PC video game, 1990. One of many games to be released in
America
through the
partnership of
Sierra and
Japanese publisher Gamearts,
Zeliard was either an
RPG with heavy
platform elements or a platform
game with light RPG elements. Zeliard introduced the
player to the
magical kingdom of Felishika, in the
holy land of Zeliard. After two
thousand years of imprisonment beneath the earth, the
demon Jashiin
began to wake, and sent a burning
rain of sand to
blight the holy land.
He turned King Felishika's daughter Felicia to stone, and stole the
Tears of Esmesanti, the magical
crystals which Felicia's ancestors had
used to imprison him long ago. The holy spirit of Zeliard heard the
King's prayers for the return of his daughter, and answered them in the
form of a wandering
knight, Duke Garland, who took on the sacred
mission of retrieving the
jewels, defeating the demon, and, yes, saving
the
princess.
The player controlled Duke Garland through eight side-scrolling caverns
of monsters, each with a unique theme: dirt, stone, forest, ice, blood,
gold, fire, and wind. The interesting thing about these labyrinthine
caverns is the way they looped: Garland could make his way to the left
side of the cavern by moving constantly right, and to the top side of
the cavern by moving constantly down. The caverns were, in effect,
mapped onto a torus. This, coupled with the irregularity of the
caverns, made it seem as if they went on forever. Oddly enough for a
Japanese game, the caverns were named in Spanish. Each cavern had its
own theme-appropriate boss monster, also with a Spanish name.
Serving as buffers between the caverns and as places of rest were a
series of towns - some aboveground, and some buried beneath the earth
by Jashiin's evil power. Many of the people in these towns were willing
to help you, especially the village sages, but as the player progressed
closer to Jashiin's palace the locals became less and less friendly.
As Garland, the player used a number of pieces of equipment and magic
spells to progress in the caverns. The obligatory sword and shield were
present, along with an eight-item inventory that could hold one-use
items like the sword-honing Sabre Oil or the protective Magia Stone
barrier. These could be bought in town with "almas," the life-forces of
monsters the player had defeated. After completing each cavern the
player could pay a visit to the nearest village sage to receive a few
more hit points and a new magical spell - in effect, a level-up. The
magic spells had diverse effects: while espada, the first spell,
projected a weak magical blast a short distance, the last spell,
guerra, killed every enemy on screen. The spells, like the caverns, had
Spanish names. In addition to all this there were a series of garments
for the player to collect, which eased his journey through the game.
On the whole, Zeliard was a lot of fun, but extraordinarily difficult.
Players had to be almost supernaturally agile to pass some of the later
caverns, and the mazelike nature of the levels made navigation without
a map nigh-on impossible. I started playing it on and off in 1991, and
only finished it recently. Though it's largely forgotten even by the
Internet, it can still be found for download at some abandonware sites.