Some things that went through my head when you showed the pausing on title screen. A- this really interesting and kinda funny. B- This actually shows that the game was programmed well. Most game programmers when starting out, would have a seperate game loop for the title screen vs the main game. A more ideal way to program is to just have one more generic logical loop with game state determining what section of the game or menu is shown because it has more code reuse. Not to say that most games dont have this, they just dont allow pausing explicitly if in the menu, and may use the key or button for something else. However the fact that this is possible proves that the menu has access to functions from the global game code. C- most console games from the 80/90s had a DEMO mode at the title screen where it showed game play, this is the actual game code running with artifical timed inputs. This also is a signal of a well programmed game that can change its game state at will for the same reasons as above. However most computer games from this era *didnt* have this type of thing so it allowed for a more sloppy code layout.
As a Soulslike fan who played this game atleast thrice in my childhood and completed it, I have to say looking back that this was the most Dark Souls-ish game of that period. Damn, the excitement on finding a town and hearing new cryptic dialogue from NPCs, as well as the Soulslike weapon upgrades were on point. Not to mention a healthy enemy variety and somewhat diverse environments in the dungeons. Classic game. Oh, and for being hard, the last boss Jashi'in is damn easy because you get an ability (Guerra) which smokes him out with like 11 uses of it.
Very good video. I like that you mentioned differences between the original and DOS releases, and you covered this topic very well. This game is still feels very well made, and as you also said - it is very DOSbox friendly. I remember playing this game on Soviet Iskra 1030(8086 compatible PC) and all the timings feels the pretty much same when playing under DOSBox
Loved this game so much as a kid, even though I only ever got about halfway through or so. I loved the character it had, when the bank manager would ask you to deposit a large sum next time, and the way people would complain when you didn't spend money - was lovely to see you showcase that. The cover art is very strange and funny, completely misses the game's aesthetic, but I only ever borrowed the game on disk from a friend. The #1 trick used by my brother and I was to buy magia stones, one of the greatest items in the game, which often dealt with the monsters so you could focus on the platforming. They also made boss battles much easier. Seeing the gameplay and dialogue and hearing the music here really takes me back. What a great looking EGA game this was.
I think review missed one important detail: area map wraps around both horizontally and vertically (!). In some of the later levels you do have to take this feature into account where you might see a seemingly unreachable area above you but the way to get there is by descending down instead and then wrapping up to come from above the area. Platforms reset upon re-entering area, sometimes you get only one try before you have to go back to another area to reset them. But yeah, this game is hard but awesome, nearly got to the end without walkthroughs and maps. In my opinion it also sounds best on Roland MT-32, ice level theme in particular.
I thought about mentioning it, but the maps are so small you realize this is happening within the first few minutes of gameplay and I didn't really have any particular reason to draw attention to it. :B
@@Pixelmusement Key concept of the game. Can't remember I have seen it in any other game. The vert + horz circular labyrinth style bedazzles your mind in a good and a bad way. As a child I hated it and I loved it at the same time.
I remember this game not only looking and sounding amazing but it also had a BRUTAL difficulty curve! It had the difficulty of an old 80's game, but amazingly it never made me feel cheated when I lost which is hard for game developers to find that particular sweetspot.
Thanks for this one ADG. I remember playing this in my youth and only getting so far, at some point I dived into the walkthroughs as the middle levels became ridiculously hard - was not disappointed though one of my favourite games
If I had a full week to dedicate to playing this I probably would've as I like these kinds of games, but alas, more vids to make and my own gamedev stuff to work on as well. :B
I played this game for the first time when I was 3. We had a bootlegged copy brought over by our Russian exchange student at the time. She left it when she returned home, and my dad and I played it a LOT for a year or two before he felt bad enough not owning the game that he deleted it. Never having a map or game manual, I made it to the fire level and my dad swears he remembers getting to the level after that, but can’t remember any details about it. He found a copy at a local computer store a few years later and we quickly made progress to where we were the first time. I never did make it past the fire level, though I try again every few years. I refuse to pick up a walkthrough though, I really want to make it through someday on my own.
Do allow yourself maps though because I've read the game came with pretty much a full map of the entire game, which makes sense as even Thexder did that and I remember having said map! (Though I lost it MANY years ago.)
I could have sworn that you had brought up Zeliard in the past! I was convinced in fact, turns out it was Clint over at LGR who first brought it to my attention. You weren't kidding about the difficulty...
It was one of Clint's first reviews, back when the "lazy" in "Lazy Game Reviews" actually meant something, 'cause I don't think he played more than a half hour into it for his old video. :B
Guilty, haha. I made each video over the weekend back then, so I'd record for about an hour and try to get the video finished before having to head off to another week at work Monday morning. Definitely didn't give this one the time it deserved, but I recall not wanting to continue anyway due to the difficulty.
@@LGR Clint! It really is a different feeling, playing a game knowing you're going to review it instead of playing for pleasure. Especially when it's time-sensitive and you're working another job. You don't want to force it, but you can't take forever with it either. You and Kris are my biggest influences on my work, so to have not only Kris repeatedly respond to me in the past on his channel but you to show up today as well... Starstruck!
Played this game on every pc I had since our first 4mhz 8088 back in early nineties :) grew up with it and personally I think it beats zelda hands down =d
Regarding pausing at the title screen. I''ve known some games that let you pause anywhere, and suspected they can do at the title screen aswell. Now I can confirm: -The LucasArts Scumm engine games at least up to Sam N' Max (Space is pause). Of couse, the intro is just one of the scripted cutscenes. -The Accolade / Distinctive software driving games: Test Drive 1-2-3, Grand Prix Circuit, The Cycles, Stunts, etc (Ctrl+P). I've also found just now: -Silpheed (Esc or Pause/Break). The music doesn't stop, but the animation does. Well it's from GameArts/Sierra -Thexder II: Firehawk (Esc). Curiously, it doesn't work in the first Thexder game -Likely all Sierra AGI/SCI adventure games (Pause/Break). One again, the music doesn't stop.
@@Pixelmusement Probably also Sierra fans/collectors. Their Japanese imports are such an oddball part of their catalog, and iirc most of them didn't sell very well, which would make them valuable to anyone trying to complete an in-box collection.
Yeah I am shocked to learn it is expensive. I think this was the one I had two boxed copies of at one point because the first was the cheaper rerelease. I only paid a few bucks for it.
Thank you for reviewing one of my all time favorites! This incredible game is so much fun, and I wish to someday, somehow, see it on GDQ. I have a small nit to pick though: almas do not count toward XP, you get XP for killing monsters. The XP value of monsters increases exponentially with each level. (Also, you start with 0 XP and need 1 XP to level up, that is, a single kill suffices. When we played this at kids we would leave town, kill the first frog to the right of the door and immediately go back to see power).
I must say, I think the game only starts on level 4. The dungeons become much more interesting. They aren't just labyrinthian, each has its own rules and identity. They are mostly fun to traverse, and beating them feels like an accomplishment. Also, when you gear up it becomes very easy to breeze through the entire game after you die. The equipment you make allows you to traverse the game in new ways and the devs included many shortcuts in the early levels which are only usable once you get a particular piece of equipment. Most levels can be skipped almost entirely, in fact, you can skip directly from the 6th level to the 8th.
I'm aware of the XP thing. I even said in the video that it's written to make it sound as though the Almas SHOULD be what you're getting experience from, but that Almas and XP are actually separate values. This is confused in some of the other texts about the game out there and it was kind of last-minute figuring out for certain that they were separate so I was kind of scrambling to fix my script. :B
Damn I bought this game from the clearence end cap from Target when I was probably 9 or 10. I got a lot of great DOS games from that end cap. I wish that my dad kept all of that software seeing how rare a lot of it is. I played the hell out of Zeliard for years but could never get much farther than the second town. Inevitably I would always die, return to the first town and get frustrated that I had to replay through what I beat and give up. I would love to play it again someday, but very few people seem to remember this game. Aside from an ancient LGR video, there's not much out there about this game which is a shame. I keep hoping that someday it will get released commercially, but that might be a pipe dream at this point.
I don't think it's too far fetched to see this and other Game Arts titles show up on GOG or Steam or such in the future, though it really depends on how well the ties to Sierra work out. :P
Theres a lot of play of words in spanish. ALMAS [Almas]= Souls Cavern of Madera = Cavern of Wood Cavern of Peligro = Cavern of Danger Demon's Souls, you were not the first to use souls as currency for level up.
Some versions of Zeliard came with a full map of the caverns. Since you only obtained the disks and nothing else, it's no surprise that you found the dungeons especially daunting.
Yeah, I found out about that just as I was getting the video up. That said though, I didn't really find the dungeons so much "daunting", but the enemies respawn so if you take a wrong turn and have to backtrack they eventually just wear you down. :/
My buddy and I who used to play this all the time noticed that since he was a huge Yes fan and used to play 90125 around the same time we played this, haha.
1:30 One pattern I've noticed between this video and your older one about Thexder is the use of 640x200 EGA graphics mode, but using only the 8 highest intensity colors. That's not an accident. 640x200 happens to match the 8-color RGB graphics modes of the PC-88/PC-98 Japanese PCs of the time which had a digital RGB connection to the monitor, sort of like CGA RGBI but without the "I" pin and always full intensity, and with 3 bitplanes (for 8 colors) instead of 4 bitplanes like EGA/VGA. According to the My Abandonware site this game was originally released for PC-88 in 1987, and ported to the IBM PC platform in 1990. 3:30 Ah, yes, I see it has the same video mode selection logic as Thexder :)
There were a bunch of Xanadu-esque games around when this came out (of which Zelda II was only one) especially on the PC-88. Asking which NES games this could have been inspired by is kinda a weird question to me as side-scrolling action RPGs like this was already an established genre on Japanese PCs by the time any came to the NES.
Even before you mentioned Thexder, I thought to myself "Boy, the color scheme and graphics remind me of Thexder, I wonder if they were made by the same people.."
Good video I remember seeing this in the Sierra catalog that came with my ega only copy of Rise of the Dragon around 90 but back then no internet and around a paragraph or two and one or two screenshots. Thought it looked different than any other pc game at the time. I never saw it at the store though seems they would keep new titles for a few months and then stop carrying them. Gaming was different back then. Looks fun though I’d pay 40 for disks.
It's _Frog Baseball_ before there was Beavis and Butt-head. Nice game BGM. (9:42) A new magic spell the first time the player talks to a new sage? Sounds similar to the guilds of _Alternate Reality: The City._
GIANT ENEMY CRAB. Interesting game, to be sure, hopefully it'll come onto Steam/GOG, if whoever owns the rights to Game Arts games wills it. Hey, Wink Martindale and John Ricci Jr. were able to get the old game show Whew! back on TV on Buzzr... in America... I wish we had Buzzr in Canada. But yeah, good episode. :)
A quick comment about the availability of this game: there is actually a cheap, legal version of Zeliard available for digital distribution via the Project EGG website, which has tons of old Japanese PC games for sale. The catch, though, is that it's for the PC-8801 version, and since prices are listed in yen (800 yen regular price, 400 discounted for Zeliard as of this writing), I don't know how easy it is to purchase outside of Japan... and you'd need to know Japanese pretty well to be able to navigate the site. Also, the Project EGG site has a per-month fee in addition to the cost of individual games, so if you're only going there for the one game, you might as well just buy the DOS version. Anyway, I just thought I'd mention this for the sake of completeness. Here's a link to the page for Zeliard: www.amusement-center.com/project/egg/cgi/ecatalog-detail.cgi?contcode=7&product_id=1292
That other channel I mentioned previously has actually covered Zeliard on the PC-88 now: ua-cam.com/video/42fvJV08b-M/v-deo.html It is interesting seeing your different perspectives, and both of you go in-depth with the mechanics. BB also likes to spoil the story, which can be a godsend for people who can't beat the game. I neeed to pick this one up some day, because it really does look like a blast.
This plays pretty nicely on my Tandy 1000 HX. I've also tried it on another clone XT with an EGA card, and kinda prefer the TGA graphics in this case. Sure the EGA is sharper at twice the horizontal resolution, but the vertical black lines are a little offputting. Between PC speaker and Tandy 3-voice, I'd take Tandy any day, so if you're trying this on bare metal and don't have an Ad-lib or MT-32, I'd definitely recommend trying it on a Tandy if you have one.
Regarding this game's inspirations, I would be stunned if it wasn't heavily influenced by the games Falcom was putting out around this same time, especially the Dragon Slayer / Xanadu series. They've got a lot of elements in common, from the side-scrolling ARPG approach, to the way they handle the GUI status bars. (The life bar that grows horizontally as you level up is a Falcom staple.)
That's possible too, but then, Zelda 2 did that as well. I think it's safe to say a number of games were experimenting with that style of gameplay at the time, but out of all of them, Zelda 2 would almost certainly be one of the more popular ones.
Sounds about right. The first boss isn't too bad but the second boss' water pulse attack is hard to escape from if it hits and just OBLITERATES your health if you can't get clear of it. And the third boss... you can't even play it safe because you will just get annihilated; you have to be the aggressor to even have a chance at winning. :P
I do remember the first boss not being too bad (at least with the upgrades I got by then) but getting frustrating and quitting on the second boss. Respawning in the very beginning was probably part of that. I actually don't know anyone that finished it xD
I'd guess it's more influenced by other PC-88 games, particularly the ones by Falcom, who did a bunch of action RPGs. Not saying that it can't be influenced by Zelda 2, but still. Also, I find those old Western covers of anime-style games pretty amusing. My favorites are the covers of the first two Breath of Fire games, due to barbarian Ryu (still retaining his blue hair from the actual games).
Wooo one of my favorites from my childhood! I actually preferred Sorcerian but my disks broke after the first time I installed it so it was all Zeliard from then on out, haha. Never beat Zeliard; pretty sure nobody ever did. Edit: Ha, just sold my copy of this, boxed, for $30 last year. Oops, that will teach me not to check prices carefully
I hadn't even heard of that one... Looking at it, I think maybe that's more of a rough inspiration for every similar game following, rather than a direct inspiration, but then, the only way to know for certain would be to ask one of the devs. :B
Interesting thing: I checked the dates, and Ys 1 came out six months before this. It definitely could have been an inspiration. And I'm nearly certain that Zeilard was inspired by Falcom's other games around this time. They'd been making similar side-scrolling ARPGs for a few years at that point.
I found out that there's two dos versions of Zeliard available: v1.208 (1990) and v2.0 (1991). However I couldn't find any details about the differences between these two. Which one was played here? I don't know if the version number was indicated anywhere in the game but at least in the game files, ZELIARD.EXE and .SAR files were dated accordingly (v2.0 has 1991 date while other has 1990 date)
I covered that one three years ago! ua-cam.com/video/FOn-RJx2eBA/v-deo.html Also keep in mind I have a link to the alphabetical list of games I've covered at the bottom of the video description of every video! ;)
Yep! I tested it out a little but it definitely looks and sounds better in EGA by comparison, though don't get me wrong, the Tandy mode is done pretty well too! :B
@@Pixelmusement I don't remember... been years since I owned the PS1 version. But its a semi-famous quote from the original NES version and I had heard most translations kept it... I guess PS1 might be the exception? I could swear I played a version of FF4 that removed the Spoony Bard line too.
Was there a comparison of the EGA 640x200 vs MCGA 320x200 look that I just missed? I'd have been intrigued to see a side-by-side (similar to some of the commentary in your Thexder video)
I tested it out myself and they were virtually identical so I didn't feel it was worth going through the effort to do a full comparison. The MCGA mode is a little more vibrant, but the font is way nicer on the eyes in EGA. :B
@@ArantorUK I run the MCGA version for my Let's Play if you wanted to look at a quick comparison, although I ran a filter over it so the text wouldn't be awful.
Yup! Though all things considered, these aren't tricky maps to navigate as they're not very big... it's just dealing with the respawning enemies that wears you down as you try to get a handle on everything the hard way. :P
Did... did I snipe an auction from you on this long ago? As I bought this for fairly cheap, in box, from eBay, back in 2015 for about 28 dollars. o_O I bought it for my Let's Play series so I would have a legitimate copy of it to show off.
@@Pixelmusement Apparently! I think I had just logged in and hit the cheapest buy-it-now or something. If I had known you were looking for it, I would have sent it to you. I love Zeliard!
Any reason why you not using Munt MT-32 emulator (ESPECIALLY for this game)? Until its explained in video itself (still not watched to the end, but i will!), sorry!
@@Pixelmusement Legal issues acquiring the ROM images, perhaps? Also, the emulation isn't always accurate. (I have a real MT-32, this is first-hand experience)
Tried running this in DFend Reloaded, and it never made it to the title screen. Dunno why....I'll try setting cycles to auto and just leaving it at that, as you recommend.
Pixelmusement could you give me the schedule for when you upload adg games episodes on your channel and when you upload shovelware diggers episodes on your channel
New ADG videos go up on each of the first three Saturdays of every month while Shovelware Diggers goes up every week on Wednesdays. I try to get them up around midnight Eastern Time, but that doesn't always work out; If there's going to be considerable delays I'll post ahead of time on Twitter about it, or on Patreon if the delay is more than a few hours.
As you indicated though, that's an opinion, and while it's a valid opinion and we absolutely need better laws for this sort of thing, the law still technically makes it illegal. :P
Technically, but nobody's going to go after you for breaking that law :P Personally I like to listen to Judas Priest "Breaking The Law" when downloading abandonware.
But it means I can't outright tell people "go do this illegal thing" because that makes me culpable. It's up to each individual person to make those decisions for themselves.
Abandonware is not legitimate though, thus I cannot legally provide such links or encourage people to take that route towards obtaining it; It's all on you and anyone else who decides to go down that path. (Though don't get me wrong, we absolutely need better laws about this sort of thing.)
All of Game Arts original titles were developed using this dithering trick due to limitations in the hardware it was originally developed for, as none of their games started life as DOS titles. The game DOES have an MCGA mode which doesn't have the dithering and instead reproduces the colours solidly, but because of the lower resolution the font is a bit less pleasant on the eyes. I opted to show the dithered EGA mode over the MCGA mode due to the better font and for greater authenticity to the original look of the game. :B
@@Pixelmusement I see. Would that look better on a real CRT monitor of the time? I know dithering in consoles like the Mega Drive was used to fake colors because CRT TVs + composite would blend the dithering into solid colors or transparencies. I assume something similar would happen here?
@@Imgema Not so much on a computer monitor as they've always had better clarity than TV screens, but yeah, on a TV screen the dithering would blend together more readily. :B
So, anyone who is interested.... Ironically I once joked with Kris about making a show called "Japanese Ancient DOS Games".... turns out, someone actually made a UA-cam channel that's kinda-sorta exactly that! It's called Basement Brothers, though specifically its one of two shows they do (the other recurring show focuses on the Neo-Geo). www.youtube.com/@BasementBrothers
Whenever you go to a Sage in a town use the "Record Experience" option then type in the name of the save file you wish to make. If the filename already exists it will be overwritten. To load a game you simply press F7, but you must already be playing the game; this won't work on the title screen or in the story sequences.
Joking aside, this sounds and looks amazing for the time.
May your 2021 is better than 2020, Kris. (And whomever reads this)
Some things that went through my head when you showed the pausing on title screen.
A- this really interesting and kinda funny.
B- This actually shows that the game was programmed well. Most game programmers when starting out, would have a seperate game loop for the title screen vs the main game. A more ideal way to program is to just have one more generic logical loop with game state determining what section of the game or menu is shown because it has more code reuse. Not to say that most games dont have this, they just dont allow pausing explicitly if in the menu, and may use the key or button for something else. However the fact that this is possible proves that the menu has access to functions from the global game code.
C- most console games from the 80/90s had a DEMO mode at the title screen where it showed game play, this is the actual game code running with artifical timed inputs. This also is a signal of a well programmed game that can change its game state at will for the same reasons as above. However most computer games from this era *didnt* have this type of thing so it allowed for a more sloppy code layout.
As a Soulslike fan who played this game atleast thrice in my childhood and completed it, I have to say looking back that this was the most Dark Souls-ish game of that period. Damn, the excitement on finding a town and hearing new cryptic dialogue from NPCs, as well as the Soulslike weapon upgrades were on point. Not to mention a healthy enemy variety and somewhat diverse environments in the dungeons. Classic game. Oh, and for being hard, the last boss Jashi'in is damn easy because you get an ability (Guerra) which smokes him out with like 11 uses of it.
Very good video.
I like that you mentioned differences between the original and DOS releases, and you covered this topic very well.
This game is still feels very well made, and as you also said - it is very DOSbox friendly.
I remember playing this game on Soviet Iskra 1030(8086 compatible PC) and all the timings feels the pretty much same when playing under DOSBox
The game has some pretty solid timing code in it, unlike a lot of PC games throughout much of the 80s and even 90s. :P
Loved this game so much as a kid, even though I only ever got about halfway through or so. I loved the character it had, when the bank manager would ask you to deposit a large sum next time, and the way people would complain when you didn't spend money - was lovely to see you showcase that. The cover art is very strange and funny, completely misses the game's aesthetic, but I only ever borrowed the game on disk from a friend. The #1 trick used by my brother and I was to buy magia stones, one of the greatest items in the game, which often dealt with the monsters so you could focus on the platforming. They also made boss battles much easier.
Seeing the gameplay and dialogue and hearing the music here really takes me back. What a great looking EGA game this was.
Japanese composers really knew how to work with the fm music. Also gameplay feels pretty much like faxanadu and sorcerian
Sorcerian was made by the same team (Game Arts?) and also brought over to the home market in the U.S. by Sierra, strangely enough.
@@Dr.Quarex Sorcerian was made by Nihon Falcom, not Game Arts.
Yeah, they used the OPL2 so well that the game sounds like a Sega Genesis release
I think review missed one important detail: area map wraps around both horizontally and vertically (!). In some of the later levels you do have to take this feature into account where you might see a seemingly unreachable area above you but the way to get there is by descending down instead and then wrapping up to come from above the area. Platforms reset upon re-entering area, sometimes you get only one try before you have to go back to another area to reset them. But yeah, this game is hard but awesome, nearly got to the end without walkthroughs and maps. In my opinion it also sounds best on Roland MT-32, ice level theme in particular.
I thought about mentioning it, but the maps are so small you realize this is happening within the first few minutes of gameplay and I didn't really have any particular reason to draw attention to it. :B
@@Pixelmusement Key concept of the game. Can't remember I have seen it in any other game. The vert + horz circular labyrinth style bedazzles your mind in a good and a bad way. As a child I hated it and I loved it at the same time.
Our boy is back, everyone! Glad to see you're still doing alright, Kris. May this year suck exponentially less.
I remember this game not only looking and sounding amazing but it also had a BRUTAL difficulty curve! It had the difficulty of an old 80's game, but amazingly it never made me feel cheated when I lost which is hard for game developers to find that particular sweetspot.
The difficulty "curve" of this game is a straight line across the top of the graph. ;D
those slugs totally look like Slurms Mckenzie
Thanks for this one ADG. I remember playing this in my youth and only getting so far, at some point I dived into the walkthroughs as the middle levels became ridiculously hard - was not disappointed though one of my favourite games
If I had a full week to dedicate to playing this I probably would've as I like these kinds of games, but alas, more vids to make and my own gamedev stuff to work on as well. :B
@@Pixelmusement O the pitfalls of adulthood and needing to actually 'do stuff'
Duke Garland's color scheme is very appropriate for Christmas.
Ahh yes, I love me some GOLDS. Those 1000 GOLDS you get at the beginning will take you far. Cant do much without GOLDS.
Zeliard was my first game growing up, and its still one of my all time favorites. Thanks for a great video!
I played this game for the first time when I was 3. We had a bootlegged copy brought over by our Russian exchange student at the time. She left it when she returned home, and my dad and I played it a LOT for a year or two before he felt bad enough not owning the game that he deleted it. Never having a map or game manual, I made it to the fire level and my dad swears he remembers getting to the level after that, but can’t remember any details about it. He found a copy at a local computer store a few years later and we quickly made progress to where we were the first time. I never did make it past the fire level, though I try again every few years. I refuse to pick up a walkthrough though, I really want to make it through someday on my own.
Do allow yourself maps though because I've read the game came with pretty much a full map of the entire game, which makes sense as even Thexder did that and I remember having said map! (Though I lost it MANY years ago.)
It's not every day you see a Japanese game on this channel, so this was really refreshing. That rain of sand from the intro sounds really scary.
Played this game a lot as a kid! Awesome game for that time.
I could have sworn that you had brought up Zeliard in the past! I was convinced in fact, turns out it was Clint over at LGR who first brought it to my attention. You weren't kidding about the difficulty...
"Oh you want to be a hero? Ok, hotshot - come at me."
It was one of Clint's first reviews, back when the "lazy" in "Lazy Game Reviews" actually meant something, 'cause I don't think he played more than a half hour into it for his old video. :B
Guilty, haha. I made each video over the weekend back then, so I'd record for about an hour and try to get the video finished before having to head off to another week at work Monday morning. Definitely didn't give this one the time it deserved, but I recall not wanting to continue anyway due to the difficulty.
@@LGR Clint! It really is a different feeling, playing a game knowing you're going to review it instead of playing for pleasure. Especially when it's time-sensitive and you're working another job. You don't want to force it, but you can't take forever with it either. You and Kris are my biggest influences on my work, so to have not only Kris repeatedly respond to me in the past on his channel but you to show up today as well... Starstruck!
Played this game on every pc I had since our first 4mhz 8088 back in early nineties :) grew up with it and personally I think it beats zelda hands down =d
Regarding pausing at the title screen.
I''ve known some games that let you pause anywhere, and suspected they can do at the title screen aswell.
Now I can confirm:
-The LucasArts Scumm engine games at least up to Sam N' Max (Space is pause). Of couse, the intro is just one of the scripted cutscenes.
-The Accolade / Distinctive software driving games: Test Drive 1-2-3, Grand Prix Circuit, The Cycles, Stunts, etc (Ctrl+P).
I've also found just now:
-Silpheed (Esc or Pause/Break). The music doesn't stop, but the animation does. Well it's from GameArts/Sierra
-Thexder II: Firehawk (Esc). Curiously, it doesn't work in the first Thexder game
-Likely all Sierra AGI/SCI adventure games (Pause/Break). One again, the music doesn't stop.
I had this in the mid 90s. Paid a dollar at a thrift store. Collecting is weird
I blame speculators and the resurgence of interest in old games. :B
@@Pixelmusement Probably also Sierra fans/collectors. Their Japanese imports are such an oddball part of their catalog, and iirc most of them didn't sell very well, which would make them valuable to anyone trying to complete an in-box collection.
Yeah I am shocked to learn it is expensive. I think this was the one I had two boxed copies of at one point because the first was the cheaper rerelease. I only paid a few bucks for it.
Thank you for reviewing one of my all time favorites! This incredible game is so much fun, and I wish to someday, somehow, see it on GDQ. I have a small nit to pick though: almas do not count toward XP, you get XP for killing monsters. The XP value of monsters increases exponentially with each level. (Also, you start with 0 XP and need 1 XP to level up, that is, a single kill suffices. When we played this at kids we would leave town, kill the first frog to the right of the door and immediately go back to see power).
(Also, you can hold up+down to do a rotational slash while standing in place)
I must say, I think the game only starts on level 4. The dungeons become much more interesting. They aren't just labyrinthian, each has its own rules and identity. They are mostly fun to traverse, and beating them feels like an accomplishment. Also, when you gear up it becomes very easy to breeze through the entire game after you die. The equipment you make allows you to traverse the game in new ways and the devs included many shortcuts in the early levels which are only usable once you get a particular piece of equipment. Most levels can be skipped almost entirely, in fact, you can skip directly from the 6th level to the 8th.
I'm aware of the XP thing. I even said in the video that it's written to make it sound as though the Almas SHOULD be what you're getting experience from, but that Almas and XP are actually separate values. This is confused in some of the other texts about the game out there and it was kind of last-minute figuring out for certain that they were separate so I was kind of scrambling to fix my script. :B
I love these kind of games. I beat YS III with my son a few weeks ago and this might be interesting to pick up.
Damn I bought this game from the clearence end cap from Target when I was probably 9 or 10. I got a lot of great DOS games from that end cap. I wish that my dad kept all of that software seeing how rare a lot of it is. I played the hell out of Zeliard for years but could never get much farther than the second town. Inevitably I would always die, return to the first town and get frustrated that I had to replay through what I beat and give up. I would love to play it again someday, but very few people seem to remember this game. Aside from an ancient LGR video, there's not much out there about this game which is a shame. I keep hoping that someday it will get released commercially, but that might be a pipe dream at this point.
I don't think it's too far fetched to see this and other Game Arts titles show up on GOG or Steam or such in the future, though it really depends on how well the ties to Sierra work out. :P
Theres a lot of play of words in spanish.
ALMAS [Almas]= Souls
Cavern of Madera = Cavern of Wood
Cavern of Peligro = Cavern of Danger
Demon's Souls, you were not the first to use souls as currency for level up.
Alma sounds funny to me because in hungarian it meas apple. So when the creatures die, they drop their apples :D
Some versions of Zeliard came with a full map of the caverns. Since you only obtained the disks and nothing else, it's no surprise that you found the dungeons especially daunting.
Yeah, I found out about that just as I was getting the video up. That said though, I didn't really find the dungeons so much "daunting", but the enemies respawn so if you take a wrong turn and have to backtrack they eventually just wear you down. :/
I really love the look and sound of this game. Would love to track down a copy myself when I have saved up cash for it, lol.
The music at 8:35 sounds almost exactly like "Hearts" by Yes (from their album 90125). Maybe the composers were fans?
My buddy and I who used to play this all the time noticed that since he was a huge Yes fan and used to play 90125 around the same time we played this, haha.
I hear it to. DOS-era musical near-plagiarism, not just for Bobby Prince anymore!
Awesome. I love this game. Will finish it sometime in my life.
Awesome video. Never heard of this game, sadly, though it's the exact type of game I would have played to death back in the day.
I love your insightful reviews, even if I know nothing about the game. In this case, it sounds like a remake would be cool.
1:30 One pattern I've noticed between this video and your older one about Thexder is the use of 640x200 EGA graphics mode, but using only the 8 highest intensity colors. That's not an accident. 640x200 happens to match the 8-color RGB graphics modes of the PC-88/PC-98 Japanese PCs of the time which had a digital RGB connection to the monitor, sort of like CGA RGBI but without the "I" pin and always full intensity, and with 3 bitplanes (for 8 colors) instead of 4 bitplanes like EGA/VGA. According to the My Abandonware site this game was originally released for PC-88 in 1987, and ported to the IBM PC platform in 1990.
3:30 Ah, yes, I see it has the same video mode selection logic as Thexder :)
There were a bunch of Xanadu-esque games around when this came out (of which Zelda II was only one) especially on the PC-88. Asking which NES games this could have been inspired by is kinda a weird question to me as side-scrolling action RPGs like this was already an established genre on Japanese PCs by the time any came to the NES.
Even before you mentioned Thexder, I thought to myself "Boy, the color scheme and graphics remind me of Thexder, I wonder if they were made by the same people.."
Gives me heavy NES - Foxanadu vibes
Fox anadu? That sounds like a funny faxanadu parody homebrew. I'll get started immediately
Admittedly, if it was "Fox"anadu and not "Fax"anadu that would've made for a radically different Captain N episode about it. ;)
Happy new year, Kris
Happy New Year, DBH! :D
Good video I remember seeing this in the Sierra catalog that came with my ega only copy of Rise of the Dragon around 90 but back then no internet and around a paragraph or two and one or two screenshots. Thought it looked different than any other pc game at the time. I never saw it at the store though seems they would keep new titles for a few months and then stop carrying them. Gaming was different back then. Looks fun though I’d pay 40 for disks.
Hmm yes, good start for 2021! Interesting game actually.
It's _Frog Baseball_ before there was Beavis and Butt-head. Nice game BGM.
(9:42) A new magic spell the first time the player talks to a new sage? Sounds similar to the guilds of _Alternate Reality: The City._
Going back to the first town is an idea from Zelda II that NOBODY wants to see in other games.
Not sure I said it, but, if I did here it is again, Happy New Year Pixel.
Happy New Year, SC! ;)
GIANT ENEMY CRAB. Interesting game, to be sure, hopefully it'll come onto Steam/GOG, if whoever owns the rights to Game Arts games wills it. Hey, Wink Martindale and John Ricci Jr. were able to get the old game show Whew! back on TV on Buzzr... in America... I wish we had Buzzr in Canada. But yeah, good episode. :)
Childhood favorite game plus monster land
It's a neat idea, putting exchange rates in a single-player rpg. Maybe the designer had a secret dream of being an economist.
A quick comment about the availability of this game: there is actually a cheap, legal version of Zeliard available for digital distribution via the Project EGG website, which has tons of old Japanese PC games for sale. The catch, though, is that it's for the PC-8801 version, and since prices are listed in yen (800 yen regular price, 400 discounted for Zeliard as of this writing), I don't know how easy it is to purchase outside of Japan... and you'd need to know Japanese pretty well to be able to navigate the site. Also, the Project EGG site has a per-month fee in addition to the cost of individual games, so if you're only going there for the one game, you might as well just buy the DOS version.
Anyway, I just thought I'd mention this for the sake of completeness. Here's a link to the page for Zeliard:
www.amusement-center.com/project/egg/cgi/ecatalog-detail.cgi?contcode=7&product_id=1292
This game looks fantastic
Lol I started playing this last night
ooooooooooooooo, Dragon Buster vibes. Scratch that, Cadash vibes.
That other channel I mentioned previously has actually covered Zeliard on the PC-88 now: ua-cam.com/video/42fvJV08b-M/v-deo.html
It is interesting seeing your different perspectives, and both of you go in-depth with the mechanics. BB also likes to spoil the story, which can be a godsend for people who can't beat the game.
I neeed to pick this one up some day, because it really does look like a blast.
I was right! That's the first game comes to my mind when I think of ega 640x200. The second is Thexder.
This plays pretty nicely on my Tandy 1000 HX. I've also tried it on another clone XT with an EGA card, and kinda prefer the TGA graphics in this case. Sure the EGA is sharper at twice the horizontal resolution, but the vertical black lines are a little offputting. Between PC speaker and Tandy 3-voice, I'd take Tandy any day, so if you're trying this on bare metal and don't have an Ad-lib or MT-32, I'd definitely recommend trying it on a Tandy if you have one.
Regarding this game's inspirations, I would be stunned if it wasn't heavily influenced by the games Falcom was putting out around this same time, especially the Dragon Slayer / Xanadu series. They've got a lot of elements in common, from the side-scrolling ARPG approach, to the way they handle the GUI status bars. (The life bar that grows horizontally as you level up is a Falcom staple.)
That's possible too, but then, Zelda 2 did that as well. I think it's safe to say a number of games were experimenting with that style of gameplay at the time, but out of all of them, Zelda 2 would almost certainly be one of the more popular ones.
Awesome! I remember playing this in early 90s... didn't make it very far, to be honest, iirc; maybe to the second boss or so?
Sounds about right. The first boss isn't too bad but the second boss' water pulse attack is hard to escape from if it hits and just OBLITERATES your health if you can't get clear of it. And the third boss... you can't even play it safe because you will just get annihilated; you have to be the aggressor to even have a chance at winning. :P
I do remember the first boss not being too bad (at least with the upgrades I got by then) but getting frustrating and quitting on the second boss. Respawning in the very beginning was probably part of that. I actually don't know anyone that finished it xD
I'd guess it's more influenced by other PC-88 games, particularly the ones by Falcom, who did a bunch of action RPGs. Not saying that it can't be influenced by Zelda 2, but still.
Also, I find those old Western covers of anime-style games pretty amusing. My favorites are the covers of the first two Breath of Fire games, due to barbarian Ryu (still retaining his blue hair from the actual games).
Wooo one of my favorites from my childhood! I actually preferred Sorcerian but my disks broke after the first time I installed it so it was all Zeliard from then on out, haha. Never beat Zeliard; pretty sure nobody ever did. Edit: Ha, just sold my copy of this, boxed, for $30 last year. Oops, that will teach me not to check prices carefully
2:55 My vote for their inspiration goes to Dragon Buster by Namco... Guess this one's much less arcadey and more RPG though.
I hadn't even heard of that one... Looking at it, I think maybe that's more of a rough inspiration for every similar game following, rather than a direct inspiration, but then, the only way to know for certain would be to ask one of the devs. :B
@@Pixelmusement Fair, when I saw the rope climbing and dungeon layout, that was the first thing that came to mind for me.
Is it just me or does the protagonist look like Adol from Ys? At least in the cutscene?
It's probably the hair.
I thought the same thing, mainly because of the red hair.
Interesting thing: I checked the dates, and Ys 1 came out six months before this. It definitely could have been an inspiration. And I'm nearly certain that Zeilard was inspired by Falcom's other games around this time. They'd been making similar side-scrolling ARPGs for a few years at that point.
This is looking very Thexder.
I'm pretty sure Fire Hawk and Zeliard use virtually the same game engine, save for minor differences. ;)
Those frogs and slugs remind me of Super Pitfall, though I'm pretty sure this is way better then THAT game.
the music in addlib mode sounds like the pc88 original in ym2203 mode. the tandy mode soundtrack has a game gear like sound.
The Tandy 3-Voice chipset is IDENTICAL to what's found in the Sega Master System and Game Gear, so of course they're gonna sound similar! ;)
I found out that there's two dos versions of Zeliard available: v1.208 (1990) and v2.0 (1991). However I couldn't find any details about the differences between these two. Which one was played here?
I don't know if the version number was indicated anywhere in the game but at least in the game files, ZELIARD.EXE and .SAR files were dated accordingly (v2.0 has 1991 date while other has 1990 date)
I was playing the 2.0 version. No idea what the differences are either. :P
For the next ADG episode, can I suggest Hugo's House of Horrors? :)
I covered that one three years ago! ua-cam.com/video/FOn-RJx2eBA/v-deo.html Also keep in mind I have a link to the alphabetical list of games I've covered at the bottom of the video description of every video! ;)
I vaguely recall LGR reviewing this and doing so in Tandy mode. Does the Tandy mode work right in Dosbox?
Yep! I tested it out a little but it definitely looks and sounds better in EGA by comparison, though don't get me wrong, the Tandy mode is done pretty well too! :B
This is basically Ys III.
Duke Garland, aka "Not Adol Cristin."
Also wondering how you resisted an "I, Garland, will knock you all down!" reference.
Does Garland say that in FF1 PS1? That's the version I'm most familiar with and I don't recall him saying that there... :o
@@Pixelmusement I don't remember... been years since I owned the PS1 version. But its a semi-famous quote from the original NES version and I had heard most translations kept it... I guess PS1 might be the exception?
I could swear I played a version of FF4 that removed the Spoony Bard line too.
Was there a comparison of the EGA 640x200 vs MCGA 320x200 look that I just missed? I'd have been intrigued to see a side-by-side (similar to some of the commentary in your Thexder video)
I tested it out myself and they were virtually identical so I didn't feel it was worth going through the effort to do a full comparison. The MCGA mode is a little more vibrant, but the font is way nicer on the eyes in EGA. :B
@@Pixelmusement The game is text-heavy enough that I think it would hurt if the text was harder to read...
@@ArantorUK I run the MCGA version for my Let's Play if you wanted to look at a quick comparison, although I ran a filter over it so the text wouldn't be awful.
Duke Garland looks like Adol from Ys.
At least for the American release you are meant to have maps of every dungeon - they were included in the box.
Yup! Though all things considered, these aren't tricky maps to navigate as they're not very big... it's just dealing with the respawning enemies that wears you down as you try to get a handle on everything the hard way. :P
Looks a lot like Wonderboy at a glance.
Yes, but Wonder Boy in Monster Land came out only a few months prior so it's highly unlikely that game served as the inspiration for this one. :P
Did... did I snipe an auction from you on this long ago? As I bought this for fairly cheap, in box, from eBay, back in 2015 for about 28 dollars. o_O
I bought it for my Let's Play series so I would have a legitimate copy of it to show off.
Nope. Also wholly heck you got that for a steal! O_O
@@Pixelmusement Apparently! I think I had just logged in and hit the cheapest buy-it-now or something.
If I had known you were looking for it, I would have sent it to you. I love Zeliard!
cool, never heard of this one.
This game is found as a 552k ZIP for DOS.
Any reason why you not using Munt MT-32 emulator (ESPECIALLY for this game)? Until its explained in video itself (still not watched to the end, but i will!), sorry!
Several actually. It's routinely a sore-spot for people when I try to explain it too so I'd prefer not to by this point. :P
@@Pixelmusement You have a burning hatred of everything Roland? :P
@@Pixelmusement Legal issues acquiring the ROM images, perhaps? Also, the emulation isn't always accurate. (I have a real MT-32, this is first-hand experience)
You should check operation inner space some time.
Tried running this in DFend Reloaded, and it never made it to the title screen. Dunno why....I'll try setting cycles to auto and just leaving it at that, as you recommend.
The settings I recommend are for standard builds of DOSBox; Give that a try. :B
3:10 Uhm...how is Faxanadu not mentioned here?
Because it's only about a month older than Zeliard. :P
Pixelmusement could you give me the schedule for when you upload adg games episodes on your channel and when you upload shovelware diggers episodes on your channel
New ADG videos go up on each of the first three Saturdays of every month while Shovelware Diggers goes up every week on Wednesdays. I try to get them up around midnight Eastern Time, but that doesn't always work out; If there's going to be considerable delays I'll post ahead of time on Twitter about it, or on Patreon if the delay is more than a few hours.
>less legitimate options
If a game is no longer commercially available, it's fair game as abandonware imo
As you indicated though, that's an opinion, and while it's a valid opinion and we absolutely need better laws for this sort of thing, the law still technically makes it illegal. :P
Technically, but nobody's going to go after you for breaking that law :P
Personally I like to listen to Judas Priest "Breaking The Law" when downloading abandonware.
But it means I can't outright tell people "go do this illegal thing" because that makes me culpable. It's up to each individual person to make those decisions for themselves.
Yeah I get it. If I had a UA-cam channel I'd probably put a download link directly in the description because I like to live dangerously XD
Zeliard is impossible to get. Search for Zeliard Abanonware i see dozen links already.
Abandonware is not legitimate though, thus I cannot legally provide such links or encourage people to take that route towards obtaining it; It's all on you and anyone else who decides to go down that path. (Though don't get me wrong, we absolutely need better laws about this sort of thing.)
New intro looks a bit too modern. I would love to see some kind of dithering effect for shading.
Why does it look like it has vertical scanlines? It's very tiresome to look at.
All of Game Arts original titles were developed using this dithering trick due to limitations in the hardware it was originally developed for, as none of their games started life as DOS titles. The game DOES have an MCGA mode which doesn't have the dithering and instead reproduces the colours solidly, but because of the lower resolution the font is a bit less pleasant on the eyes. I opted to show the dithered EGA mode over the MCGA mode due to the better font and for greater authenticity to the original look of the game. :B
@@Pixelmusement I see. Would that look better on a real CRT monitor of the time? I know dithering in consoles like the Mega Drive was used to fake colors because CRT TVs + composite would blend the dithering into solid colors or transparencies. I assume something similar would happen here?
@@Imgema Not so much on a computer monitor as they've always had better clarity than TV screens, but yeah, on a TV screen the dithering would blend together more readily. :B
So, anyone who is interested....
Ironically I once joked with Kris about making a show called "Japanese Ancient DOS Games".... turns out, someone actually made a UA-cam channel that's kinda-sorta exactly that!
It's called Basement Brothers, though specifically its one of two shows they do (the other recurring show focuses on the Neo-Geo).
www.youtube.com/@BasementBrothers
Hola,me podrias decir comocomo grabas y cargashora partida,save/load please?????
Whenever you go to a Sage in a town use the "Record Experience" option then type in the name of the save file you wish to make. If the filename already exists it will be overwritten. To load a game you simply press F7, but you must already be playing the game; this won't work on the title screen or in the story sequences.