System: Nintendo (NES)
Release Date: 1989
Genre: Action RPG/Platforming
Developer: Quintet
Publisher: Broderbund
Anyone who has even played a moderate amount of Nintendo has
probably come across Legacy of the Wizard at some point. If you are one of the
few who did not play it, or had friends who played it then consider yourself
lucky. Some people love this game, and others despise it with the fury of a
million suns. Myself? Well I enjoyed it on occasion, but usually ended up
getting too frustrated to really make any progress towards beating it. Oh sure, the music is good, the graphics look
pretty, and the game mechanics/controls are decent enough to make playing the
game fun, for a while anyway.
The basic
premise of the game involves a family of woodcutters, tasked with defeating an
evil dragon who was originally sacked and defeated by the grandfather using the
magic “Dragon Slayer” sword. Even though
the dragon is locked away deep underground, the parents fear the dragon is soon
to reawaken, and rush to prepare for battle. Each member of the family has
special powers, and a unique role in helping out on the quest to
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| The Dragon. |
recover the
magic sword, and once again defeat the dragon of their grandfather’s time. This
is about as much as I ever read in the manual growing up, because let’s face
it, kids don’t want to read, they want to play.
The part I
missed out on was the fact that the sword itself is protected by four sacred
crowns. The Dragon Slayer can only be relinquished after all four of these
sacred crowns have been collected from deep within the dungeon. As it turns
out, each crown can only be collected by using specific family members using
their unique abilities. Along the way, special items and weapons can be picked
up, either from hidden treasure chests, or from shops buried deep underground.
Each item/weapon can only be used by specific family members, and you have to
return to the family house on the surface to switch characters, and equip
special items. This means that the order in which you collect the crowns is
specific. If you don’t travel to a certain area first to collect a specific
magic item, you will not be able to access another area of the dungeon later
on.
My biggest
problem was the fact that they did not tell you what the order for collecting
these crowns were, or what character to use in each area.
The other major headache was the lack of a
basic dungeon map. The game gives you nothing. In fact, the owner’s manual
actually recommends that the player spend some time exploring the dungeon, and
then simply suggests that the player draw their own map. Talk about time consuming.
Wait a second…the original Legend of Zelda didn’t have a map system either, and
it too was vague on where to go next. That’s right, ZELDA of all games, was
just as much, if not more cryptic than Legacy of the Wizard. So why did I like
Zelda, and not like Legacy of the Wizard? Well, Zelda had only one playable
character, and Legacy of the Wizard gave you five to choose from. With Link you
always knew what your abilities were, and you could easily switch your weapons
and tools around to best meet your needs for the situation at hand.
So my typical experience with this game went something like
this:
“Hey I
think I will play Nintendo”
“What game
do I want to play?”
“I am tired
of RoboCop, and I am stuck on level 4 of Zelda….I know, Legacy of the Wizard….I
haven’t played that one in a
while, maybe I can finally make some progress this time…”
::AFTER ABOUT AN HOUR OF GAMEPLAY::
“Fuck this
game! I can’t figure out where to go…I just keep going around in circles. I
will never play this game
again!”
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| All these items can be yours...if you can find trhem |
| . |
Even with
all the online content available today, this game still remains difficult. I
have watched walkthroughs on YouTube, and ready through various tutorials and
FAQs. Even with all the different maps found online this game just continues to
frustrate me. I have been able to progress a lot farther these days than I did
as a kid, but the game is still tricky enough that I end up getting
frustrated and giving up.
A good example of this can be found in the seeminly simple task of using the gloves to move certain stones around. You would think it would be somewhat easy, but the controls associated with moving them around is so
tricky and awkward that it just made me give up.
Maybe
someday I will get around to playing the game all the way through. Oh shit. Who
the hell am I kidding? I know I will never have the patience to get through
this thing. But that doesn’t mean I won’t occasionally enjoy at least a little
bit of gameplay. Right?
