The Ormus Saga

hardware: Joystick, Keyboard,

display: raster

Several aspects of this game are unusual. The defining characteristic is probably the fact that the player must simultaneously go questing as in an RPG while also engaging in warfare as in a strategy game.

An Ultima clone with added strategy elements. The protagonist leads resistance against a militant cult. Troops are hired which are not best utilized in the usual RPG battles with monsters (combat mode) which the player must engage in (through random monster encounters are relativity scarce). Troops do not gain experience or treasure when fighting the player's questing battles, neither does the player gain anything when the troops are used. Loss of troops without gain is the risk (each soldier costs the equivalent of about 25 gold nuggets, it takes hours of battles or questing to find a nugget). Troops should not be wasted fighting snakes. Troops instead are optimal to attack occupied towns to eliminate cult members in the strategy/warfare modes. 'Liberated' towns then pay taxes. In this exchange, the player must subsequently takes charge of defending these cities that are attacked by cult forces. The player's own troops do not defend, each town maintains it's own militia. Each town's garrisons can be upgraded at the player's expense. Failure to fend off an attack can result in an immediate game over; although this is unlikely. Better equipment is required, and current equipment can break, but most towns don't sell such equipment. So it is necessary to continuously explore and find many towns to liberate to discover which ones happen to have a better bit of equipment. Buying maps and speaking to NPCs are helpful for exploration, Acquisition of wealth for upgrading equipment is not an issue (because of taxes) as it is for most games of the RPG type. Money is mainly about the warfare. While the war is being waged the player must still engage in a personal quest and sub-quests to collect information and find artifacts to eliminate the evil overload and his mini-boss minions permanently. Much of this is not strictly required as most of the key baddies can be eliminated as part of a large scale attack (warfare mode). However, the questing solutions are more efficient and require many, many, many, fewer digital deaths. And, the game cannot be entirely won by warfare alone, some questing will be required. However, questing is also not without risk of digital blood of bystanders. It is possible to kill any NPC in the game, including NPCs essential to the plot. Since NPCs can be covert badguys, the player might end up killing innocents or hindering the war effort.

Running from a battle may end combat mode, but the enemy is still there in the overworld; the player could find themselves right back in the same battle if they don't manually escape. The overworld is presented graphically with an overhead view. But towns and dungeons are explored by selecting menu options. A joystick is required to play the game.

zerothis # 2022-02-14 01:13:10

prequel of
Ormus Saga II (C64)