it a lot in my PC-XT with a CGA card, a green monochrome monitor and a PC speaker.
When I got my friend with a 386 with VGA and Sound Blaster 16 to install it on his computer, my mind was blown.
I've been looking for this game forever and it's just as bad ass as I remember it. Thanx for unlocking this old school memory
The claim that the game is straightforward because the dungeons have a linear order ignores how NOT straightforward it can be within each dungeon. What with doors transporting you back and forth between toroidal scrolling areas, doors that take you to part of the next dungeon, beating a boss and having to find the next town in the next dungeon, towns that have two doors into different parts of the same dungeon, shoes that let you reach new parts of the dungeon, keys, and mandatory backtracking near the end of the game.
If you've got your maps, it is a bit more straightforward, but I remember getting to the fire levels and having to figure out how to deal with the heat currents and one way passages. It was rather crazy.
And yeah, it was awesome getting those items that allowed you to skip basically the entire level once you got to the next town. It didn't make the fighting harder, but it did give a sense of progress.
I'd pay some golds for this game
@CaptainGoodnight1 I will have to check it out, can't say I've ever even heard too much about it. Thanks!
I loved this game, had so much fun playing it as a child!
@sompret Probably because the Tandy uses nearly the exact same sound chip as the SMS/GG!
Every time I really old LGR vid like this pops up in my feed I realize just how long this channel has been going for, and how different the old style was. I should set this up on my Steam Deck for another play through.....
The Tandy sounds like a Sega Master System to me.
Sounds like Rastan(PSG Version).
Not too surprising. Both have variants of the SN76496 sound chip in them.
***** Compare the music of both versions i think the composition is very similar.
I was going to say it totally sounded like Game Gear, and that would make sense, because... THIS COMMENT IS THREE YEARS OLD???? WUT?
That cover was deliberately changed for the west for marketing purposes, but when you look at Duke Garland in the cut-scenes, he looked great compared to that trashy viking on the front cover. You can also tell there was no communication between the western box cover artist and whoever commissioned them. They took one look at the game and interpreted the Dukes Winged helmet as a horned helmet and just decided he was a viking.
Glad I didn't see the cover in my childhood, all I knew was what I had seen in game. Played on and off, but I couldn't end up beating it until I was maybe 15 as I got lost in the fire cavern, but after playing dungeons and dragons a little bit I realised I could map the cavern out! Finally beating that game was amazing.
Thanks, Clint! I don't know how I missed this review back when it was first posted, but I am glad it came up in my recommendations. I've been trying to find this game for years but couldn't remember the title. Now I know!
I can't believe I never watched this review back in the day. This is definitely a good review that fell through the cracks.
As nice as the MCGA graphics are, I feel running in EGA mode with Adlib sound/music is the most authentic to the PC-8801 experience.
No matter how you play it, the game us awesome. To think later they would later grace us with awesome stuff like Grandia and Lunar..
one of my favorite games ever!
My childhood well spent!
The fact that the game is Japanese explains the cover art, and the viking even though the protagonist looks more like Sir Graham from King's Quest.
White Washing was the name of the game, when it came to porting anything non-western to a western audience in the '80s and '90s.
This was my childhood!!!!! That cave music was amazing. I came here because my sister was like "Hey remember that game like Zelda, what was it called?"
and instantly I was like "Zeliard". I used to play this game all the time. I loved it. I wish we had more games like this. :D
@KoiKitsune2006 That's about the most accurate set of games to compare it to that I've heard so far, now that you mention it. Thanks man.
Ah brings back memories growing up =)
В 2019 помню об этой игре, вспомнил как вспомнил Dangerous Dave, сколько же лет назад это было....
Zeliard! I played the crap out of this game on my PC XT in CGA. I remember it being insanely slow to load. I also remember how amazed I was when I brought this game to my Mom's office back then and played it on her work computer, I think it had EGA and an actual sound card! Seeing the box artwork is really nostolgic too, awesome review!
That was a good times. Nice memories on first PC around 1988. Croatia, ex Yugoslavija
@dave4shmups Yes! The Tandy 1000 series is almost 100% IBM PC compatible, as well as compatible with the PCjr and Tandy games, for enhanced graphics and sound. Amazing machines, hope to review it soonish.
I HAVE BEEN LOOKING FOR THIS GAME FOR SO LONG. OH MY GOD. THANK YOU.
YOU'RE WELCOME.
@dave4shmups Indeed they do, and depending on what your preference is (or amount of certain types of floppies you own) your machine preference may vary. There will be a Tandy 1000-series review sometime in the coming month or so.
Maybe this makes me a bit of a dork, but old school game soundtracks/scores like this really get me pumped. I could listen to loops of some of these levels and those of games similar to this for hours.
First computer we ever had was a Tandy 1000. I remember dad getting it on sale back in 1992 and adding a 20 meg hard drive.
The Sierra port's release was graced with an arranged MT-32 score, which was awesome.
6:44 So... now that you HAVE a PC-8801 (as of the "Huge Box of Japanese PC Stuff" video), you planning on getting into _Zeliard_ - because you can?
@T6600C Hecks yeah it is, getting a nice workout quite often - had so many Tandy games to try out and always getting more!
I'm a big fan of fantasy themed games & this one seems like a really good one.
Review was great. It was nicely done and had enough information about this game.
Keep up the good work.
Golds!
Oh boy, did I spend months on this game when I was a kid. Off course I had an illegal copy and therefore no maps of the labyrinths, so I had to find my way on my own.
This is my all time favorite game. I really enjoyed your review of it and now I have the sudden urge to play it again.
Almost seems like this game was translated into Spanish first, then into English using the Spanish translation. There's a lot of clues in the Spanish words everywhere... Alma is soul, muralla is wall, malicia is malice, peligro is danger, and the bosses have Spanish names (cangrejo just means crab). How curious!
@dave4shmups The HX, TX, and TL (and of course the RL that I have) are all quite nice, and each give you the Tandy enhanced graphics and sound modes.
That genuinely is an impressive game for 1990, and even more so for 1987! Also, that sound score is awesome.
Wow I forgot this episode existed, weird to find old lgr's after watching so much and for so long.
Silpheed and Firehawk II : The Second Contact also had beautiful Tandy music.
oh, and Grandia on the playstation was incredible -- music, gameplay, humor, originality. Game Arts did some good stuff!
That theme sounds straight out of Pokémon gen 2! I love it!
@phreakindee Awesome to hear you haven't played it, you'll be surprised by the quality especially for the trademark. For the time it was awesome, it was fun because the game played differently everytime played. I don't know, selfishly I just want to see you review as I think you would show deserved appreciation. Thanks man
@MrMinecrafterEXTreme I said "practically any computer", and was referring to MS-DOS IBM PC-compatibles. So no, the PCjr won't run it that I know of. It would need 640k RAM and a Tandy mod, and in that case you may as well just use a Tandy.
Wow. Blast from the past! My dad bought Zeliard a long ass time ago and I thought it was about the coolest thing I'd ever seen. I almost thought it was a figment of my imagination until I saw this clip. Thanks!
@MegamanAbridged Thank you, I feel as if I've accomplished something today.
Golds is also the form of currency used by the Elves of Faxanadu :D
@bjoran83 Hehe, this comment made me chuckle. Will do.
@Xbox360Rulesz I hope to at some point, as soon as I get the games! I know they're free, but I love reviewing them in their original form and showing the packaging/extras.
Finished this a couple of days back, thanks for bringing it to my attention.
This game reminds me of the early Ys games. I like it.
Zachery Hysong Really outside of Ys 3: Wanders of Ys, I don't see much of a resemblance I personally think it shares more in common with the Dragon Slayer series mainly Dragon Slayer 2: Xanadu to Dragon Slayer 5: Sorcian and maybe a bit of Cadash.
Looks pretty similar to Faxanadu for NES. Also a sidescroller/RPG/Metroidvania. It was released a month before Zeliard in Japan. Even starts the same way in front of castle walls and talking to people in town.
Ah, man. This is the first video game I ever played, and I loved it a LOT. Had it before I even got a Sega Genesis.
man, your intro is really nostalgic now
Classic game. I had no clue what to do when i was young and played it (english not my native language, nor did others of my family have the ablity to read/speak it). Got as far as the 3rd or 4th boss and then couldn't progress for some reason. Not sure. Was given save games by older family members, but still never finished. Have fond memories of it though!
Today I did something extra geeky. I fired up Zeliard on a Pentium machine with the game configured for VGA and Adlib, and on a Tandy 1000 TL/2 with an EGA card/monitor and, of course, Tandy sound chosen in the game config. I synchronized the music once the game started (took a bit of pausing a few times) and listened to both simultaneously. I have yet to pick a winner. The developers and music composers showed off how a well written soundtrack can be great regardless of sound hardware!
@Jerry93cs It's something I put together using samples of an Atari 8-bit track titled "Vaxeen 4U"
Keep the greatness coming phreakindee!. Because you can.
Nice, I didn't know about this game and it actually looks pretty fun. It looks like how I wish Zelda II would've been, ha ha. I really enjoy your older game reviews, LGR. Especially the MS-Dos games from the 90's. I remember so many of them from my childhood.
Have you ever played Zone 66, Space Chase (fun, but pretty annoying sounds), Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure, Block Man (unique puzzle game; simple to play but not simple to beat), or Gate World (kind of flawed but has a unique atmosphere)? I didn't see any reviews for those, so just throwing them out there if you aren't aware of them. I noticed you like Jazz Jackrabbit, which is also one of my all time favorites.
@Ubersnuber It's pretty big, around a dozen labyrinths and about as many towns, each with new enemies, things to find and buy. You could really spend hours getting into Zeliard, it's one of those you really might need to make your own maps for as you go along (or just download some).
The Roland cards work with the game too, though I still prefer Tandy and Adlib modes personally!
2:04 I forcefully exhaled though my nose loudly that my mum came into my room to see if I was alright.
i finally found it. played it a long time ago and I forgot the name. Best game ever!
+DUC DOAN Where? Abandonware download or an actual copy?
It was an actual copy on a floppy disc. Long time ago and I lost it sadly ..
+DUC DOAN Same here! We owned the original floppy disc and I would play it ALL the time, along with the original Duke Nukam and Biomenace.... we got a box set of games during a sale.
I think my father still has it with original box and map and everything. I used to play shit out of this game when I was a kid
Young Clint forgetting to mention Game Arts :p Most if not all of their games were of pretty high production quality, the programmers they had knew the hardware and made good use of it, see also their console games.
I loved this game as a child
Ah, Zeliard... Spent so much time on it. I'm prone to starting and not finishing games, but that one I decided to complete. And it was fun at the time. Except I stuck at some point. Spent DAYS trying to find where to go next. It was not only pre-internet, it was pre text gameguides on BBS', so I got stuck good. I'm still pissed. Not gonna try it nowadays, though. I do remember controls being annoying.
I used to play this on a machine with CGA graphics and PC speaker. The Tandy version you're playing looks and sounds a million times better.
This game reminds me of _Ys 3: Wanderers From Ys_ for the SNES (and other systems but I know the the SNES version.)
Side-scrolling action RPG. The fantasy-themed border around the game screen. Your life bar and the enemy's life bar at the bottom which are even placed the same. Great tunes.
And yeah, this was the game that led to my eventual appetite for role-playing games.
Oh my ! This game is really a big nostalgia !
boy this certainly impressed me, i didnt know dos was capable of games like this
I genuinely laughed at the stoned-princess joke.
Played the heck out of this game in 1996 on a 286 in monochrome - even without a decent sound card the audio was really neat. I got to the end - found the lava map the toughest tbh.
@Foxhack
Yup. Malicia means wickedness, muralla means wall, peligro means danger... I´m pretty sure that there are much more.
Nice review BTW! The game reminds me a lot of Ys III
This game looks very solid. Reminds me of Zelda 2, Ys 3, Faxanadu etc.
oh man i spent hours playing this game as a kid, i got it several years after it's initial release in a gameing five pack with slipheed, which never worked, and two of the firehawk games and thexder. it was really rad but seeing as how i got it much later i had no useful map and wandered around for days before finally giving up.
This was a brilliant game. The first Metroidvania or Soulslike before those genres even existed.
very good sound track for the time incredible
What used to annoy me most about the Viking on the cover is that it's completely different from Duke Garland you could see in the intro sequence. As if the artists just took a quick peek at the gameplay and thought that's enough. :p
Just started playing this too. It's pretty good so far, thanks for bringing it up.
Well you're correct, but this doesn't scroll, it moves in chunks. If you look carefully, the screen moves block by block, it's not a true smooth scroll.
I'm happy to see you review this game. I enjoy all your vids cause it takes me back to my younger years. I played this game like crazy and I think more should try to enjoy this game. For the time it was awesome. Anyway, I want to suggest Dick Tracy for pc. I know its a known trademark but it was surprisingly good. Just a thought.
I played this a lot as a kid. We had the map and everything. Fantastic game but the section in the forest trying to find the hidden item in the tree was hell.
I have an MSX2, but no Dragonslayer yet!
This is one of my favorite videos of your channel.
Every time you review or play any old classic fantasy themed games I almoust scream in joy.
I'm a huge fantasy nerd & I love to watch videos of different fantasy games, old or new.
RPG, Strategy, Platformer, FPS, anything goes for me with sword & sorcery.
Hopefully you'll show us more from your collection someday.
I'll be there to enjoy it.
Same guys who made Grandia and Lunar, made this. Amazing.
This game was made by the same guys that made Lunar and Grandia. Amazing JRPG creators!
Couldn't agree more, this game was one of the first games I've ever played. And what's funny, even my mom played it through once, although she had that map where my dad had marked all the secrets and stuff. Still I don't believe it was an easy task for 60's girl.
Zeliard, it's just an awesome game. I think it still holds up very well compared to many modern games when it comes down to gameplay, difficulty, variety and looks. When I first played darksouls I was probably two or three hours in when I had to take up Zeliard, cause in it's own way it reminds me of it. Both being great games with annoyingly challenging parts and all the originality. I have to come back for this game soon.
q306005 Grandia was amazing for ps1 Game arts was very very underated game was fun wish it was a little bit more challenging my second fave working designs game was popful mail the game play was meh but the interactions with the Characters is what kept me playing it and the funny storyline for its time it was great what they did with the sega cd anyways happy retro gaming :)
The first electronic game I ever played.
Mmmmmmmmmmm nostalgia.....
Looks like something that would have been on the Sega Master System.
It's a super cool game with great music and gameplay.
This is one of the best sounding games played on a Roland MT-32. Give it a try.
One of the few games I played through completely in the early 90's.
One thing I find odd about many of these low res games from that area is that they often have giant frames around the action, limiting the already limited resolution. Wolfenstein 3D also did this.
This game was originally designed for the NEC PC-88, and even the DOS port can be run on the oldest of IBM PCs. Both machines are very bad at making the screen to scroll, and the CPU has to do all the work. So to make it work reasonably well, they had to "cut corners" (appropriate pun :D ) by making the moving parts of the screen smaller, and doing the scrolling in blocky increments.
As for Wolfenstein 3D. The screen size affects how fluidly the game runs, depending how strong the CPU in your PC "is" (as in, was, in the early 90s). It can be adjusted in the optios menu. The most minimal CPU requirement for Wolfenstein 3D is theoretically an 8MHz 286-er, that was built into PCs around 1985. Wolfenstein 3D came out in 1992. You could still play it on a 7 years old machine with like 5 frames per second if you set the screen to the size of a postage stamp, instead of like 1 frame per year if the playfield was any bigger.
That sounds like quite a huge backwards system support for a game like this. But people keep forgetting that Wolfenstein 3D was originally not a AAA title, it was a low-budget shareware game practically given away for free (you chose to send them money or not), and the shareware market was targetting those with little money. But it also turned out to be a technical wonder and a big hit overshadowing any AAA PC game, but that's a different story.
The Music 6:19 into the game review Is Bananarama's Cruel summer!!!
i miss this game
The talk with the king in Faxanadu has so many similarities.
You can use ykhwong's DOSBox build to play this game.
ykhwong's DOSBox build supports Roland MT-32 emulation and it play really well.
The graphics can be further improved if you enable scale2x, hq2x filters etc. etc. in ykhwong's DOSBox build settings.
Have you ever played Sorcerian? That was my first PC game (which unfortunately didn't play properly on a 486 - had to play it on a 386). Also published in the US by Sierra, but was originally from Falcom, who make the incredible Ys series of games. Sorcerian was, and is still, one of the most unique RPGs ever made, as your characters aged and you could eventually replace them with descendants. Great game and very much worthy of a look if you haven't given it one already.