RPGDX > Traditional RPGs > Sword of Fargoal remake

Review by Jihgfed Pumpkinhead on 08-07-2003

This is a fantastic game, with one very major gameplay flaw, which unfortunately makes is much less fun to play than it should be.

Let's start with the good stuff: the graphics are really wonderful. The tiles are a little lame, but the enemies and player graphics are really, really good. The fact that they "spill over" their tiles really helps to prevent the "tiled and repetetive" look that goes with most Roguelikes.

The sound is good. There is no music; in some games, the absence of music is particularly glaring, but this isn't one of them.

The gameplay is also strong: a little more simplistic than your average Roguelike, but good all the same. One minor objection is the interface: the standard Roguelike "push 'h' to heal" thing. This always makes a game hard to get into (though it's fine after playing for a while). This could be improved upon; but I understand the desire to keep it "old-school" for the compo, so no points off. The speed of enemy movement is great; it keeps the game from getting stale, while not in any way making it an action game instead of a strategy.

The big problem with this game, though, is the length of time it takes to heal. This may seem trivial, but for me, I spent as much (much more, even) time healing as I did fighting. I think if the healing rater were doubled, it would be much better, or even if it were multiplied by 2.5. In later levels, it got so bad that, when my health got low, I'd set a beacon so that I couldn't be attacked, and then wander off (physically, I mean) and do something else while I healed.

Perhaps my strategy is poor, and that's the reason for my complaint; if so, please tell me and I'll try it out your way and change my review. If not, for me at least a great game has been taken down a point by an easily correctible flaw.

That said, It's still a great game.

Review by ThousandKnives on 08-07-2003

As a dungeon crawl RPG, this is essentially a game thats about beefing up your character and finding elegent solutions to obstacles.
Several things make taking enjoyment out of either of those things impossible. First, the battle results are so viciously random that its hard to really feel like your character is improving in any sense. I found a new sword AND got a level up and what happens? I get into a fight with a pathetic rogue and on the first round a do ZERO damage. Whee. Second, the hit point recovery issue is *very* annoying and a huge detractor. This is partly, again, the fault of the randomly generated battle figures where even fighting a reletively old enemy can still cost you a huge number of HP. HP recovery speed should be faster, and it would also be nice if the temples always worked when you step on them. I found myself stepping on one and waiting, and waiting for my HP to never go up. So that I had to step off and then back on over and over again waiting for it to actually work. HP recovery should also be based somewhat on current level. I quickly found my reaction to level-ups became "alright level up! ah crap, 5 more HP to sit around waiting to recover" Level-ups should be a positive thing. This also brings me back to the seeming randomness of the battle figures. I didnt feel my level-ups really helped me at all except to give me those extra HP whic I found more of a curse than a blessing.

Anyway, as this is essentially a game defined by battles and I found these problems with the system, I had to give it a rating that reflected that.

Review by korndog on 08-07-2003

I was very impressed that the game was coded and developed from scratch in the 48/72 hours of the contest. The graphics, sound fx, and feel had that old-school feel, and I think that's one of this game's strongest points.
I wasn't too bothered by having to sit around and wait for HP to recover; hiding in a corner and alt-tabbing to other apps kept my interest going. But like the other reviewers, I was kind of annoyed that the enemies I had defeated earlier in the game could still put up a fight even after level up.
To be honest, I rarely play dungeon crawl-like games. This one caught my attention more than the rest, though. I attribute it to the quickness I was able to get into the game and start playing without having to figure out too much strategy and menu commands and stuff beforehand -- that's always a strength with short games.
I give this game an 8/10, using my review of gOODbyE as a baseline.

Review by cleoni on 21-07-2003

I was one of the fans of the original, commodore VIC-20 release.
I even devloped an improved clone of this game by myself on the VIC back in the 80s. It took days and days to me to code it.

Therefore I was very happy to try this one out, and it was really amazing that it could be coded in C in a so little time.

I found the game to be very close to the original, but I reckon it was improved in many ways.
I think it should deserve the #1 prize.

Well done!