I miss old SSI games and all the beauty and wonder they brought me as a child. Perhaps it’s more of the feeling of playing old MS-DOS games and that no worries feeling of playing games all summer long when your parents are out working; no cares in the world but that of the evil dragons and goblins of an RPG world. Secret of the Silver Blades arrived in May of 1990, developed and published by Strategic Simulations Inc (SSI), a company we covered in our gaming history back in TD Gaming Podcast Episode 9.
Secret of the Silver Blades is actually the third in a four-part game series which was eventually packaged in the Gold Box editing of the SSI games. It was a continuation of the game Curse of the Azure Bonds and the first in the series: Pool of Radiance. The cool part of the series was the leveling system where each would let you level to a certain limit just like most modules in D&D games, this game let you get to level seven which means a Mage could use the cool Delayed Blast Fireball spell which was one of my favorite magic spells in D&D (yeah, I’m a dork.)
The graphics were a whopping 16-colors, with slight graphical improvements over the other two prior games. This game didn’t have an overworld map like the others, going full first person for the length of the game. Another great enhancement was the ability to use the arrow keys to navigate menu’s without the need for “hot keys” like older SSI titles, given the game is very much menu-based for combat, equipment and inventory management it was very handy to have the use of those nice little arrow keys.
You create your party and start adventuring in a game engine very similar to all the games before it, so introduction to game mechanics was minimal, you could advance your characters further in level and, most importantly, import characters from previous games. The D&D world is really a character-driven game environment and you grow fond of your characters and understand the best ways to battle with them, importing is key and still, today, is a big part in well done RPG expansions (Guild Wars is a great example). Unfortunately, many games fall short of character import and it kind of blows away some of the magic of an RPG.
One of the frustrating issues with Secret of the Silver blade is the limitation on levels for the Cleric, because they can’t level up past 7 they can’t get the good ressurection spell, only allowed to use Raise Dead which lowers your characters constitution by 1 (much like the traditional D&D rules). However, given its a video game and not a paper-dice based game, the raise dead penalty is annoying, so it was easier to save often and re-load when you died to try again and avoid the penalty. I do recall their being some scrolls or something to get back your constitution penalty… but it’s been awhile I might be making that up.
Anyway, a well done series, classic RPG and helped build a foundation for games like Morrow Wind and Oblivion in my opinion.
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I wrote a comment to this podcast instead of playing GTA 5. I should probably get the VGRT reader’s award or something.
@EA CEO
I am in the camp who hates EA by default. I still bear a grudge for them ruining Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath and Marvel Nemesis. It will never change regardless of who runs it. But I do enjoy Battlefield and am looking forward to Battlefront so I am glad that some guy got replaced by another guy and I hope he will take the company in a bold new direction out of the shit pit it’s in.
@Sega buys Atlus
Never heard of Atlus. But I don’t expect Sega to get back in the console race. At the moment the competition is cutthroat in the market. Even an established brand like Nintendo can’t survive. Maybe Sega wants to expand it’s TV add on business. They release little boxes that have bunch of classic Sega games and are plugged into your TV. Either that or they want more MMOs.
@To mediocricity and below
Star Trek had a reboot and I didn’t even notice. I always thought Star Trek needed a reboot. It’s a very long running franchise. But I would prefer a condensed contemporary version of the original series. Not a movie where there is more shooting then actual trecking.
@Your daddie’s credit card can no longer beat Diablo
Just recently I started playing the second Diablo with a friend. I love it. Fast paced combat. Many locations. And loadsa loot. I also played the Xbox 360 demo and it was good. But not as good as 2. Combat was way to slow. On the account of auction house, I completely do not care if it is there or not. I am the type who can spend hours grinding monsters to get a good item (Monster Hunter eats my life)
@QOTW
I will answer last weeks question if it’s all the same. I live by the Russian rule of: “if it ain’t broke -don’t fix it”. I got a DSi because my original DS was falling apart. My Xbox 360 crashes evey 2 hours but I won’t get a new one as I don’t tend to play the same game for more than 2 hours anyway. I only get new hardware if i don’t already have it.
First I wanted to wish Jordan a speedy recovery from his hospital stay, I hope it wasn’t too serious.
It was nice to hear Dan on the show again!
@EA Change: Just googling to see the long history of game series ruined they have built a reputation that may be irreparable at this point. I know I’ll be getting Sims 4 for my wife and this change I hope does bring better games. The reputation is however a well earned one.
@Diablo Auction house: I think the more games that abandon the Pay to Win mechanic the better for quality games.
I’d like to end this with a question to you guys. I’m trying to figure out what is the best console for a family to play on and so far that does seem to be the Nintendo franchise. Xbox and PS seem very heavily focused on FPS and other 3D games. My wife get’s motion sickness from 3d gaming and can only play side scrollers and the like. Also I heard you saying how split screen is dead so I’m wondering what do you do when you have people that want to play the same game on the same console at the same tv?