by RetroRomper » Fri Apr 17, 2020 12:50 am
Ice Cream Jonsey wrote: ↑Thu Apr 16, 2020 12:54 pmWhoa! How did it get unwinnable in that version?
This quote about Serpent Isle sums up everything I could find about the game being flubbable.
RPG Greats.com wrote:
As good as it is, Serpent Isle is a flawed game. Many of these flaws probably would have been fixed had the game gotten more development time, but that doesn’t make them any less game-breaking. There are quite a few events that, if done out of order, can result in an unwinnable game. There are even a few bugs you’re relatively likely to run into unless you specifically avoid them. If you go off exploring too much, you risk causing problems – for best results, stick to what people tell you to do.
And this may explain the issues I ran into with the SNES version of The Black Gate.
Wikipedia wrote:This version is largely different from the original, since the PC version of the game was a then-huge 20 megabytes, yet this translation could use only one megabyte of memory for all of the game data and program. The game is largely real-time action, bearing many similarities to Ultima: Runes of Virtue I & II.
The maps and many usable items and plotlines had to be redesigned from scratch, and the game program had to be rewritten entirely in assembly language.The 'party' system was scrapped; instead, the Avatar journeys alone. Also, the story was largely changed in accordance with Nintendo's content guidelines: instead of murders, the Avatar is asked to investigate kidnappings.
Sounds to me it was a jumble of design, port, and programming errors wrapped up into a 1MB SNES cartridge.
[quote="Ice Cream Jonsey" post_id=107810 time=1587066874 user_id=3]Whoa! How did it get unwinnable in that version?
[/quote]
This quote about Serpent Isle sums up everything I could find about the game being flubbable.
[quote="RPG Greats.com"]
As good as it is, Serpent Isle is a flawed game. Many of these flaws probably would have been fixed had the game gotten more development time, but that doesn’t make them any less game-breaking. There are quite a few events that, if done out of order, can result in an unwinnable game. There are even a few bugs you’re relatively likely to run into unless you specifically avoid them. If you go off exploring too much, you risk causing problems – for best results, stick to what people tell you to do.[/quote]
And this may explain the issues I ran into with the SNES version of The Black Gate.
[quote="Wikipedia"]This version is largely different from the original, since the PC version of the game was a then-huge 20 megabytes, yet this translation could use only one megabyte of memory for all of the game data and program. The game is largely real-time action, bearing many similarities to Ultima: Runes of Virtue I & II.
The maps and many usable items and plotlines had to be redesigned from scratch, and the game program had to be rewritten entirely in assembly language.The 'party' system was scrapped; instead, the Avatar journeys alone. Also, the story was largely changed in accordance with Nintendo's content guidelines: instead of murders, the Avatar is asked to investigate kidnappings. [/quote]
Sounds to me it was a jumble of design, port, and programming errors wrapped up into a 1MB SNES cartridge.