''Fire King'' is an

action Action may refer to: * Action (narrative), a literary mode * Action fiction, a type of genre fiction * Action game, a genre of video game Film * Action film, a genre of film * ''Action'' (1921 film), a film by John Ford * ''Action'' (1980 fil ...

role-playing video game A role-playing video game (commonly referred to as simply a role-playing game or RPG, as well as a computer role-playing game or CRPG) is a video game genre where the player controls the actions of a character (or several party members) immers ...

. It was developed by

Micro Forté Micro Forté Pty Ltd is an Australian electronic entertainment company with development studios in Canberra and Sydney. Founded in 1985 by John De Margheriti at a time when there was little game development presence in Australia, Micro Forté h ...

, published by

Strategic Studies Group Strategic Studies Group (SSG) is an Australian software development company that makes primarily strategy wargames. The company was founded by strategy game enthusiasts Ian Trout and Roger Keating. Trout was proprietor of a military books store ...

and distributed by

Electronic Arts Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the d ...

in 1988 for the Commodore 64/128 and MS-DOS. It was sequel to another game of the same style titled '' Demon Stalkers: The Raid on Doomfane''. The game has been compared to '' Gauntlet'', with its top-down view and endless enemies spawning from monster generators, but differs in that it contains more plot and puzzles than the typical

hack and slash Hack and slash, also known as hack and slay (H&S or HnS) or slash 'em up, refers to a type of gameplay that emphasizes combat with melee-based weapons (such as swords or blades). They may also feature projectile-based weapons as well (such as ...

game.

Plot

The player becomes one of six characters, first appearing in a room above the town square of the town in Stormhaven Bay. The harmony of the land is controlled by the great elemental forces of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water, each controlled by a mage. The Fire Mage was king until he was slain by a magical beast of superhuman strength and size. Although this monster was slain, another magical beast appeared and began to dine on villagers. New enemies roam the countryside, leaving it to the

player character A player character (also known as a playable character or PC) is a fictional character in a video game or tabletop role-playing game whose actions are controlled by a player rather than the rules of the game. The characters that are not control ...

s to confront the beast in the catacombs and end the terror.

Reception

The game was reviewed in 1990 in ''

Dragon A dragon is a reptilian legendary creature that appears in the folklore of many cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but dragons in western cultures since the High Middle Ages have often been depicted as ...

'' #158 by Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser in "The Role of Computers" column. The reviewers gave the game 4½ out of 5 stars. Douglas Seacat of ''

Computer Gaming World ''Computer Gaming World'' (CGW) was an American computer game magazine published between 1981 and 2006. One of the few magazines of the era to survive the video game crash of 1983, it was sold to Ziff Davis in 1993. It expanded greatly through ...

'' noted, "The synthesis of action and RPG is an interesting, if not altogether successful one." Seacat praised the plot but noted the pace of the action did not match the slow-paced inventory system, commenting that, "The entire game just seems to have a rough edge, as if it weren't finished yet."

Reviews

*''

The Games Machine ''The Games Machine'' is a video game magazine that was published from 1987 until 1990 in the United Kingdom by Newsfield, which also published ''CRASH'', ''Zzap!64'', ''Amtix!'' and other magazines. History The magazine ran head to head with ...

'' - Nov, 1989

References

External links

Fire King
at

GameFAQs GameFAQs is a website that hosts FAQs and walkthroughs for video games. It was created in November 1995 by Jeff Veasey and was bought by CNET Networks in May 2003. It is currently owned by Fandom, Inc. since October 2022. The site has a databa ...

Fire King
at

GameSpot ''GameSpot'' is an American video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information on video games. The site was launched on May 1, 1996, created by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. In addition ...

*
Review
in ''

Compute!'s Gazette ''Compute!'s Gazette'' (), stylized as ''COMPUTE!'s Gazette'', was a computer magazine of the 1980s, directed at users of Commodore's 8-bit home computers. Announced as ''The Commodore Gazette'', it was a Commodore-only daughter magazine of the ...

''
Review
in ''

Info Info is shorthand for "information". It may also refer to: Computing * .info, a generic top-level domain * info:, a URI scheme for information assets with identifiers in public namespaces * info (Unix), a command used to view documentation produc ...

'' {{Strategic Studies Group 1988 video games Commodore 64 games Commodore 128 games DOS games Electronic Arts games Role-playing video games Strategic Studies Group games Video game sequels Video games developed in Australia