Legend of Faerghail

[elodman]

Ave.

no own thread for this Bard's Tale clone yet, although many mentions everywhere.

- has anyone won it?
- has more depth than Bard's Tale (stats, "realism", options) ?
- overall personal opinion, - worthy of time if wanting a better Bard's Tale and Dragon Wars clone?
- mostly combat heavy, not story oriented, aye?
- quick fight / macro option / autofight implemented ?
- has balanced number of encounters? (-> involves less random combat than Bard's Tale 3 / Wizardry 7?)
- any insane things like in Bard's Tale (at least as I heard): monk hits 99 dragons 88 times for 443.111 points of damage?
- is there really an automap after gathering something like a "crystal ball"?
- could you find maps on the net / is it necessary to map?
- any tips for starters
- which version runs well?
( I heard Amiga ver. is nicer than PC. Also, there is a "riddle bug" in many Amiga versions except for the German one, which I would like to use anyway)
- do you agree with this review?

thanx if ya know sg on it.

 

[octavius]

- do you agree with this review?

That's more of a Let's Play than a review.

Now I kind of regret skipping this game.

 

[Morkar Left]

Biggest weakness was the amount of encounters. Every second you could stumble at one even when not moving. Otherwise I liked it but never finished it because of the aforementioned.

 

[Saintus]

Ave.

no own thread for this Bard's Tale clone yet, although many mentions everywhere.

- has more depth than Bard's Tale (stats, "realism", options) ?
-->Definetely more depth. Here you are given descriptions of rooms and places much more often, equipment degrading with repairing options,
resting with watches, ability to trade with opponents etc
- overall personal opinion, - worthy of time if wanting a better Bard's Tale and Dragon Wars clone?
-->Personally I think LoF is much better than Bard´s Tale and Dragon Wars.
- mostly combat heavy, not story oriented, aye?
--> Not story oriented as such with no missions except for the main mission. It is combat heavy yes
but far from as frustrating as in Bard´s Tale and combat is done quicker with the smoother keyboard shortcut supported interface.
- quick fight / macro option / autofight implemented ?
-->Quick fight implemented and works very well.
- has balanced number of encounters? (-> involves less random combat than Bard's Tale 3 / Wizardry 7?)
-->Yes, less random encounters than BT3. There is a fixed number of opponents on each level but as you fight your way through
they don´t respawn, contrary to how BT3 worked.
- any insane things like in Bard's Tale (at least as I heard): monk hits 99 dragons 88 times for 443.111 points of damage?
-->No, nothing like that. You could most meet three rows of opponents with 6 persons in each (=18).
- is there really an automap after gathering something like a "crystal ball"?
-->No, this is the automap
- could you find maps on the net / is it necessary to map?
-->It seems hard to find any maps on the net. You must not have maps to orient yourself because spinners, teleporters and stuff don´t exist, but in order
to play the game and not miss out on anything (there are many hidden doors) you would do best to map them.
- any tips for starters
- which version runs well?
-->I haven´t tried the PC version but I am pretty sure the Amiga version I am playing is much more goodlooking with good music and sound effects.
( I heard Amiga ver. is nicer than PC. Also, there is a "riddle bug" in many Amiga versions except for the German one, which I would like to use anyway)
- do you agree with this review?

thanx if ya know sg on it.

 

[Saintus]

Biggest weakness was the amount of encounters. Every second you could stumble at one even when not moving. Otherwise I liked it but never finished it because of the aforementioned.

If you don´t deal with certain enemies that stalks you this could be frustrating but if you combat them, they are removed and will not respawn unless you reenter the complex. And you will always be able to withdraw from fights.

 

[HobGoblin42]

LoF was an excellent RPG and one of the few good german RPGs of that time (beside Arkania and Amberstar). I can't tell anything about the english version, but the verbal puzzles were amazing and very challenging in the german version. Me and my friends always discussed about those puzzles at school because nobody knew the answer in the first place.

And I can still remember the main theme of the game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VE7Hi9UKc6w
I still own the package of this gem including all disks and manuals (all in mint condition of course).

The developer reLine created some other Amiga hits of the 90s: Oil Imperium (Black Gold) and Hollywood Poker Pro ( I liked both :D )

 

[Morkar Left]

The developer reLine created some other Amiga hits of the 90s: Oil Imperium (Black Gold) and Hollywood Poker Pro ( I liked both :D )

Dude, you totally forgot Fate: Gates of Dawn

 

[Unkillable Cat]

This game makes me twitch every time I think of it.

Yes, it has a lot of things going for it... but not nearly enough to make it worth playing. Note that this is based on the opinion of someone who didn't play the Bard's Tale trilogy or Dragon Wars when they were new and "fresh" products. I can see the resemblance (and I recall that you could transfer characters from other "notable" RPGs of that era, like the Bard's Tale, for example) but that's where it ends.

I played it on the PC, and had to go through 2 versions. The earlier version was so bad that it had spelling and grammar errors in the basic combat text. The latter version fixed those at least, can't speak for anything else.

The biggest problem this game has is that the English translation from German just isn't up to snuff. At least not when it comes to the riddles, but I wouldn't be surprised if the "Lost in Translation" syndrome cropped up in other plot-vital parts of the game as well, which will probably fuck people up regarding finding out what to DO to complete the game. I spent 9 YEARS trying to solve one of the riddles in this game, only to find out that it was horribly translated from German and all "sense" of the riddle was lost.

And yes, the Amiga version is probably superior in every way... better graphics (32 colours instead of 16) and better sound (PC speaker vs the Amiga's standard sound chips) with the rest probably being identical.

Frankly, I don't recommend this game to anyone except the masochists out there.

 

[Saintus]

Its interesting to note that LoF seems to be a love or hate game. Perhaps it depends on when you first played it. The riddles was also what finally got me stuck right in the end. I have noticed some translation errors from german but not something I would get much upset about. There are probably 10 riddles in the game at most so it´s not like if its too many.
Btw, you could not import any party from Bard´s Tale or any other game, or at least it´s nothing mentioned in the interface to support it, unless the manual say something about it.

 

[HobGoblin42]

The developer reLine created some other Amiga hits of the 90s: Oil Imperium (Black Gold) and Hollywood Poker Pro ( I liked both :D )

Dude, you totally forgot Fate: Gates of Dawn

I know it by its name but I've never played it because at this time (1991) I changed from Amiga to 286 PC.

 

[octavius]

The developer reLine created some other Amiga hits of the 90s: Oil Imperium (Black Gold) and Hollywood Poker Pro ( I liked both :D )

Dude, you totally forgot Fate: Gates of Dawn

I know it by its name but I've never played it because at this time (1991) I changed from Amiga to 286 PC.

Wise decision. I waited until 1995. In the meantime I confiscated my little brother's 386 to play Ultima Underworld.

 

[Saintus]

I know it by its name but I've never played it because at this time (1991) I changed from Amiga to 286 PC.

Arghh! 286 vs Amiga !? That must have been a major downgrade At least a fast 386 could have reaped the harvest of the good pc games. No offence!

I was felt forced to leave the Amiga 1200 in 1995 after having hoped Commodore would be rescued but the temptation after playing Panzer General was too much. That was the single best game that maked me jump to the PC platform.

 

[Mortmal]

Ah i remember this one, no i did not won it, for a simple reason stated by many, the number of random encounters, its similar to bards tale, 2 steps one encounter , except at least when you clear them in dungeons they dont respawn. Once i was younger i was able to stomach those numerous copy pasted encounters but things have evolved and frankly after playing ultimas, fallout, planescape , bg2,TOE i cant really enjoy an old blobber anymore . Last blobbers i really enjoyed was wizardry 8 , and the nintendo DS ones.
Now the review is acurate, game is more deep and complex than bard's tale its one of those underated underdog, like fate or magic candle , those ddidnt receive the scores nor the attention they should have as there was really many titles to play by then .
As for the version ill state it again anything before ultima underwoldl,, wizardry 7 and U7 releases is superior on the amiga, anything, if theres an amiga version its superior by default.

 

[octavius]

As for the version ill state it again anything before ultima underwoldl,, wizardry 7 and U7 releases is superior on the amiga, anything, if theres an amiga version its superior by default.

Only exception I can think of is Star Command where the DOS version actually had better graphics.
1992 was the right year to switch from Amiga to DOS, but the problem was that if you bought a PC it was almost instantly made obsolete with newer processors and graphics cards.

 

[Morkar Left]

Now I remember exactly why I abandoned it. It wasn't that much the number of encounters but the that they could move in realtime which made mapping too annoying for me.

Amiga was just the superior machine till the 386. I always pitied console (especially) or pc gamers...

 

[Mortmal]

well even on dos star commad doesnt shine, but yes 1992 was the year, although you still had ambermoon in 1993 no dos version as far as i remember , but that was the swan song. Indeed pc and console gamers were only worth of pity back then . in 1992 gaming pc were unaffordable in europe that was like spending 2000 euros for a normal gaming rig wich would become completely obsolete in less than 2 years. Nope pc gaming killing amiga wasnt exactly a great thing.

 

[Zenyrrah]

The developer reLine created some other Amiga hits of the 90s: Oil Imperium (Black Gold) and Hollywood Poker Pro ( I liked both :D )

Dude, you totally forgot Fate: Gates of Dawn

I know it by its name but I've never played it because at this time (1991) I changed from Amiga to 286 PC.

Bad timing

 

[AbounI]

As far as I can remember, the game couldn't be finished (at least in my french version, don't know what's about with the english one).At some point, the game asked some questions and the answers were only in the original german booklet: french translated manual couldn't give the right answer.
But the game left me good opinion.Some say there was too many fights, but compared with Bard's Tale III, there are less.The smith was a funny character, with his mightiest spell and his lonely capacity to repair used equipment.
The design of creatures was fine in my opinion, and the game included a range factor during the fights.

 

[Zenyrrah]

As far as I can remember, the game couldn't be finished (at least in my french version, don't know what's about with the english one).At some point, the game asked some questions and the answers were only in the original german booklet: french translated manual couldn't give the right answer.
But the game left me good opinion.Some say there was too many fights, but compared with Bard's Tale III, there are less.The smith was a funny character, with his mightiest spell and his lonely capacity to repair used equipment.
The design of creatures was fine in my opinion, and the game included a range factor during the fights.

I never finished it either. Got stuck on some riddle. But as far as I have played the game I have very fond memories of LoF as well of Fate: Gates of Dawn both from reLine or perhaps better Olaf Patzenhauer

 

[Saintus]

I did a playthrough of the game at my blog in september 2012 if anyone is interested to see more of what the game is like:
http://crpgrevisited.blogspot.se/2012/09/legend-of-faerghail-revisited.html

 

[:Flash:]

As far as I can remember, the game couldn't be finished (at least in my french version, don't know what's about with the english one).At some point, the game asked some questions and the answers were only in the original german booklet: french translated manual couldn't give the right answer.
But the game left me good opinion.Some say there was too many fights, but compared with Bard's Tale III, there are less.The smith was a funny character, with his mightiest spell and his lonely capacity to repair used equipment.
The design of creatures was fine in my opinion, and the game included a range factor during the fights.

I never finished it either. Got stuck on some riddle. But as far as I have played the game I have very fond memories of LoF as well of Fate: Gates of Dawn both from reLine or perhaps better Olaf Patzenhauer

Olaf Patzenhauer had nothing to do withe Legend of Faerghail.
LoF was developed by Olaf Barthel, who never left the Amiga scene and, I think, is still a member of the AmigaOS development team.

reLine was a tragic company. The first time it went bankrupt before the english and dos versions of Fate were published. After it went bankrupt for the second time, Holger Gehrmann committed suicide. Olaf Patzenhauer lived on social welfare until he died last year shortly after a hard disk crash had eradicated the entire source code of Fate 2.

 

[Luzur]

i have played it and still own it but oh god those endless random encounters, and totally random too, like first step, 2 Rats, second step, 6 Wild Grizzlys etc but you could run from eveyone, so that was nice atleast.

so i didnt get very far in it, some Dwarf mines if i recall correctly.

 

[Kosmonaut]

As far as I can remember, the game couldn't be finished (at least in my french version, don't know what's about with the english one).At some point, the game asked some questions and the answers were only in the original german booklet: french translated manual couldn't give the right answer.
But the game left me good opinion.Some say there was too many fights, but compared with Bard's Tale III, there are less.The smith was a funny character, with his mightiest spell and his lonely capacity to repair used equipment.
The design of creatures was fine in my opinion, and the game included a range factor during the fights.

I never finished it either. Got stuck on some riddle. But as far as I have played the game I have very fond memories of LoF as well of Fate: Gates of Dawn both from reLine or perhaps better Olaf Patzenhauer

Olaf Patzenhauer had nothing to do withe Legend of Faerghail.
LoF was developed by Olaf Barthel, who never left the Amiga scene and, I think, is still a member of the AmigaOS development team.

reLine was a tragic company. The first time it went bankrupt before the english and dos versions of Fate were published. After it went bankrupt for the second time, Holger Gehrmann committed suicide. Olaf Patzenhauer lived on social welfare until he died last year shortly after a hard disk crash had eradicated the entire source code of Fate 2.

Links or it didn't happen.

 

[:Flash:]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdLU7t-HE0s
http://www.mightandmagicworld.de/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=372109#372109

 

[Zenyrrah]

I never finished it either. Got stuck on some riddle. But as far as I have played the game I have very fond memories of LoF as well of Fate: Gates of Dawn both from reLine or perhaps better Olaf Patzenhauer

Olaf Patzenhauer had nothing to do withe Legend of Faerghail.
LoF was developed by Olaf Barthel, who never left the Amiga scene and, I think, is still a member of the AmigaOS development team.

reLine was a tragic company. The first time it went bankrupt before the english and dos versions of Fate were published. After it went bankrupt for the second time, Holger Gehrmann committed suicide. Olaf Patzenhauer lived on social welfare until he died last year shortly after a hard disk crash had eradicated the entire source code of Fate 2.

Links or it didn't happen.

Fate is a good follow up on LoF as we look at complexity, broad scale of classes, let say overall design, so I made the easy mistake of thinking Olaf did LoF as well. Besides that Holger Gehrmann died by falling of a six or seven floor high building, maybe suicide, maybe not and that happened on 11 feb 2008 that's four years after the second bankrupcy of reLine. Olaf died after heartfailure, he has been known for many years having a weaker constitution next to, well, perhaps some unhealthy gamehabits. So he was found dead by his father in his chair at home, date of death unknown somewhere at end 2011, start of 2012.

Fate 2; the computer with the source code has been destroyed as this was last will of Olaf. And for those who have played Fate 2, as I did have that honor thank to Olaf sending me the game, it was a good game that I like very much. Olaf was a true genius in his way and we should be gratefull for what he made us.

For those who can read German and want to know more about Olaf and his games: read this forum. It also inludes for the nozy ones more info on both mentioned deaths.