The Classic PC Gaming Era (1977-1989) - Legacy of the Ancients
You've got to try the Ultima-style CRPG that has it all – an inter-galactic museum, castle raids, pirate caves, 3D dungeons, a Pegasus, an evil warlord, gambling and many fun minigames!
RELEASE DATE: 1987
DEVELOPER / PUBLISHER: Quest Software / Electronic Arts
PLAYABILITY TODAY: Fairly playable
BEST VERSIONS: Commodore 64
Before we dive into Legacy of the Ancients, we need to first delve into the history of a game called Questron that was created by Charles Dougherty and Gerald Wieczorek and released by Strategic Simulations in 1984 as the cornerstone in its new line of CRPGs. The game was clearly designed with a lot of influence from Richard Garriott’s Ultima, and because it was such a similar title, SSI had to agree to officially license Lord British’s work in order to publish it. Though Questron has many distinctive characteristics and is very much its own game, it has long been perceived by many CRPG fans as second-tier Ultima clone. Over the next few years, Charles Dougherty produced a sister series along with his brother John through a developer called Quest Software that included 1987’s Legacy of the Ancients and 1988’s Legend of Blacksilver, and the two also worked with Westwood Associates to design the 1988 game Questron II.
While Questron is the original game and Questron II is probably the most polished, I found Legacy of the Ancients to be the best sampler of what the series has to offer, and thus the easiest of the four to recommend to a modern player. Much of what makes this title worthwhile is also found in the other three, and I won’t argue with those who suggest one of the others is superior. They’re all ultimately variations on the same theme.
With that out of the way, let’s focus on Legacy of the Ancients, which starts you out as a peasant who finds a dead body clutching a scroll called the Wizard’s Compendium. Upon looting the body, you find yourself transported to an intergalactic museum created by the “Ancients” that tells you a bit about the world before you’re sent on a quest to destroy the dangerous “spell of spells” you now possess. It’s a nice, simple game where you have no party to worry about, no complex mechanics to fiddle with and a linear story to follow - and follow it you must, because you only level up by hitting key milestones within the story. Fortunately, the game is fairly engaging in its first half, and while it hits a slump past the midpoint, it’s easy enough that you can push through to the endgame.
The beginning of the game involves wandering around until you get mugged and lose the Wizard’s Compendium. You have to return to the museum and talk to the Caretaker there to receive a level promotion and some quests. First you explore the continent of Tarmalon, acquiring gold and purchasing museum coins so you can view different exhibits on the wall screens to either receive items, access minigames or further progress to different parts of the world. Eventually, you’ll be sent on a quest to retrieve a scepter from a castle (which means you get to charge in and murder all of the guards) and later, you’ll delve into a pirate isle dungeon that’s eight levels deep and full of nasty enemies, but which also has a crown hidden at the bottom. Bringing both treasures back to the Caretaker allows the plot to advance to its next chapters, where you’ll be sent to increasingly dangerous parts of the world until your final showdown with the Warlord, who now has the Compendium in hand.
If you’re the sort of person who gets bored with plot progression, Legacy of the Ancients has you covered with a vast assortment of minigames that range from casino games to mail delivery to dropping balls through probability mazes to deflecting fireballs with a shield to a strategic dice game based on Liar’s Dice called “Stones of Wisdom.” Some of these games are well-crafted and quite fun to play, and they offer an amusing diversion if you need to raise gold for your character or if you want to improve a stat like endurance.
The core game is divided into several different components – wandering through towns from an overhead perspective, walking around the overworld from a bird’s eye view and navigating through nicely-rendered 3D dungeons using a parser-style list of commands. Mapping is not necessary in the dungeons (the individual levels are small) and combat, which can happen in any of the different view modes, is really easy because you only have one character to worry about. On the Commodore 64 version, most of your actions are also accompanied by excellent sound effects which are not nearly as nice on other versions.
One of the most memorable things about the game is the bizarre bestiary of oddly-named monsters like “Carrion Mangler,” “Mammoth Screecher,” “Mime Ghoul” and (I love this one) “Mr Potato.” Since fighting monsters does not progress your level and gold is easy to come by through gambling and minigames, there’s little reason to fight enemies outside the dungeons, the castle or the fortress. This helps to speed the game up since there’s little need for grinding.
The question of which version of Legacy of the Ancients you should play is easily answered – the Commodore 64 version has the best graphics and sound – but the Apple II and MS-DOS versions do have their own charms, primarily due to the way the MS-DOS version’s color palette delivers a sort of neon glow on the game’s graphics. Legacy of the Ancients is a relatively short and easy CRPG for its vintage, but if you need some help, VGMaps offers some excellent atlases and there’s a thorough guide on GameFAQs.
Aside from the PC game itself and the sister titles by the same creators, Legacy of the Ancients also has a paper and pencil RPG system that was funded through a Kickstarter campaign in 2019. You can check out the books on DriveThruRPG if you’re interested – the main book even includes a history of developer Quest Software written by Charles and John Dougherty.
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!