Finished the game... phew... Well, it turned out that the Blue Amulet
is needed. I had to reload earlier saved game file to finish the game. Seriously, a manual should be included, or at least certain keys should be mentioned in the review. For example, I didn't know pressing R on keyboard will alow Arick to read the books (after he got a special item necessary first) until I googled for the info on the net. Anyway, here are some of those important keys:
F1: load a save game file
F4: save current game
I: open the inventory screen
S: see Arick's status
R: read books of Ys
The
ending of the game is, well, okay. I guess it was quite good at that time (1987 or 1989?). The final boss' battle was frustrating, though. I'm not much of an arcade fan, so yeah imagine my frustration. So I was glad when I finally
defeated him. However, I needed to reduce my DOSBox cycle before I even had a chance to win. At first I had to reduce it from my usual setting (8000) to normal DOSBox default (3000). No apparent change. So I reduced again to 1000, then to 500, then to 300, then to 250, and finally to 200 before I managed to get the game slow enough for me in that frustrating arcade scene.
I don't quite like the HP cap, and the fact that my gold was rolled back to 0 if I accumulated too much (not that there are many items to buy, but anyway...). Still, for a game this old, it may have been amazing back then.
Considering the frustration, this is not a game I would want to replay again. Still, I guess this is okay to play if you want to kill time a day or two.