THE SPIRIT OF EXCALIBUR

 THE SPIRIT OF EXCALIBUR is advertised as the definitive Arthurian Legends game,
combining adventure, fantasy role-playing, and strategic combat simulation. I'd
actually classify it as a role-playing game, with added strategic elements. It's
quite enjoyable to play, but it also has its share of problems, especially at
the start of the game. (This review is based on the IBM-PC version.)

 The story begins after the death of King Arthur. You assume the role of
Constantine, who was appointed by King Arthur to succeed him as the ruler of
Camelot. Your main objective is to defeat all who threaten Camelot, and unite
all of England.

 The game is divided into five separate episodes. In each one, your kingdom
faces different threats and hazards that you must eliminate, all the while
trying to bring more territories under your rule by finding and fulfilling
various mini-missions. Various NPCs with different information and objects
appear in each episode. Your characters, however, do retain all the improvements
in their statistics, along with all the objects they've accumulated from
previous episodes. By the same token, characters that have been killed
previously will not be reincarnated.

 As Constantine, you command all the knights and other characters present at the
Round Table, as well as other knights in castles under your rule. The knights
can travel all over England, either alone or in groups, and they can interact
with any non-player characters (NPCs) whom they may encounter. At any one time,
you may have as few as one or as many as half a dozen (or more) groups all going
to different locations and doing different things, and all under your control.
Things can sure get hectic in a hurry, especially when you're new to the game
and unfamiliar with the names of the people and the cities.

 All traveling is done on the map screen. The entire map of England is presented
graphically complete with cities, castles, mountains, rivers, oceans, and
forests on a total of 16 screens. To scroll to another part of the map, all you
have to do is move the cursor to the edge of the screen. The map is beautifully
drawn, and scrolling is very smooth. Clicking the cursor on the cities and
castles reveals their names, and any characters who may be inside. To move a
group, you click on the GO icon (which is a knight on a horse), select the group
you want to move, and then select a destination. All the travelers on the map
are represented by shields of various designs and colors. Again, these can
become difficult to remember when you are commanding several unfamiliar groups
traveling in unfamiliar territories. An option that allows you to choose
different speeds of movement alleviates this problem to some extent.

 A magnifying glass icon on the map screen lets you zoom in on a locale, and
brings you to an interior screen. This will sometimes lead to other interior
screens through doors, archways, and stairs. You may zoom in on locales without
your characters present, in which case you may look, but nothing else will
happen. If you do have a character present, then you can interact with any NPCs
who are there, or pick up objects that you may find.

 All the playing characters in this game come with fixed statistics. These are
maximum hit points, hit points remaining, magic points, combat, armor, nobility,
and faith. Combat and nobility can be increased by winning in combat. Armor can
be increased by finding and using enchanted equipment. Faith can be increased by
meditating in chapels. There are various potions that can increase hit points,
agility, and strength. The characters do not advance in levels, and I found that
combat and armor were the only two really important statistics for succeeding in
the game.

 Fighting can occur two ways: There are single one-on-one combats, and full army
encounters involving soldiers and archers. In single combats, you may elect to
control your player manually, or let the computer control both sides while you
watch. In manual control, I was never able to correlate what I did with what
happened on the screen. Eventually, I simply played the whole game with the
computer controlling both sides during all the combat sequences. During combat,
the character and companions can also use items and cast magical spells. These
abilities become very important in the later episodes. You can also elect to
decline a combat challenge or withdraw from it, but doing so will cost you
nobility points. When the nobility points of a knight fall below a certain
limit, he is lost forever to the Round Table.

 Full army battles are handled pretty much the same way. You can let the
computer handle both sides, or you can control the forces under your command.
You can CHARGE, ENGAGE, FLANK, RETREAT, etc. Again, I found that what I did
really did not affect the outcome. The side with more and/or better soldiers
always wins: This is where the strategic element of the game comes in. Enemy
forces continue to march toward Camelot while you are busy trying to find the
necessary clues, objects, and/or characters needed to defeat them. In order to
allow yourself more time to complete your quests, you have to amass whatever
military resources are available in your realm to slow down the enemy advances.

 Gameplay involves sending out your various characters to visit as many locales
as possible to gather information, objects, and clues. Apparently based on
historical truth, some knights hate one another and will immediately challenge
to fight to the death when they meet, so you need to be quite careful when
assigning your knights to different missions. Some missions have very tough
enemies, and only a knight with high combat rating can succeed. When you play
this game the first few times, having no prior knowledge of what and where the
encounters may be, it is virtually impossible to make intelligent choices. This
(along with having to struggle with unfamiliar geography, various shield
designs, and the names of the characters whom you're commanding) makes playing a
very frustrating experience.

 The game documentation also adds to the confusion. It does not explain any of
the commands you use to interact with NPCs. It took me a while to realize that
SEARCH is only for looting victims after a combat, that REQUEST is used to see
what an NPC is carrying, that TRADE is for buying an item of interest. The
manual also makes no mention of the magical spells that are so crucial to
solving the game. The only way to discover what they do is to save the game, and
then cast all of them to find out what happens. Some spells (in fact, all the
important ones) require special items to work, and again, the only way to learn
this is by casting the spells. The game does tell you which items are missing,
but the messages sometimes disappear so fast that you don't even have enough
time to read them. The same is true with most magical items: You have to use
them to find out what they do, and then restore the game.

 Because of these problems, staying interested long enough to learn how to play
is the hardest part of EXCALIBUR. In fact, after several halfhearted starts, it
took me three excruciating evenings to familiarize myself with the map, the
shields, the character names, the spells, the items, and the commands before I
could finally delve into the game itself. Once I became comfortable with it, I
finished it in four evenings. All in all, I played for a total of about 15
hours.

 Graphics in the 256-color VGA version are very well implemented. Each screen
looks like a full-color painting. The graphic style very closely resembles that
of DEFENDER OF THE CROWN by Cinemaware. The game also supports EGA and Tandy
graphics. It requires 512K of RAM in EGA, and 640K in VGA. There are several
musical themes and sound effects for walking and magic-casting. Roland, AdLib,
Covox, and CMS sound cards are supported. The music is nice, but a bit too
repetitive.

 The software supports a mouse, a joystick, and keyboard commands. I did not try
playing with the joystick. Playing with the mouse is quite comfortable; it seems
to be more responsive than the keyboard commands, especially when using items or
casting magic during combat sequences.

 EXCALIBUR has no on-disk copy protection, and can easily be installed on a hard
drive. A large, folded, beautifully drawn map is included with the game. The
coordinates are represented by shields of various designs. At the beginning of
each session, you're shown two shields. You have to refer to the map and find
the name of the location at which the two shields intersect. Often it appears
that two cities are near the intersection, but you do have two chances to pass
the test before the game exits back to DOS.

 Be aware that the game does require close to 570K of free RAM to run in VGA
mode. If your system has less memory, the game will still load and allow you to
play, but periodically you'll encounter find-block errors, and the program may
hang during combat sequences. The most amusing bug of all (now looking back)
occurred when Nineve was preparing to cast a spell in Merlin's cave: She walked
off the screen completely! Whatever I tried to do afterwards was greeted by the
message "Please wait for Nineve to finish." I finally had to reset the computer
to exit; if you're going to play in VGA mode, you may want to boot from a clean
floppy.

 THE SPIRIT OF EXCALIBUR is very pretty and pleasing to the eye, especially in
VGA mode. A lot of patience and perseverance are needed at the beginning of the
game, but it does become quite easy and comfortable after the second episode.
The game appears very well researched. I say "appears" only because I'm not a
great Camelot fan and cannot authenticate the legends and characters used in
this game. The manual, while lacking in other respects, is curiously full of
background information regarding all the legends surrounding King Arthur and
Camelot. I liked the ability to command several groups simultaneously and
control them independently of one another. I recommend EXCACLIBUR to players who
are enthusiastic fans of Camelot, and who have the patience to overcome the
initial difficulties of the game.

 THE SPIRIT OF EXCALIBUR is published by Synergistic Software and distributed by
Virgin Mastertronic.

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