Akalabeth - Won!

Tragedy strikes

Dear reader: I failed, because I am a weak man. I told you I was trying to beat the game the long way, and killing a gremlin was next on the to-do list. Sadly, I did not see a single one, despite going all the way to floor 10 (when these asshats were supposed to spawn starting on level 5). I think it's probable that they just spawned in some remote corner of the levels that I somehow managed to avoid in my mapping journey; regardless, I overextended, and fell to a group of monsters on level 10.

Undeterred, I rolled a new character (picking a higher wisdom stat, so that I could start from the gremlin quest or close to it), and looked into a different dungeon; once again, no gremlin, despite delving all the way down to level 8. Trying to not overextend, I made my way back to the surface and tried a third different dungeon; believe me, o incredulous reader, that there were no gremlin in that dungeon either (at least in the first 6-7 levels). Since fourth time is the charm, at the fourth different dungeon I tried to explore, I finally found a gremlin on level seven. Or rather, IT found ME, and by the time I noticed that among the pack of monster was one such horrendous creature, 99% of my food my gone, and I was destined to die of starvation assaulted by a pack of monsters.

It is at this time that I turned to the dark powers of the magic amulet.

What is magic anyways?

The magic amulet is an attack option we did not discuss last time. That's partly because the fighter cannot control its power, and will trigger a random effect every time (though the randomness can somewhat be controlled, see below). On the other hand, if you activate the amulet as a mage, you'll see four possible options appear.

The magic amulet options for mages

"Ladder-up" and "ladder-dn" are two very practical spells, letting you teleport to the same square in the floor just below or just above. It's especially great for exit strategies, after you've killed the latest enemy in Lord British's long list. The "kill" option is a misnomer, and is more akin to a magic missile-style attack, which can hit or miss and only does a certain amount of damage; still, given that mages can only uses axes, it's a welcome ranged option. The real interesting stuff happens when you choose the "bad??" option,  in which case one of three random options will be chosen: either the spell backfires, you turn into a toad, or you turn into a lizard man. In the first case, it just means you lose half your health. It's annoying, especially if your health numbers in the thousands, but is manageable if it doesn't happen a bunch of times in a row. The worst outcome by far is the one where the amulet turns into a toad, as all your starts except HP get reset to the fixed value of 3. That makes it essentially impossible to successfully hit anyone, minimizes the damage you do, and maximizes the damage you take; you might as well reboot the system and try again with a new character at this point. 

But in the rare occasion that the amulet turns you into a lizard man, your character essentially hits the jackpot, and sees all of his stats (HP included) be multiplied by 2.5 (rounded down). Assuming you followed my advice and got a character with each stat in the teens or early tweens, you now have a powerhouse with 40-60 strength, dexterity, and stamina, that can kill enemies with one hit consistently and takes very little damage in return. The lizard man transformation is also the secret to breaking the game entirely: if you repeat the transformation successfully, the stat boost compounds, and with enough successes you can max out all your stats to 9999, at which point nothing in the game can really hurt you anymore.

The downside of using the amulet as a mage is that there is a chance an amulet will break when you use it (which does not happen to the dumb fighter), so you need to store up on a few of them if you're hoping to have a guaranteed path out of a dungeon.

How I learned to stop worrying and embrace the lizard

Since I was not relishing the prospect of building up yet another fighter to make him strong enough (and with enough food) to kill the gremlin I was missing, I said "screw it" and tried to brute force a lizard transformation. Since the fighter cannot control the amulet, there were a lot of trial and error runs where you enter a dungeon, spam the amulet as much as you can, and if you die from damage or turn into a toad reset and take an extra step in a different direction before spamming the amulet again. Within 15 minutes and a handful of restarts, my fighter had gone through the lizarding process, and could kill enemies in the first few levels with his bare hands. With his increased charisma, Lord British decided to immediately skip to the last level of the quest, and ask me to kill a Balrog. I had carefully mapped the first dungeon I explored up to level 9, which I knew contained a Balrog, so it was just a matter of getting some more food, going down, and finally claiming my lordly title.

The underwhelming victory screen

...Except Lord British is being a twat and telling me that yeah, I'm a knight now, and I can keep playing, but there is no point. I should try playing at difficulty level 2 though. Thus shamefully concludes my attempt at beating the game; it is doable, yes, but all it takes is a small wrench in your wheel (a gremlin or thief you missed, or going just a little too deep for your current hit rate) and you're dead and your run is done.

Ultimately, playing as a fighter without using the amulet is a masochistic pursuit. If your stats (especially dexterity or stamina) are too low, you will not be able to hit (potentially at all!) enemies in the lower levels, and since that's where daemons and balrogs lie you could literally start a game that is a lost cause from the beginning. If extra hard runs are your thing, Akalabeth will give you something to chew on; otherwise you're much better off playing as a mage.

You're a Wizard, Nic

The first success was not gonna be the last time I played the game. The retroachievements set (see below) had some more challenges, so I decided to beat the game as a Mage at difficulty level 10, but I would allow myself the option to use the Lizard Man trick to guarantee success. It's a good thing I did too! Raising the level from 1 to 10 meant that the enemies hit equally as hard, but had A LOT OF HEALTH, so much so that even on the first level of a dungeon you'd have to hit a thief or a rat multiple times, and they were more prone to run away. I quickly realized that there would be no way to win the game without embracing our inner lizard selves; trouble was one single lizard transformation would not be enough to make it down the deepest pits where the Balrogs lie. At the same time, trying to tempt fate with the amulet multiple times can lead to a backfire after the first successful transformation; or worse, a toadification which would mess up our lizard plan.

That's where we used the not-so-random RNG to our advantage. As I said in the previous post, the random features of the game are entirely determined by the "lucky number" you pick at the beginning. That's not just the location of the castle and dungeons, or which monsters spawn where, but even which random effect the "Bad??" option on the amulet will give you. Or rather, the cycle of outcomes you will run into after a certain number of actions (steps/attacks) in the dungeon. So if you luck into a lizard man transformation after a couple of steps into a dungeon, you can head out, head back in, take the same steps and use the amulet again, and PRESTO! infinite lizard men transformations and max stats are available to you. At that point (and hoping you went to talk to Lord British before utterly breaking the game) the only thing that can mess up your knighthood is not paying attention to a nearby gremlin.

With an infallible plan, I went in, mercilessly slaughtered a bunch of monsters, and reported to Lord British the death of a Balrog. I was a little disappointed to see that there is no special "you won at level 10" screen, rather His Britishness suggests you try the game at the (non-existent) level 11.

Level 11? Sure! Just tell me how to actually access it though...

Having triumphed over all obstacles, and having mastered all retroachievements for the game. it was time to hang our sword on the mantle, get some time to reflect, and figure out just how good of a game this actually was.

Retroachievements watch

The set for the game is pretty straightforward: clear every step of the main questline, beat the game as both a mage and a fighter, beat the game at level 10, and trigger the lizard transformation. You are likely to run into most of these in the course of natural gameplay, with the exception of the level 10 run, and potentially some of the early monsters if you start with a high wisdom score. As long as you're planning to use the lizard trick for the fighter too (trickier because of its lack of control of the amulet), the set is pretty easy to master.

Mastery achieved

Time for the RELATIVE

Now that I've described my experience with the game, it's time to discuss its RELATIVE rating of the game. Go see the original post about Chrono reviewes for a reminder of how the RELATIVE works.

• Game setting: 2
• It’s generic fantasy, and only the manual includes some information about the world. Not one of the game’s strengths. 
• Avatar: 3
• Besides name and class, there is little for you to sink your teeth in. Stats are random but can be rerolled ad libitum, so there is no reason not to keep hitting the button until you get the stats you want. 
• Interaction: 2
• Lord British is the only NPC and the only interaction is a very basic flag, checking whether you killed the monster or not. Hidden areas are not hidden, they are just annoying. 
• Quest: 2
• There is a barebones main quest line. No significant payoff from the ending, no real plot at all. 
• Combat and difficulty: 3
• There is some variation in combat (different weapons, axes can be thrown) but it is very dull, and boils down to using your strongest weapon. Shields are literally pointless, and the difficulty is too steep to play the game the long way, and completely busted if you use the lizard man trick. 
• Inventory and interface: 1
• You can check your inventory, but there is no way of interacting with it. Some info missing from the interface. Basically just gets the point for having such a thing. 
• Economy: 2
• Once you get into the first dungeon and kill a couple of enemies, money stops being an issue. After a couple of trips, you have enough copies of every item (including ones you can’t use) that you just spend 30 seconds hitting the F button to dump the rest in food. This kingdom must be extremely rich; shame that everyone is dead. 
• Graphics: 3 
• Passable for the time. Lack of sound is a bit of a bummer. My biggest issue is that most dungeon tiles look identical and it’s way too easy to get lost. Monster drawings are unique enough you can easily tell them apart. 
• Playing and replaying: 4
• Install is pretty easy, in either version. The loop is surprisingly addictive, and is good enough to entertain you for a few hours. The retroachievements add something to it, and they are all reasonably obtainable. But after this posting I don’t expect I’ll ever go back to the game.
• X-factor: 8
• Despite the game being very basic and nothing special by today’s standards, it does get a big boost in this category for being so innovative in the space and for kickstarting the career of Garriott, with everything that Origin created weighing in. This is a one-time bonus though; future Ultima games will need to stand on their own legs to get points here.
• Total: 30/100. 
• A game worth checking out if you're interested, but by no means a masterpiece or required playing. There is just not enough "game" in this game to keep you invested 

That's a wrap on the first Chrono Review! Let me know your thoughts on the format and Akalabeth in the comments below. Following our guidelines, we need to switch genre and/or advance in the timeline; for next time, I've decided to cover Mystery House, the first listed Graphic Adventure in our master list. I've never touched the game before, and I'm pretty excited to see what it's like! Until then, as usual, Let's keep Retro-playing together.