''Legend of Faerghail'' is a 1990

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 ...

, developed by Electronic Design Hannover and published by

reLINE Software ReLINE Software was a German game development company founded by Uwe Grabosch and Holger Gehrmann in Hannover in 1987. The company acted first as a developer for Softgold, Rainbow Arts, Golden Games, Magic Bytes, micro-partner, and Robtek; t ...

for the

Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and significantly improved graphi ...

Atari ST The Atari ST is a line of personal computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the Atari 8-bit family. The initial model, the Atari 520ST, had limited release in April–June 1985 and was widely available in July. It was the first pers ...

and

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...

Gameplay

''Legend of Faerghail'' is set in a

medieval fantasy Historical fantasy is a category of fantasy and genre of historical fiction that incorporates fantastic elements (such as magic (fantasy), magic) into a more "realistic" narrative. There is much crossover with other subgenres of fantasy; those ...

world. The

player Player may refer to: Role or adjective * Player (game), a participant in a game or sport ** Gamer, a player in video and tabletop games ** Athlete, a player in sports ** Player character, a character in a video game or role playing game who is ...

first creates a character by selecting

race Race, RACE or "The Race" may refer to: * Race (biology), an informal taxonomic classification within a species, generally within a sub-species * Race (human categorization), classification of humans into groups based on physical traits, and/or s ...

and

class Class or The Class may refer to: Common uses not otherwise categorized * Class (biology), a taxonomic rank * Class (knowledge representation), a collection of individuals or objects * Class (philosophy), an analytical concept used differentl ...

. Characters have

attributes Attribute may refer to: * Attribute (philosophy), an extrinsic property of an object * Attribute (research), a characteristic of an object * Grammatical modifier, in natural languages * Attribute (computing), a specification that defines a proper ...

(such as wisdom, strength and constitution), skills (such as pick-pocketing and various languages) and

hit points Health is an attribute in a video game or tabletop game that determines the maximum amount of damage or loss of stamina that a character or object can take before dying or losing consciousness. In role-playing games, this typically takes the for ...

. The game is viewed from

first-person perspective A first-person narrative is a mode of storytelling in which a storyteller recounts events from their own point of view using the first person It may be narrated by a first-person protagonist (or other focal character), first-person re-teller ...

. The game world includes an

overworld An overworld (sometimes referred to as a hub world) is, in a broad sense, commonly an area within a video game that interconnects all its levels or locations. They are mostly common in role-playing games, though this does not exclude other vide ...

split by a mountain range, and eight dungeons. It also offered the player the opportunity to continue their characters from previous games such as Phantasie I,

Phantasie III ''Phantasie III: The Wrath of Nikademus'' is the third video game in the ''Phantasie (series), Phantasie'' series. Gameplay The "final" installment of the ''Phantasie (series), Phantasie'' trilogy was based around fighting the evil Nikademus and ...

The Bard's Tale ''The Bard's Tale'' is a fantasy role-playing video game franchise created by Michael Cranford and developed by Brian Fargo's Interplay Productions (1985–1992) and inXile Entertainment (2004–present). The initial title of the series was ''T ...

and The Bard's Tale II: The Destiny Knight, although ''Faerghail'' does not take place in the same

fictional world A fictional universe, or fictional world, is a self-consistent setting with events, and often other elements, that differ from the real world. It may also be called an imagined, constructed, or fictional realm (or world). Fictional universes m ...

as these games.

Reception

Peter Olafson 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 ...

'' in 1991 described the game as "a '' Bard's Tale'' cousin with a horde of bells and whistles". The magazine praised the Amiga version's graphics and audio, but criticized the lengthy

load time In computer systems a loader is the part of an operating system that is responsible for loading programs and libraries. It is one of the essential stages in the process of starting a program, as it places programs into memory and prepares them ...

s, poor play balance when starting with new characters, and errors in the translation. The magazine's Scorpia was much more negative, describing the game as a "German import that should never have crossed the Atlantic". She criticized the IBM PC version's graphics, documentation, and combat as "poor" and "absurd", and "a mediocre effort at best". ''

Zzap!64 ''Zzap!64'' was a computer games magazine covering games on the Commodore International series of computers, especially the Commodore 64 (C64). It was published in the UK by Newsfield Publications Ltd and later by Europress Impact. The magazine ...

'' awarded an overall of 90%, highlighting game mechanics such as the language system, different ways of tackling locked doors, and wearing effects on weapons and armour. The game's presentation was also praised, with its atmospheric sound effects.

References

External links

*
''Legend of Faerghail''
at the Hall of Light * {{Authority control 1990 video games Amiga games Atari ST games DOS games Fantasy video games Role-playing video games Video games developed in Germany Single-player video games