Activision, 1989
MS-DOS
Activision, 1989
MS-DOS
在上世纪 80 年代,人们很难想象自己会想要去玩一款幻想动作 RPG 游戏,这也可能就是为什么当时《预言奇兵 1:天龙座的陷落(Prophecy I: The Fall of Trinadon)》并没有吸引到众多玩家,甚至到今天已经被人们所遗忘的原因。
它的 VGA 图形画质并不是特别漂亮,而且仅仅是使用电脑扬声器来产生声音效果与音乐,并且它的游戏界面也不是很简洁。然而,《预言奇兵》仍然将惊人的乐趣包含在了一个简单的游戏之中。
The late 80s is not what comes to mind when envisioning Action RPGs, which may be why Prophecy I: The Fall of Trinadon never found much of an audience and is largely forgotten today.
Its VGA graphics were not particularly beautiful, it only used PC Speaker for sound effects and music, and its interface was not terribly elegant. Yet Prophecy still packs a surprising amount of fun into an easy-toplay package.
游戏开始于中世纪,当主角熟睡时,他的家乡发生了一场大屠杀。他及时赶到并开始为他的亲属复仇——找到并杀死克莱伦(Krellane)勋爵。
正如在那个时代的 CRPG 一样,《预言奇兵》拥有一系列《龙与地下城》的统计数据和大量的说明性文字。但也有很多意想不到的元素,比如塞尔达式的实时战斗,命中和失误完全由玩家的反应决定,而伤害则由角色的属性和装备计算。
在游戏中确实可以找到各种各样的设备,尽管身上的装备系统不会影响您角色的外观,但您的武器或盾牌会做出不同的显示。这一点很重要,因为武器的大小与其攻击距离直接相关。
但是,游戏最具创新性的功能是可以通过基本的魔法语言来创建咒语。游戏说明书为您提供了几十种基本咒语,但是可以通过添加前缀来进一步增强咒语的效果与范围。
这是很难想象的:这样一个简单的系统,能允许一套基本的法术在整个游戏中始终发挥作用。
当然也有一些不合时宜的烦恼,包括基于手工的复制保护、随机生成的加载宝物、轻度愚钝的谜题、基于处理器速度的游戏玩法以及 QuickBASIC 驱动的电脑扬声器的声音/音乐(和字体)。
尽管如此,自从我第一次购买新游戏以来已经过去了多长时间,但我仍然觉得重玩《预言奇兵 1》颇有收获——这是对 1980 年代的动作 RPG 的高度赞扬.
The game starts in medias res, the protagonist having apparently slept through the massacre of his hometown. He rouses in time to begin his quest – to avenge his kin by finding and killing Lord Krellane.
As expected in a CRPG of the era, Prophecy features a full array of Dungeons & Dragons descended statistics and generous expository text. But there's also plenty of unexpected elements, such as a Zelda-like real-time combat where hits and misses are driven entirely by player reflexes, while damage is calculated by character's stats and equipment.
There is indeed a surprising array of equipment to find in the game, and though the multiple-bodypart armour system has no impact on your character's appearance, the weapon and/or shield your character has equipped does appear. This is important, as a weapon's size directly correlates with its range.
However, the game's most innovative and mechanically enjoyable feature is the ability to create spells through a rudimentary magical language. The manual presents you with a few dozen basic incantations, but spells can be further enhanced by adding prefixes to increase their strength and range, in exchange for increased energy costs.
It's difficult to envision a simpler system for allowing a basic set of spells to actually remain useful throughout the entire game.
There are of course anachronistic annoyances, including manual-based copy protection, randomly-generated-on-load treasure, mildly obtuse puzzles, processor-speed-based gameplay, and QuickBASIC driven PC speaker sound/music (and fonts).
Still, no matter how long it has been since I first bought the game new, I still find it rewarding to return to Prophecy – which is high praise for an Action RPG from the 1980s.