Nostalgic Game Review
Welcome to a new episode of the Nostalgic Game Review, where each month I muse over an old game I played long ago. Other than indulging my own nostalgia, this column also hopefully shed some lights on game design and reflect on how gaming technologies have evolved.
Without further ado…
Might and Magic III: Isles of Terra
* Since I played it in Chinese, here is the obligatory mention of its translated title: 魔法門 III：幻島歷險記
What is it?
It is a beautiful RPG in a fantasy world (::spoiler:: it gets into sci-fi towards the final phase of the story). The gameplay and player’s perspective is similar to Eye of the Beholder. The player can turn 90 degrees in 4 directions, and walk in fixed blocks/grids.
My impression
Having played this game on my monochromic monitor with a 286 processor, and still remembering this game played smoothly with beautifully rendered graphics, I’ve come to appreciate the programming and artistic talent behind this game. They have to work out the sprites and codes so that it’s optimized both in color and in monochrome, as well as with very limited hardware resources.
The unique art style (the portraits of the player’s party actually moved in reaction to what they are experiencing, e.g. being attacked, feeling tired, hungry, berserked, etc) provides a comedic yet immersive experience.
It’s the story genre that left a strong impression for me. How it’s able to transition the player from fantasy world into a scifi story, it was a mind-blown to the young me. 😀
As I researched for this entry, and read up a bit more, I learned that it’s apparently the tradition of this series 😀
Youtube video showing a quick demo loop for this game
That’s it for this episode of Nostalgic Game Review! Thank you for visiting! I appreciate any comments/feedback or if there’s a game you would like me to cover 🙂
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