The Speris Legacy (Amiga CD32) - Part 3 - Guest Post

Previously on the Amiga CD32 Zelda-'em-up The Speris Legacy, our hero Cho tried to inspect a sinister looking plant and instantly died. What could happen next?

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Ploughing head-first towards poisonous plants and giving them a big hug to test if they're really poisonous is perfectly in-character for Cho, I reckon.

There's someone in the town who can help with the botanical menace, and naturally he's miles away from the plant. You'll have to make around four trips to and from the plant to solve the puzzle, and you'll need to bring an item that's silently appeared in the shop...

... and the story will conclude with the evil plant being handled off-screen without Cho's assistance. There's no boss battle, and no cutscene of the villagers burning the plant, or anything like that. You're told to wait in a room, a character walks off (the most animation I've seen from an NPC in the whole game), they walk back, say thanks to Cho, and that's it.

It's astonishing.

Don't get me started, Elsrika.

Once the plant story has gotten underway, Cho can go back to that woman he complimented out of nowhere and get invited in for dinner. She's upset at her husband dying, so Cho has to grind for another fifty damned gems to buy a ring from a baboon in a pub to give to her to cheer her up.

And grind you must. I've found the easiest way to do this is to run back and forth down the seven-screen-long straight line that runs across the bottom edge of the map. There are pig knights there which have no attacks except to bumble into you, and you can kill them with no trouble at all. If you'd like an indication of how long that took, look at my VIT gauge - I've reached maximum level already, in the second town of the game.

In return for all my hard work, Elsrika allows Cho to take any one item from her house to help in his quest. Except the clock.

Seriously, don't choose the clock.

Once you've completed all the trades, charmed Elsrika, defeated the plant, bought everything in the shop and stolen the security pass, a mysterious stranger in a top hat appears to finally tell you where to find the key to the exit.

It's in the hands of one of Gallus' lieutenants, who's been sent to stop my meddling ways once and for all!

Hello, My name's Cho, pleased to meet you.

You!..... I want you boy!.. I've searched high and low for your pathetic adventuring little body!!! You will go no further...... DEFEND YOURSELF!
The screen has locked in place and the tense music begins. It's an end-of-level boss fight to the death!

The Knight has no other attacks or movements whatsoever. He doesn't move up and he doesn't move down. He's immune to everything except the dagger, so that's what I use. He doesn't have a health gauge, he never gets stunned, and still no gems or life items fly out of him when he gets hit. After a couple of minutes of this, he explodes uneventfully and drops the key to the exit door on the right.

The last remaining obstacle between Cho and freedom is the row of golden posts. I'll give you a clue: the answer isn't the bombs, the sword, the dagger, the running boots, the strength potion, the drill, the ice mallet, the gloves, the book, or the key the Knight drops.

Ahhh! Fresh air! Different music!

If you were playing along at home and are still listening to the music, you can turn it off now. You've won!

We're finally done with Gilliards Rhine! Forever!

And the next level is a bonafide dungeon. Nobody to talk to, no damn puzzles, only caves, doors, swordplay and derring-do. I won't be getting EXP for any of it since I'm full, but whatever, it's still good for VIT restoration.

Outlaws Caves: Dark and forboding, a shiver will run down your spine as you wander through winding passages.
Inside the Outlaws Caves, The Speris Legacy continues to be The Speris Legacy, except in a slightly more excusable way. There are hidden passages you can find clues towards but must ultimately find by sliding up against the walls; distant switches that you have to fire your dagger at which are only visible if you stand in the correct position and have a very accommodating TV; and switches that silently affect things on entirely different screens.

It feels almost like a real game in here. The enemies have distinct behaviours, and they can be dangerous if you don't show them who's boss. I don't remember being able to fall into the lava. The Outlaws Caves are really, really tiny, so if you play aggressively you can be at the end in minutes.

The first piece of amazing loot you'll score will be a bowl of cream.

The bowl of cream looks very tasty.
Mmm, cave cream. Who do we know that would like a bowl of cream? Oh yeah, Minsk 'da Cat!

In Gilliards Rhine.

You thought we were done, didn't you? You thought wrong.

Minsk's first adventuring hint is to tell you that there's a weapon capable of shattering barrels hidden in the Outlaws Caves. Why do you need that weapon? Because unless you exhaustively smash every single barrel in Gilliards Rhine, you'll never find the lost pages to the Dictionary of Riddles (click to reveal), which you'll need to complete the Caves!

Here's Cho's equipment menu at the end of the Outlaw Caves. I don't think I've shown it yet, since it doesn't really play a big part in the game. You can toggle your current WEAPON and OBJECT with the CD32 pad's shoulder buttons, except when the game breaks and doesn't let you.

I don't know why the icons are so tiny. Somehow I don't think Cho is going to find 36 weapons to fill his WEAPON pane, plus another six to fill in the extra slots below the blue bar. Out of the five items assignable to the WEAPON slot, only the bombs change Cho's attack action. Equipping the daggers, shield or nothing at all makes Cho use the Palace Sword, despite the Shatter Sword being identical but stronger. The old sword is just another thing to have to cycle through when you're switching between bombs and Shatter Sword on the field.

Everything in the OBJECT pane on the right is Cho's Dizzy adventuring toolkit. I had a lot more junk when I was in Gilliards. If you like junk, this is the game for you.

So once you've defeated the Knight in Rhine, gone to the Caves and found the cream, gone back to Rhine to give it to Minsk, gone back to the Caves for the weapon, gone back to Rhine to smash the barrels, you can go back to the Caves one last time to complete the quest and leave the continent for good! Hurrah!

Cow Tree Island: Despite the crazy name, this island has many unique and interesting features.
One of those features being menacing gangs of bipedal cows that fire their muck at you constantly, preventing you from using your weapons until you find the one tiny secret patch of water that returns you to normal. It's great.

No, the ocean doesn't count. I tried.

Cow Tree Island's critical path is just as disconnected as the one in Gilliards Rhine, but the island is smaller and has more bearable music. The script is full of classy moments, such as the guy whose depression is immediately cured by finding him a joke book, and when it makes light of the then-current UK 'mad cow disease' variant-CJD outbreak (Wikipedia link).

There are regular enemies here as well as the cows, but they're not interesting. You'll bump into them, lose a bit of health. You'll kill them, and gain a bit of EXP. When your EXP gets full, you'll trade it for a full VIT bar and carry on on your way.

One of the tasks you have to complete before the person who'll allow you to progress will miraculously appear is to get two would-be lovers together. Part of the solution is to talk to them alternately until they fall in love. They're on opposite sides of the village of course.

The ultimate goal of Cow Tree Island is to gain entry to something called the Serenity Tree. Inside, you discover a hidden, secret, futuristic metal-plated base full of crazy robots!

And none of this has any damned point or relevance to anything. There's one friendly NPC down here, the 'Wiseman' to the south and his sole line of dialogue is useless, stupid nonsense that comes out of nowhere.

Pleased to meet you Cho, I'm Tuskus the Wiseman. I must warn you about the main reactor, It's gong to blow within ten minutes. Run for your life!
The main reactor he mentions is actually a huge lit cartoon bomb sitting in one of the nearby rooms.

Once you've defused it, the professor's dialogue completely disappears, as if the scene was some arbitrary bollocks that was thrown together for the hell of it. You never get to find out what this strange place is about, why the 'reactor' was going to blow, or anything.

In the interests of transparency, I had to edit the screenshot above - that description appears when Cho inspects the bomb and he'd be standing in the way of it. I shamefully combined two images to enhance the drama and show you the gravity of this desperate situation.

There is one somewhat clever puzzle in this metallic dungeon where you have to destroy a seemingly-insurmountable electric forcefield by using ingenuity, observation and experimentation. I can see why they had to hide it in this place, the rest of the game might get jealous if it were allowed to see it.

On the way here through Cow Tree Village I was tasked with rescuing a soldier named Daythan who was part of an expeditionary force that attempted to assault Gallus' castle and failed. Makes you wonder why the King thinks Cho alone stands a better chance.

I've found Daythan chained to a wall and it's up to Cho to release him.

What's the solution? How can I break through chains?

Let's see... It's not the large hammer, the ice hammer, the Titan Fist glove that smashes through walls, the mysterious high-tech drill that should be able to get through pretty much anything, the strength potion, the magic staff or the shovel.

In fact, it's none of these items, because I'd missed it altogether.

What, you didn't walk through the unmarked hidden passage in the Outlaws Caves that led to the secret underground volcano shrine with the baby that you had to pick up and put in your backpack (making sure to use the 'object' button, and not the 'talk' button unlike every other NPC) and take to the inventor in Gilliards Rhine so he could use a re-aging magic spell to turn the baby back into an adult warrior in full plate armour who would then give you a pair of wire cutters he somehow had on his person?

Looks like somebody's gotta go all the way back to Gilliards Rhine!

There's no fast travel or shortcuts in The Speris Legacy. The paths on the overworld map link the edges of towns; they're effectively asking if you want to go forwards or backwards along a linear chain. You've got to retrace your steps through every town map in turn to get back to previous locations.

And is there a puzzle in the penultimate area that requires an item from Cho's hometown which only becomes available to collect right at the end of the game? You bet.

With the cutters in hand I can finally release Daythan, who has some more information for me and an item needed for the next phase of the adventure. Cho can ask him to join him on his quest, but unfortunately this isn't to be.

I would if I could, but Gallus has already seen to it that I can no longer live the life I once did. I was put through major brain scan torture and all my skills were removed!
He made you listen to the Gilliards Rhine music, didn't he?

To escape the metal base, Cho has to outwit a pair of guards named Aryton and Jess who take turns guarding this bridge leading to the exit.

The solution is pretty straightforward - you need to figure out how to incapacitate the guard that's currently resting in the guardhouse below, then wait for the shift change so you can then deal with their partner. When both guards are out of action at the same time, the exit will be unguarded and you can leave.

And here is as far as I've ever gotten in The Speris Legacy, because, sometimes, just for kicks, the shift change never happens. I've emulated it and I've played it on a real CD32: same result both times. Don't take my word for it, the same thing happened to Nash of Amiga Power in 1996.

I think if the bomb timer ever expires and you get the devistating explosion, the scripting loses track of which guard is currently on the bridge and never swaps them. Without the shift change, you can't incapacitate both guards simultaneously and the game becomes unwinnable.

That's nasty. The ultimate insult is that The Speris Legacy on the CD32 only gives you one save file, so if you'd happened to save after the explosion and used a Continue, your only file is completely useless and you have to start the whole game over again.

No, I don't think I will, thank you.

I think I'm going to take a break and calm down before I write the conclusion. Back by popular demand from my Pinkie post, it's time for some Cool Stuff in the final part of this Super Adventure, Part 4!

The Speris Legacy (Amiga CD32) - Guest PostPart 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4