71 lines
3.9 KiB
Plaintext
71 lines
3.9 KiB
Plaintext
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MIRACLE WARRIORS: SEAL OF THE DARK
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Fate calls thee to bar evil's entry, for you are descended from the mighty
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warrior Iason who rid the Five Lands from the evil demon queen Terarin one
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thousand years ago. Iason had made a prophecy that Terarin would return to
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the Five Lands one day, and that four mighty Miracle Warriors would awaken
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to meet her evil challenge.
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MIRACLE WARRIORS is an early FRPG for the Sega Master System. You must trek
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through the Five Lands, solving a few puzzles, and killing many monsters to
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gain fame points, required to enter certain special villages. If you can
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awaken the other three Warriors from slumber, they will join you. Find the
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armor and weapons of Iason, and the special magic arms crafted for your
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companions by the White Monks. After this is done, seek the keys that lead
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to the Shrine of the Dark Lord. Can you defeat Terarin herself, reclaim
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the Seal of the Dark Lord, and use it to shut the Pandora Passage, bringing
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peace back to the Five Lands?
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MIRACLE WARRIORS has reasonably good graphics for an 8-bit game, but there
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is virtually no animation. When you are not in battle, you are shown on
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the Character/Contact screen, with a moving background; you also see the
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Map/Menu screen shift (you move the white cursor by pressing the control
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pad button), but aside from exchanges of conversation, that is all of the
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animation you see. The music is nice, if not exceptional, but there are few
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sound effects since there is little need for them.
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The game map, which corresponds with the Map/Menu screen map, is large and
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a little cumbersome, but it's a very nicely done map. Not all the towns,
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villages, caves and monuments are on this map; meaning you must search for
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many of them. There are clues to help guide you, but the search will still
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be a bit tedious and exasperating.
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The puzzles are not too hard to solve but require a bit of careful thought.
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However, there is a serious error in a clue you are given near the end of
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the game; you are told that a certain town used to be known as Saria, when
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in fact, it was another town. You'll have to use a little common sense to
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figure out which town it is.
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However, the biggest problem in this game is its combat. All encounters in
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the game are with a single monster, but even when you have all three of
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your companions, only one member of the party is allowed to strike at the
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monster each round. The party member who attacks is attacked in return by
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the enemy. Experience gain gets to be slow- party members get a little bit
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of experience for every blow struck in battle. What makes combat seem to
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be unfair in favor of the monsters is that while you are not allowed to use
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magic spells in combat, some of the monsters are- and their spells allow
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them to attack every member of your party at once. In addition to that,
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if you try to flee and are blocked, the monster automatically gets to hit
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every member of the party. It's hard enough accepting one monster's being
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able to 'surround' four people.
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Because MIRACLE WARRIORS is an older game (2 meg with battery backup), it
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isn't as sophisticated as some newer Master System Games available, but it
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is still a reasonably good game. Sega Master System owners should get their
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fair share of RPG adventure when they play MIRACLE WARRIORS. However, there
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are serious problems with the game, and it pales in light of several new
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8-bit games now available for Sega's Master System. MIRACLE WARRIORS makes
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a good RPG, but quickly seems almost primitive and obsolete against the
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incomparable PHANTASY STAR.
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It's difficult for me to rate MIRACLE WARRIORS on a scale of 1 to 10 since
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it's an 8-bit game, and I am used to thinking in terms of 16-bit Genesis
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games. Because it's not a *bad* game, and a bit better than some other FRPG
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games for the SMS, I'd rate it above average; but remembering the superior
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8-bit games now available, I can't go higher than a 6.5.
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MIRACLE WARRIORS is produced by Sega of America, Inc.
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