The other day I was thinking of this game I used to play when I was a kid. I remembered I could make fighters, mages, dwarves (who were basically fighters), and elves (who were basically mages). And you could give them professions, and you made a big party but only 4 could go on an adventure at a time. The others would stay back for 1 year while the party went on an adventure, and whoever stayed back would earn an income and get stat changes based on profession.
The game was Sorcerian as I found out after describing all that on Reddit's Tip of My Joystick. The game was originally released in 1987, but released for IBM-compatible PCs in 1990. I played on my family's 486 SX 25 MHz running DOS 5.0.
That game was insanely difficult and I never beat a single level as a kid. And I'm replaying it now with the benefit of walkthroughs and let's plays. And the game is still unbelievably difficult.
It's not difficult due to any need for technical skill, really. It's difficult because there's no way you can possibly figure out on your own who you need to talk to in what order to beat a level. There's seriously one room in a level where the guide says "Go in and press all of the levers and read all of the notes, and go in and out of the room and do it again several times, and eventually one of the levers will move." And there are items on the ground that you can't see. You just pick them up if you happen to walk over them. And it's buggy with levels that you can't beat because events didn't register if you didn't do them in the unknown and arbitrary order assumed by the developers.
Also, it's just not a great game. There's no overarching plot. The repeatable adventures are entirely contained in their own individual levels, with stupid plots, and no connection to the rest of the world. There's no story reward for doing anything in the game. And the game is drawn in crude 16-color graphics at a time when 256 was the standard. Really, any way you look at it, Sorcerian is just not very good.
Just for comparison, Ultima VI came out the same year, with 256 colors drawn beautifully across my VGA monitor. There were interesting characters you could interact with, and tons of secrets, and caves, and tunnels, and towns, all on the same huge map. There was interesting lore that was relevant to the game. And there was even a talking mouse that would join your party, and although her strength was too low to wield much in the way of weapons and armor, you could still give her rings and wands and make her a tiny magically enhanced harbinger of death.
So why am I playing Sorcerian? (And why am I playing it when there are so many better, more recent games to play?) There is something compelling behind the terrible gameplay. I really want to get more XP to level-up my guys. And I want to find more treasure with more enchantments to unlock more spells.
Do you ever find yourself playing old games? Crappy games? Have you ever discovered something really compelling in an otherwise bad game? That's something that I find myself doing now, and I've just become aware of it.
The game was Sorcerian as I found out after describing all that on Reddit's Tip of My Joystick. The game was originally released in 1987, but released for IBM-compatible PCs in 1990. I played on my family's 486 SX 25 MHz running DOS 5.0.
That game was insanely difficult and I never beat a single level as a kid. And I'm replaying it now with the benefit of walkthroughs and let's plays. And the game is still unbelievably difficult.
It's not difficult due to any need for technical skill, really. It's difficult because there's no way you can possibly figure out on your own who you need to talk to in what order to beat a level. There's seriously one room in a level where the guide says "Go in and press all of the levers and read all of the notes, and go in and out of the room and do it again several times, and eventually one of the levers will move." And there are items on the ground that you can't see. You just pick them up if you happen to walk over them. And it's buggy with levels that you can't beat because events didn't register if you didn't do them in the unknown and arbitrary order assumed by the developers.
Also, it's just not a great game. There's no overarching plot. The repeatable adventures are entirely contained in their own individual levels, with stupid plots, and no connection to the rest of the world. There's no story reward for doing anything in the game. And the game is drawn in crude 16-color graphics at a time when 256 was the standard. Really, any way you look at it, Sorcerian is just not very good.
Just for comparison, Ultima VI came out the same year, with 256 colors drawn beautifully across my VGA monitor. There were interesting characters you could interact with, and tons of secrets, and caves, and tunnels, and towns, all on the same huge map. There was interesting lore that was relevant to the game. And there was even a talking mouse that would join your party, and although her strength was too low to wield much in the way of weapons and armor, you could still give her rings and wands and make her a tiny magically enhanced harbinger of death.
So why am I playing Sorcerian? (And why am I playing it when there are so many better, more recent games to play?) There is something compelling behind the terrible gameplay. I really want to get more XP to level-up my guys. And I want to find more treasure with more enchantments to unlock more spells.
Do you ever find yourself playing old games? Crappy games? Have you ever discovered something really compelling in an otherwise bad game? That's something that I find myself doing now, and I've just become aware of it.
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