In both Excelsior games, you play the role of a Fixer, a demi-deity who works for the Grand Council of World Watchers. This Council oversees and directs the history of each planet. Of course, it is not a simple task and there are often complications. In Excelsior Phase One, a mysterious evil has arisen in the world of Lysandia and is throwing the land into chaos. You are sent to investigate. Being discrete is a must, so you enter the world disguised as a simple commoner.

Those who have played the early Ultima games or other PC RPGs of the 80s will feel right at home with the gameplay mechanics. When you start the game, you are greeted with the character creation screen. As you may expect, plenty of customization is available. There are a variety of races and classes that change your starting abilities. Your character has only 6 core attributes, divided into primary attributes and secondary attributes. There is an alignment attribute as well, which corresponds to the effectiveness of your spells (each spell has either a good/white, neutral/gray, or evil/black alignment). Perhaps the most interesting aspect is the long list of skills. The screenshot below sums up the character creation very nicely:



[...] Puzzles are a prominent feature. They are simultaneously one of the game's strengths and one of its greatest weaknesses. These puzzles range from using items to finding secret doors to answering riddles to decoding text to other even stranger things. The beauty of the puzzles is that they are subtle enough that solving them is challenging and satisfying. The frustrating part is that several of the puzzles are SO subtle that the average player likely won't be able to finish the game without running to a walkthrough multiple times. To add to that difficulty, it is possible to put yourself in an unwinnable state, though these situations are not as unforgiving as they could be.​

The creators of Excelsior continue to be invested in their labors of love, having recently updated both games to be compatible with Windows XP and later. Be sure to drop by excelsior-rpg.com to these give them a try. The initial download is free as uncrippled shareware, and when you register the games, you receive an extensive manual and hint book.​