
	Platform NES Genre Action Publisher Broderbund Developer Falcom ETA 1989
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Legacy of the Wizard

There is one tune from the days of the 8-bit NES that regularly gets stuck in my head: the theme from Legacy of the Wizard that plays when you first enter the dungeons of that game. It's alright, though, as the song is pretty good, and it brings back plenty of fond memories of exploring dungeons, and slowly learning where everything was, while figuring out which characters worked best while searching for all of the useful items that would be needed to slay the dragon at the end of the game.

There wasn't much for players to go on once one started playing. There wasn't anything to go on, in fact, as the only way one could even find out the plot for the game and what their motivation for play was required actually reading the game's manual, and even that was pretty simplistic. In a nutshell, players learned that the family in the game's grandfather trapped a dragon in a painting that now sits in a dungeon below their house, and now, years later the family must find a sword in the depths below which the former hero's grandson will use to kill the dragon once and for all. It was a straightforward enough story.

In a time when so many games were quite linear, Legacy of the Wizard was a refreshing change of pace in how it was much more open-ended. Players had a choice of five characters to play as, and then it was off to the dungeons below to get that dragon. How would one go about this? That's up to you. Players could explore, and go in any direction that they wanted as they searched for what they would need to win the game. There wasn't any apparent fixed path of progression, so players were encouraged to just hop in and take a look around, merrily smacking around hordes of monsters along the way.

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The five playable characters in the game for players to choose from were Xemn, head of the Drasle family, his wife Meyna, daughter Lyll, son Roas, and the family pet Pochi. Each of these characters had different advantages while playing. Xemn had the most health, and could move blocks in the dungeon through use of magic gloves (once players found the gloves, of course). He could also hit like a truck. Meyna's offensive abilities were a little bit

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weaker, but she could use a trio of items: the magical key, the crossbow, and the magical wings. Lyll couldn't hit very hard, but she was able to jump super high, and to destroy certain types of blocks in the dungeon. Pochi was actually an interesting character, as he was the family's pet monster, and as such would often be left alone by monsters in the dungeon, and not take damage when coming into contact with them. Finally there was Roas, the son, and the guy players were going to have to use to kill the dragon with once they found the sword. He wasn't a very strong character, but one has to go with the hands they're dealt at times.

With that it was this mix of exploration, figuring out one's way through the dungeon, while learning which characters to use when that made Legacy of the Wizard so appealing. There weren't many games on the NES that were trying to do this at the time, which helped make this game such an interesting experience. Just the sheer size of the dungeon alone remains quite daunting even thinking about it today, not to mention the notion that players would be going to different sections of it multiple times when they realized that they took the wrong character (often times it's best to explore with Pochi first simply to scout out everywhere since he doesn't get hurt by monsters anyway).

Such an open-ended, vast experience was extremely rare in the 8bit era, and is still hard to come by today. For that, Legacy of the Wizard will remain in the memory of gamers for a long time. Hopefully more so than that dungeon theme.

Mr. Nash
March 16, 2011