LogFAQs > #949898389

#52 Excelsior Phase One: Lysandia (MS-DOS, 1993)

Among Shareware games released in the early 1990s, the standard practice was to release the first few levels of a game, or a feature-limited version, in the hope that the user would enjoy the game enough to pay to access the full version. But some shareware titles were released as complete games, able to be fully played without purchase. Excelsior was one of those games that I never registered.



The Shareware version makes you sit through a registration screen for a little bit each time you start the game, but other than that there is no difference between it and the registered version. The catch is that this old computer RPG is very very difficult to complete without the hint book that came with registering. And I never actually did beat the game, although I know I got very close.

Excelsior does not look pretty and it does not sound pretty. It's a very minimalist game with respect to aesthetics, but it more than makes up for that with an abundance of content. You control a single character in a fantasy setting on a quest to vanquish an evil force that has corrupted the king of the realm. The game plays out over a myriad of towns and dungeons that are connected by a very expansive overworld. As typical of older RPGs, there is just as much emphasis on world building, puzzle solving, and questing as there is on combat. And while the combat is satisfying and challenging, the puzzle-solving is the real thing that gates your progress in the game. And at least, for the young kid that I was, the riddles and puzzles could be very difficult, and the situations found at the end of the game were unsolvable. As it's been probably 25 years since I played this game, I cannot really say how much of that difficulty can actually be attributed to the game, but I think it's probably safe to say that the developers really wanted people to register for the hint book.



I will speak to a couple of the highlights of the game. The character creation process provides a very wide variety of races, professions, and skills. You gain money and experience through combat and questing, but level-ups are few and far between. although very impactful. The dungeon crawling parts play out in a turn-based fashion. The enemies roam the areas freely and all take a move every time that you move. So it's important to make sure that you maneuver yourself properly so that you do not get overwhelmed. The magic system is morality based; the more that you use evil magic, the more evil your character will become, and the more effective evil spells are/less effective good spells are. And vice versa.

Of all the games from my childhood that I reviewed for this list, Excelsior is one of the top choices that I want to revisit soon. I believe that the gameplay will still hold up and I am hoping that my adult faculties will be sufficient this time to beat the game. And if not, maybe I will finally spring the $15 to register the game and get that hint book.

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At least your mother tipped well