Fatal Labyrinth

Fatal Labyrinth is often overlooked or downplayed by Sega Genesis purists and with good reason. The Sega Genesis is host to a multitude of great role playing games and agreeably, Fatal Labyrinth falls short in comparison to many of these. You play as the male brawler, Trykaar. Your job is painfully simple: the Holy Goblet has been captured by demons and it is your job to retrieve this goblet or the world will perish. Unlike most rpgs, you progress through a dungeon for almost all of the game and the only way out is to advance through all 31 levels of the dungeon - going up, not down. You cannot visit town to upgrade or heal. Instead, you find all that you will need in the dungeon. Each of the levels of the dungeon is randomly generated, making maps useless. The fighting is for the most part real time. Each dungeon is set up a grid-like fashion and each square that you move is considered a turn; all visible monsters get a turn after each of your turns. Attacking is simple, simply walk up to an enemy and move 'into' them. This will cause you to attack. You can also throw items such as magical rings and shurikens to do damage from afar. You can also cast one-time spells and fire arrows from your bow should you find one. It does not take long to get the basics on how to play. As you kill monsters, your level increases and with it come standard rpg perks such as added power and more hit points. To advance to the next level, Trykaar must find the staircase in the level.

Fatal Labyrinth is not initially enjoyable. You start in the town and once you leave, you it's 100% labyrinth. On top of this, there is no save mechanism. That's right, you cannot save in this game. So if you want to beat the game, prepare to play start to finish in one sitting (of course emulators might have a save feature). If you want to survive, I have found that you must search all or most of every level in hopes of finding better items, armor, and weapons. These are also randomly dropped so you need to be a bit lucky to find the top tier items. Here is the problem with searching each level: Trykaar might stumble upon a pit tile, sending him to the previous level. He must then refind the staircase. There are also tiles that turn red when he steps onto them. When this happens, all living monsters on that level are alerted to your position and it's brawling time. This is annoying but it is the pit tiles that make this game super frustrating. Gold can be collected but apart from end game points, gold means little. If you die, the amount of gold that you have influences the amount of people that are huddled around your grave mourning your death.

Fatal Labyrinth is not that bad of a game, certainly not as bad as I initially thought. Yes, I would have enjoyed a save feature, but the game can easily be completed in a few hours if you have the patience. You do need to watch which enemies you are fighting and occasionally run and heal up but none of this is overly difficult. Should you die, you are sent back to the last level that is a multiple of 5 (with the exception being level 1). On top of this, you start on that level with all of the items you had when you initially started that level. This makes up slightly for the lack of saving. The random dungeons is a great idea and the game is short enough for me not to lose all of my attention. There is a concept of food in this game. You obviously die if you have no food for long enough and there is a negative impact in eating too much food. In general, I do not like having to micromanage my characters diet, but for the most part, the food in this game is easy to find and plentiful so it should rarely be an issue. The real time, grid based, attacking scheme is enjoyable. You learn quickly to use hallways and doorways to your advantage.

The item system I both enjoyed and hated. You find items in the game, but if it is your first contact with the item, you have no clue what it does. You either have to use it not knowing what it does, or identify it with rare scrolls you can find. In either case, what the item does gets unlocked and all further identical items you find come identified. This was kind of fun as I looked forward to finding new items and identifying them. The problem is that many of these items are "one and one" items so to identify them, you have to use it completely up (like a potion for example). Also, some of the later items are cursed and should you identify them by using them, you get cursed in the process (not a giant deal as curses are very temporary). The magic in the game is simple, but effective. Most of the spells the enemies cast are fair game and not terribly annoying except one; a muddle spell that randomizes your directional pad. When under this effects of this spell, when you move in any direction, your character will move in a random direction, usually not the one you want. This spell is temporary, but is a big bummer when you get in a room of enemies with the spell on you. You are mostly unable to attack them and of course they can attack you... The only times I died in this game resulted from getting hit with this muddle spell and then getting surrounded somehow.

Fatal Labyrinth has a Hero Quest feel to it that brings me back. A fair rpg by classic standards but not in the same league as Shining Force or Phantasy Star, for example.