The Classic PC Gaming Era (1977-1989) - Prophecy: The Fall of Trinadon
I was stunned how much fun I had playing this cool-looking and fun action RPG with a linear story and some addictive gameplay.
RELEASE DATE: 1989
DEVELOPER / PUBLISHER: Richard L. Seaborne / Activision
PLAYABILITY TODAY: Fairly playable
BEST VERSIONS: DOS
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: an evil empire has taken control of everything in sight, and the only hope for overthrowing it is a young, blond-haired boy with a shining blade, supernatural powers and training in the “Jedist” way of the resistance movement. The main villain was once good, but has turned evil, and when finally face him, he sacrifices himself to destroy the greater evil that’s been guiding the forces of darkness.
Sounds like a fantasy take on Star Wars, right? And that’s what I was expecting going into this game as well. But I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Prophecy: The Fall of Trinadon was not only a wholly original game with some excellent artwork and addictive gameplay, but it also has a decent (though somewhat derivative) story and a fun (though mostly inessential) magic system.
The game begins in the village of (ugh) CrissCross, where you leave your home to investigate the screams of your neighbors. Goblins are outside, ransacking the place, and you have to fight your way down to a church where you find three sages whose altar teleports you into danger on a quest to retrieve a crown from the Goblin King. This begins a questline where you’ll explore mazes, battle enemies, loot equipment and attempt to fulfill the increasingly dire requests of the sages as you search for more information on the Jedist resistance.
The gameplay is mostly driven by the keyboard – the number pad (or joystick, if you press CTRL-J) allows you to move in 8 directions, and you can attack with the spacebar. A handful of useful screens are bound to keys so you can check your stats or equip your inventory (though it’s unfortunate that you can’t see the effects of your equipment without flipping back and forth between screens.) The function keys allow you to launch 10 bindable spells, and this is where the game’s unique magic system comes in.
While your character starts off with six useful spells (heal, harm, boost HP, boost defense, magic arrow and water wall), the manual contains over 30 base spells that can be committed to memory if you type them into one of your quickslots correctly. Each spell can also receive an amplification prefix that makes it more powerful, but also more costly to utilize. For example, you can improve the standard healing spell Harlok by adding the prefixes Par- (“ParHarlok”), Kru (“KruHarlok”), Ala (“AlaHarlok”) or Sun (“SunHarlok”) to boost the spell’s potency. On some spells, this will also increase the area of effect. Since some of the spells allow you to do things like neutralize enemies or siphon their hit points, it’s worth taking some time to think about how to use the them strategically.
While Prophecy is an action RPG where every NPC can be attacked, many enemies will talk to you and even offer you items or services if you don’t attack them. Jamming the “T” key as you get close to an enemy to see if they’ll talk is a good practice, as it can save you some time and trouble earlier in the game. But the game also loves to throw curveballs – talking to one goblin will reveal him to be a tax collector who will take all your gold. Talking to the goblin king will get you thrown into the dungeon. Talking to a bunch of guards sitting around a table in what appears to be a dining area will reveal they’re on a break and will leave you alone if you depart immediately.
One thing I enjoy about Prophecy is its graphics, which were provided by Alan Murphy, who was one of the artists on Gauntlet. The enemy sprites are big and full of character, sometimes taking up impressive amounts of real estate on the screen. Unfortunately, the animation itself is choppy. The maps can also be simplistic and don’t always give you a great idea of what room you’ve wandered into, but fortunately, there’s some text at the bottom of the screen that will provide some additional detail (and sometimes, clues!). Since the game is screen-based rather than scrolling, it’s also a lot easier to learn the maps by studying how and where they connect, and you can also use these screens to figure out the best places to stand when you need to start a fight with a tough enemy but want to keep fleeing available as an option.
Though Prophecy is an RPG, you play with a pre-rolled character and have simple statistics that govern your speed, hit points, defense, power and magic. You level up automatically as you acquire XP from killing monsters, and it’s easy to grind out the early levels as you explore and slay a bunch of goblins. Enemy HP is displayed at the bottom of the screen and you learn very quickly to plan ahead for enemies who have an HP in the hundreds (often indicating they hit hard) or whose HP is simply labeled “High” because it’s over 1,000.
Initially, I found this game a bit challenging because I had no weapon and didn’t have enough spell points to do any real damage to the enemies. What’s worse, defeated foes will respawn sometimes once you return to a screen, which is a big problem in the early map. I quickly figured out, however, that once I’d cleared a screen, all I needed to do was sit and wait for my spell points to recharge long enough to use my healing spell, and then I could hit CTRL-S to quicksave a restore point. This made death considerably less agonizing, and it encouraged me to try to find ways around tough enemies rather than to progress solely by fighting. What I started to find as I played was that harder enemies can often be avoided, which is a nice change of pace for a genre where you’re typically required to mow down every bad guy you see. An hour in, the game seemed considerably easier, and aside from a tough monster here or there, I didn’t die too often once I located a weapon and figured out the mechanics.
The arcade-like combat system is extremely basic and takes a little getting used to because you have ensure your weapon is actually striking your enemy. There are times where you’re hitting the enemy and they’re not hitting you due to the way things are lined up, but there are also times where you’re getting pummeled and doing no damage in return for the same reason. The main character can be armed with an item in each hand or with a two-handed weapon, but since the loot found in treasure chests and on weapon racks is randomized, it’s hard to know exactly what the best combination of items is. I eventually settled on a dark longsword and a main gauche along with some strong armor, but I eventually found magical weapons that were more powerful and which gave me a greater distance with which to hit enemies. I had less luck with ranged weapons since they had finite ammo and often left me at a disadvantage. It made more sense to use magic for ranged attacks since my spell points would recharge over time.
Prophecy’s story is certainly similar to Star Wars in some ways (there’s even a cool twist at the end which, thankfully, is not that the villain is your father), and the game feels enough like Dungeons & Dragons that I was not surprised to learn that the game’s creator based the story on a module he’d previously written. I also enjoyed the world and the text that would pop up from NPCs as I ventured through the different quests. In the goblin city, I’d run into creatures who just wanted to talk or who were trying to help me out. Unlike most CRPGs, the game’s entire world is interconnected and rewards gradual exploration instead of simply thrusting you into an overworld with underworld dungeon. There’s also a low emphasis on combat since loot comes from treasure chests you have to find rather than from slaughtering every enemy you see.
There do seem to be a lot of systems that were included but which don’t impact gameplay much. Several spells have elemental qualities, but those don’t appear to provide significant advantages. There are stats like “charm” and “vision” that don’t seem to do much within the game. The inventory system allows you to accrue things, but not drop or sell them. The game’s gold is mostly used for buying spell point upgrades and healing, but it’s only occasionally useful for buying items. It appears that the game was intended to be the foundation of a series that never happened, and that’s too bad, because despite being a game that’s beginner-friendly, Prophecy could have evolved into a grander sequel if it’d caught on.
Why it didn’t is, I suspect, a matter of timing as well as exposure; the late 1980s were crowded with great CRPGs, and Activision wasn’t one of the publishers that was already known for producing good ones. Creator Richard L. Seaborne had only been behind one other RPG by this point - the obscure 1987 Apple IIGS exclusive Tower of Myraglen, which plays similarly to Prophecy but lacks its graphical polish. Most CRPGs of the era were also published on the Amiga, Atari ST and Commodore 64; MS-DOS was usually reserved for ports. Being a DOS exclusive was not yet a hallmark of quality.
Even so, I’m genuinely surprised I’d never heard of Prophecy before a stray mention in a Computer Gaming World CRPG round-up caught my eye. It’s a really well-made game that’s a lot of fun to play today, and I was sucked into it for several hours on my first attempt before I was ready to take a break. It’s frustrating that, aside from the manual and a handful of videos and write-ups, there’s little to no additional information about this game - no guides, no maps, no discussion about ideal strategies. Fortunately, it’s playable enough on its own terms to be enjoyable without all of that, and I definitely recommend this game to anyone who enjoys action RPGs. It’s only available today on MS-DOS and not, from what I can tell, available commercially anywhere, but it’s perfectly playable in DOSBox.
As Our Series Continues…
In the coming weeks, we’ll talk about 3D games, arcade action games, wargames, grand strategy games, RPGs, sports games, gameroom games, puzzle games and so much more.
And while you’ll definitely see some titles from prominent North American publishers like Sierra On-Line, Infocom, Activision, Electronic Arts, Brøderbund, SSI, MicroProse, Lucasfilm Games, Epyx and Sir-Tech in the mix, you’ll also see references to games from the United Kingdom, Australia, France, Spain and Japan.
This series will continue to cover games written by unique personalities like Chris Crawford, Roberta Williams and Danielle Bunten Berry, by great writers like Steve Meretzky, Michael Bywater, Robert Pinsky and Brian Moriarty, and based on the work of famous authors like Michael Crichton, Ray Bradbury, Agatha Christie, William Gibson and Douglas Adams.
Anything I don’t share here will be in my upcoming book, tentatively titled The Greatest Games You (Probably) Never Played Vol. 1. Subscribe to this newsletter so you won’t miss it!