Phantasie series

[Rincewind]

Lots of things happening since I've been here! Couple of remarks:

I spent some time today looking for my bloody manual then organizing old file folders. I

I found an easy way to download *all* the manuals, hintbooks, extras, maps, etc. for virtually *every* DOS game. Just get the eXoDOS Lite collection from here, which only has the game metadata but not the actual game files. There's two huge ZIP files inside that contain the manuals for each game (make sure to check both ZIPs, the files are spread across the two ZIPs for each game). It's still a 52 GB download, but not 500+ GB like the full eXoDOS collection. Anyway, storage is cheap — definitely a lot cheaper than manually hunting down the best looking scans! The drawback is that it's for DOS only. For Amiga, the easiest is to just get the Amiga Dungeoneering Collection which has a fine collection of manuals.

That TOSEC is too large for me to DL so I used the images from wowRoms.

The TOSEC collections are cool, but virtually all games in those are cracked versions. Which is fine most of the time (sometimes even preferable as the best cracks contain fastloaders and bugfixes), but when you need uncracked originals, for C64 you can get this collection or this one for the Amiga. The drawback is that all those manual-based copy protections are intact, so you really need to get the manual scans as well (which are NOT included in these archives, sadly).

Accordingly, the c64 is ranked the hardest but I wonder if the Atari800 isn't comparable.

Found some interesting info about PIII in this thread:

Spoiler

Another thing I noticed while playing the C64 version was that it was much harder to hit monsters. This could be because the byte that decides how hard a monster is to hit seems to be calculated as a signed byte on the Amiga. That is, 127 is the highest value, values beyond that get calculated as negative, ie easy to hit. (source)

That definitely sounds like a bug. So, sadly, it seems that whoever ported the game to 16-bit computers screwed up some of the combat calculations, making the C64 version of PIII the definitive edition. Maybe the PI ports suffer from the same mistake?

Also, some enemy types seem to be screwed up/missing from the non-C64 ports:

Spoiler

Playing through the C64 version of the #1 RPG of all time I noticed that High Devils sometimes had wolves on rank 2, something that never happens in other versions. (source)

I will be sure to put clean versions into a zip file and host them somewhere as this scavenger hunt bullox can be annoying. Its fun the first time but I'd hate to repeat this crap. So big middle finger to the sites taking shit down. Files will be archived.

Yeah, I was thinking of something similar. I'm planning to do a chronological playthrough of interesting old games, and it takes a *lot* of time to find the best working version of each game. I was thinking of putting the completed games in a torrent, along with manuals, emulator setup files, etc. so the next person can just grab that and not spend hours or days hunting around (and the files might be gone, eventually). Then I would update the torrent as I complete more games.

 

[octavius]

I'm planning to do a chronological playthrough of interesting old games, and it takes a *lot* of time to find the best working version of each game. I was thinking of putting the completed games in a torrent, along with manuals, emulator setup files, etc. so the next person can just grab that and not spend hours or days hunting around (and the files might be gone, eventually). Then I would update the torrent as I complete more games.

Good show!
I've already done the "chronological playthrough of interesting old games" myself, from 1981 to 2001, so I have an idea of which versions are superior for many of the games, even if I didn't do a scientific testing of all versions. So feel free to ask.

 

[Rincewind]

I've already done the "chronological playthrough of interesting old games" myself, from 1981 to 2001, so I have an idea of which versions are superior for many of the games, even if I didn't do a scientific testing of all versions. So feel free to ask.

That's quite a feat! My list for 1977-1985 is quite complete (in fact, maybe a bit *too* complete); I think I will create a thread for it in a few days so others can also participate. Then I think I will create other threads in 4 year increments up until 1997, that's my cutoff point(only pre-Windows stuff, basically)

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

Yeah, I was thinking of something similar. I'm planning to do a chronological playthrough of interesting old games, and it takes a *lot* of time to find the best working version of each game. I was thinking of putting the completed games in a torrent, along with manuals, emulator setup files, etc. so the next person can just grab that and not spend hours or days hunting around (and the files might be gone, eventually). Then I would update the torrent as I complete more games.

If you're going to do that, you might want to check some of the Japanese computer versions. I've found a curious number of western-made games, mostly on the FM Towns, have features over their original western versions and are actually in English. Mind you, these machines are usually awkward to get working the first time around.
Actually, just RPGs or in general? I'm not as well-versed in my classic RPGs as I'd like but I do have some interesting knowledge in general.

 

[Rincewind]

If you're going to do that, you might want to check some of the Japanese computer versions. I've found a curious number of western-made games, mostly on the FM Towns, have features over their original western versions and are actually in English. Mind you, these machines are usually awkward to get working the first time around.
Actually, just RPGs or in general? I'm not as well-versed in my classic RPGs as I'd like but I do have some interesting knowledge in general.

My interests lie in games that exercise that pesky gray matter a little, so I'm focused on RPGs and adventures, first and foremost (including text adventures). The list is supposed be *the* definitive list of all such games worth playing on personal computers pre-Windows.

I'm also including some of the "action-adventures", a select few tactical games (e.g. Archon, Laser Squad, Dune, X-Com), and I'm very much into "space-sims" as well (for want of a better term; I know they're not really simulators), so Elite, Wing Commander series, TIE Fighter, etc.

By the way, I've come across some of your quite informative articles on The Adventurers Guild that I used as source material for my list, well done mate!

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Hmmm, I need to find a good internet connection. My data for phone and hotspot is each capped at around 3-4 gigs. I burn through it fast then they baffle me down to kilos on phone and the hotspot to bits. That "up to" damn warning is literal. Sucks.

 

[Rincewind]

Hmmm, I need to find a good internet connection. My data for phone and hotspot is each capped at around 3-4 gigs. I burn through it fast then they baffle me down to kilos on phone and the hotspot to bits. That "up to" damn warning is literal. Sucks.

Uh, that sucks. Where do you live man? It's uncapped fiber here in Australia.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Oregon with no wired lines where i live. What'ams worse is i live under a flight path where they sometimes blank out the wifi completely. So from no service to barely a 2 bar. I deal with it. I could potentially buy a dish but looking at the rates and data cap plus overage fees.. bleck.

 

[unseeingeye]

That TOSEC is too large for me to DL so I used the images from wowRoms. I don't know what everyone else used but I'd love to DL and test them.

I was mentioning it in the initial post but you don’t have to download the entire thing, nor is that the case for any of the TOSEC uploads on the internet archives. If you go the the first link I posted, then look on the right where the download options are, you select “show all”, then in the directory screen you click “view all” next to the main TOSEC archive file. This will open a new page and list every single file individually so that you can select and download only those files that you want. The list is however massive, so give it a moment to load and I recommend just using the ctrl+f method to search for the specific game, because TOSEC is supposed to be a comprehensive collection, it includes more than games so downloading the whole thing is only really useful for archivists I assume.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Oregon with no wired lines where i live. What'ams worse is i live under a flight path where they sometimes blank out the wifi completely. So from no service to barely a 2 bar. I deal with it. I could potentially buy a dish but looking at the rates and data cap plus overage fees.. bleck.

I lived in the middle of nowhere for awhile, so I feel this. Satellite internet is brutally expensive and the service isn't anywhere near proper broadband, it's more like dialup+.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Dialup? Oh god. I used to have that when they offered it here. Sure it was awesome for a while. Good ol Blinky & Earthlink. Towards the end it would dc and lock the phonelines like crazy. Still, back in 2010, after my first back surgery I was gaming online on a HC/permadeath ladder. Here's that character: George

It was so slow and i was DC'd from game often and then the hard DC where the computer logged off and worse... freezes and full reboot. I had to calculate where monster would be and when to attack.. it was awful. Playing that game on highspeed is a different beast. Even my hotspot is miles ahead of dialup.... unless my limit hits max then . So, just download carefully until the 2nd of each month. If the masks mandate wasn't so draconian I could go to the library.

Yeah, i forgot you can surgically remove files by just browsing the TOSEC. I imagine the same for THEEYE when it was up. Fingers crossed they sort out their issues.

 

[newtmonkey]

Phantasie (Apple II)
I surely must be near the end now.

Spoiler

I have all nine rings and the GOD RUNE, and as far as I can tell just one wilderness area to explore, in which I assume is the final dungeon.

Damned good game so far. Every dungeon has been a blast, even if I have had to make multiple runs to explore most of them.

Things to look for:

I can answer a couple of these:

How much damage do enemies do? In the Atari ST version only the strongest do more than 1 damage, which is rather annoying and makes it too easy. I understand there are some difference between versions.

In the Apple II version, everything but the weakest of enemies can do significant damage, so I've had to use Protection and/or Weakness in most battles to minimize the need for healing magic (which is extremely unreliable except for Healing 4).

How much XP can a character get in one trip out of town? For the Atari ST it's 64K, which means later dungeons can't be done in one go without losing out on XP.

I can't say for sure, but when I explored the temple where

Spoiler

you need a Minotaur

I ended up splitting my EXP between five characters and each got over 100,000 EXP on a couple expeditions.

 

[mediocrepoet]

How much damage do enemies do? In the Atari ST version only the strongest do more than 1 damage, which is rather annoying and makes it too easy. I understand there are some difference between versions.

In the Apple II version, everything but the weakest of enemies can do significant damage, so I've had to use Protection and/or Weakness in most battles to minimize the need for healing magic (which is extremely unreliable except for Healing 4).

The C64 version was similar. Your characters were at decent risk of death at low levels and if you ran into something like Black Knights before being high enough level, you really wanted to be running away.

 

[unseeingeye]

Yeah, i forgot you can surgically remove files by just browsing the TOSEC. I imagine the same for THEEYE when it was up. Fingers crossed they sort out their issues.

Same here, just the other day I tried to download C64 Dreams and found that The Eye was down, and has evidently been so for at least 2 or 3 weeks.

I don't particularly need the collection because I already have copies of most of the Commodore 64 RPGs I'm interested in, but the guy Zombi made it specifically for LaunchBox integration and has an estimated 8000 or so games he intends to curate and package completely as an end goal and is already at 2500 games. I still look forward to checking it out just for fun, but he doesn't have a working mirror and as of this post The Eye is still down, so just will have to keep checking in.

 

[Fluent]

Hey guys. Quick update. I cleared the first dungeon! Man are the dungeons cool in this game (Apple II vers.) Very atmospheric and interesting to explore. Found some really useful loot and the big payoff from the dungeon as well. Had what seemed to be the boss battle for the dungeon and lost my Monk (he was good, too), but I will rebuild. The core of 4 characters i have are TOUGH, they are real survivors. I have to make another wizard too. It's really hard keeping a 4 HP wizard alive in a dungeon! I'll probably grind giant ants and bees around Pelnor just to get a new wizard up to level 2 where they are much safer. Anyway, super cool game. For 1984 this was way ahead of its time imo.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Yeah, wizards and sometimes thieves can bite the dust fast. That one sprite has a measly 2 hp I made. LOOK A FLY! SPLAT!!!

Ok, now I'm going to check out Atari800+ emulators. Phantasie should be graphically similar to C64 but only 1-2 were ported. Perhaps 1-2 is the favorite of the series.

I guess Altirra is the best here:

The Atari Geek
Altirra via DOS Gamers

The Geeks links:
Download Altirra:
Atari OS ROMs:
Atari Software and game ROMS:

I already have the Phantasie 1-2 files from another couple of archives so time to get crackin'

Oh, I should have mentioned
GametechWIKI as they do a partial breakdown on a few different emulators. Whoa... atari800winplus. Yeah, I recall that one.

I did see a couple things that I should mention. The first is a site I used awhile ago:
Zophar's Domain

I remember this was my goto for certain emulation along with a few other sites until this site:
Emulator Zone
This is where I found a lot of alternatives.

Now this is newish to me even if 7 years old. I'll probably go with a full launchbox purchase as it has more features unless this offers something useful. Dunno why I'm not posting this in an EMULATOR thread instead (perhaps later). I'm really just trying to get various emulators to work on a modern Win10 machine. (Can't believe the damn win11 blather).

Emulation Blather

EmulationStation

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Hmmm... that emulationStation seems to have issues. So i went to look at the following:

Spoiler

Yeah, launchbox it is.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Altirra is pretty nice (It'll be nicer if I can set it up to switch disks automatically). I had issues with older controller play as c64 and this Atari800 version really shine with keyboard + joystick (like a lot of games on c64). Since it wasn't configuring I used my joytokey program that is free and fixed the arrow keys and ctrl button that is also the videogame button press for cartridge games. I do recall the 5800 had a few other buttons trying to imitate the colecovision. So, that works.

Next I had to use infranview for taking screenshots. I couldn't find an easy solution inside the emulator (terrible oversite on any emulator: Save/Load, quicksave/quickload, screenshot, record video, record audio, joystick setup, easy drive emulation, easy hard disk emulation). I changed where I save them and which key to hit (I'm using the keypad secion * for screenshots). It might take some more tinkering but for now it is fine. The save and load is fast for savestates. Jolly good. So here is the first little bit of what seems to be a rather experienced team. By the way, Phantasie 1 on the atari800 takes 4 disks. I need to find Phantasie 2 I guess on atarimania.

Spoiler

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Well, the DOSbox version I got from wowroms is pretty clean. It had some noob that was lvl 1 named fffff. I reset the game. OH, boy. This version may have some issues. I need to find some other uploads of this and see if they are also fucked. So let's take a look at the old DOS version.

Spoiler

First I opened up the zip and put this into a folder named DOS/Phantasie 1

Lotta standard DOS shit that is part of this game. Nothing special.

Ok, that's a weird menu of shit most of which will screw up the menu and toss you to a prompt. type ph to restart this. You want to use your arrow keys and enter to run the program and select phantasie.

Ok, this looks pretty standard but let's detour to the Utilities first.

Ah, this is pretty cool. You can transfer your characters to a backup disk or get some old ones from a disk if you have one around.

Yep, you can save your game in the options, (no load so I guess savescum is not allowed unless you can figure out a way to make quick load/saves). There is auto save, sound (yeah not much for sound) etc.

After I reset the game you can tell it is clean.

I spent 20 minutes trying to see if RANDOM RACE would give me any other option than Thief & Fighter. It did NOT. Maybe that is in the manual that humanoids are just too stupid to be anything but brutes and brigands. No sprite wizards. Kind of dumb imho but oh well.

Damn, this game was pretty damn generous with the rolls here. I didn't try but once. Next, let's look at the simple INSPECT CHARACTER and how it lists stuff.

Use the arrow keys to highlight and hit return to go to the correct option (equipment, skills, spells, potions)

And the continent.

Well FUCK ME!!! Luckily I escaped after 3 rounds with 7 hp left. Those are all the characters that just died right around town I guess. Nasty world.

Most of the above was in windowed mode, testing what a full Screen looks like:

Little else to say about DOS except it is fast. If I had exodos Phantasie I'd mess around. I do recall there is at least one front end for DOSBOX but I can't recall the name atm.

DOSBoxFrontends - DOSBoxWiki
D-Fend Reloaded: Overview (sourceforge.net)
DOSBox Frontends - Graphical User Interface for DOSBox (dosgamers.com)

Well, I just as well try D-Fend Reloaded. I mean why the hell not?

Meh, I didn't spend much time with D-Fend. I'm suer I could work it out but I found a better DOSbox that has Save States.
The lure
In Chinese or something
Translated Download DOSBox SVN Daum I have issues using the 64x one but the plain one seems to save and load just fine. Any DOSBOX default screenshots to a shitty path that is a bitch to find. Mine was here:

So DAMN. This is kind of cool if you want a slight 1-up in DOS gaming.

 

[octavius]

Monsters can only be Fighters and Thieves, all right.
And if you change video card to CGA or EGA (I don't remember which), instead of VGA you'll get the correct colours instad of pink.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Someone let me know if t they got a different graphical look as I tried just doing what this link said: EGA palette modification not supported? · Issue #1364 · joncampbell123/dosbox-x · GitHub

Combat is Yellow if that helps.

 

[Rincewind]

Someone let me know if t they got a different graphical look as I tried just doing what this link said: EGA palette modification not supported? · Issue #1364 · joncampbell123/dosbox-x · GitHub

Combat is Yellow if that helps.

Did you read the last comment in that GitHub thread? It seems you just need to use "machine=vga" instead of "machine=ega" and that would fix it.

Otherwise, unless you need something very specific from DosBox-X, I really recommend using Dosbox Staging these days.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

Out of curiosity, how vital is the keyboard in these game? I recently got a C64 Mini and its a different experience playing a game there as opposed to the usual emulation stuff. It only has two USB slots, and its actual keyboard is non-functional. I can't exactly stick a keyboard and a joystick and the usb stick with all the games on it in at the same time.

I remember this was my goto for certain emulation along with a few other sites until this site:

They used to be my go-to, but I kept finding their selection lacking, and eventually I found an emulation wiki. Doesn't really tell you the ins and outs of using such emulators, but for finding them its a good enough resource.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I can't get any other colors than displayed already. If any of you guys can then post them. I just don't believe I've seen anything but this pink/cyan and yellow/green/red.

 

[Rincewind]

Out of curiosity, how vital is the keyboard in these game? I recently got a C64 Mini and its a different experience playing a game there as opposed to the usual emulation stuff. It only has two USB slots, and its actual keyboard is non-functional. I can't exactly stick a keyboard and a joystick and the usb stick with all the games on it in at the same time.

I'd say it's pretty vital for most non-arcade games on the C64. Phantasie is keyboard operated, as you can see in the manual.
You can get one of those USB keyboards that have a built-in USB port on them, then you can daisy-chain the joystick and the keyboard. Or just use a regular 4-in-1 USB hub, it must work (as far the USB port on the C64 Mini can power it, but then you could also get a powered USB hub).