g-mccann@GUMBY.CS.WISC.EDU ("Lester I. McCann") (01/06/88)
I just finished Tower of Myraglen for the gs, so I thought that I'd post a review of sorts. I'll try to avoid giving any spoilers. The basic premise is that you are the last Knight of Justice, summoned by the King to retrieve the Medallion of Soul Stealing from the Tower of Myraglen. Unless you succeed, the country will go to pot, etc., etc. Enough of that. The tower has 10 levels, many varieties of critters, much treasure, and a few riddles. The screen is divided into three areas: the map of the area you are in, a "room message" area on the bottom, and an information area. The graphics are clear, but not exceptional (the game uses the 320x200 graphics screen). The sound is a definite highlight. Tower of Myraglen produces stereo sound effects, most of which were still fairly impressive in mono. Most of the sounds are not essential to the game, but they do add a lot of atmosphere. Things I like about the game: - no hard-to-map mazes (which is not to say there aren't other challenges) - the sound effects - high scores are saved to disk - mouse or keyboard control (I prefer keyboard) - only the boot disk is copy-protected; the game disk can be copied Things I didn't like: - the packaging of the game; you have to break part of the plastic case to get the disks out. That didn't make much sense. - slow disk access. I'm not sure if I should blame the game for all of this, but most of the disk accesses take a looooong time to complete -- especially the inital startup. - too easy to die. Especially in the middle of the game, it is nearly impossible to make any progress due to the quantity and toughness of the monsters and your own lack of hit points. - one particular trap. I'll only say that it seems geared to hurt the cautious players; if you get caught by it, you have to start over from scratch (near as I can tell). - can only save one game at a time. The ability to save more would have helped with that trap. Overall, I'm glad I played it. I really don't think it's worth the suggested retail price ($50+); I bought it mail-order for about $30, and that seems a more reasonable price to me. I wonder how much cheaper it would have been with less-involved packaging.... If anyone has any questions, I'll be glad to try to provide answers. Lester McCann University of Wisconsin CS Dept. g-mccann@gumby.cs.wisc.edu or mccann@primost.cs.wisc.edu