Bloody Blade Adventure - Bill Jones on SynTax PD 311
                 (Text RPG for ST)

               Reviewed by Alan Beer

You are young, brash and eager.  Your quest is clear.  Trek as
many miles as you dare.  But beware, the further you go the more
dangerous the going.

This is about all the info you are given at the start of this
game.  You are told to start as a fighter or a cleric and are then
given 200 gold coins to spend at the town you start at.  You must
then try and reach the castle walls, (which are in the 10th town),
in one piece.

On arrival at the castle walls you will be greeted by a young bard
who will provide you with further instructions about a glorious
battle, to win back the land from a very EVIL Wizard.

Bloody Blade is not like your normal text adventure where you have
to enter such commands as 'kill orc with long sword' and the like.
In B.B. (as we will now call it) you just have to choose a number,
for instances if you meet up with an evil orc you get the choice
to 1. Fight, 2. Run, 3. Magic, 4. Inventory (you only get to use
magic if you play the part of a cleric). It's as easy as that. The
only other keys you will have to press, apart from the numerical
keys, are Y & N just to confirm things.

The best way I can explain how B.B. works is to take you on a
typical journey across many lands and through new towns.

We start at the beginning (I don't know about you but I always
find that's a good place to start) where we have to create a
character. We can choose to be a fighter or cleric. Mmmm!! Let's
go for a fighter, also I shall be an assassin! No, I think I'll be
a thief.  Finally, generate the characteristics of the
fighter/thief, you know strength, dexterity, hit points and so on.


Right, let's go shopping, I've only got 200 gold coins so let's
pop in the weapons shop.  Well, the best I can get at this time is
a Stiletto (what ever that is !!!) so that will have to do.  The
blacksmith is the next stop for some armour, now all I can afford
is the cloth type.

Time to hit the road.  The first town is 15 miles away and each
mile ticks away before your eyes, with different things popping up
as you encounter them, such as gold and books (books are no use to
you if you are a fighter, but you can sell them at the next town).
Along the journey you meet all kinds of evils like the Great Road
Warrior, Dragons and The Old Man!!  (Don't ask me).  All can be
fought in the manner I described earlier, but note if you select
to run it doesn't mean you're always going to escape, sometimes
your opponent will block your exit forcing you to fight, reducing
those all important hit points and also strike the first blow.

All is not doom and gloom as every now and then someone will be
travelling your way, at which time you get the option to take a
ride up the road a few miles, but only if you have enough gold
coins (the miles you are taken and the gold you have to pay all
vary each time it happens).

When you get to the first town, you again get to do some shopping
with your new found gold.  The further you travel the more items
become available to you in the shops, also you can now get some
training at the guild to increase your level and stats.  At the
first town you hear of a siege on a nearby castle and by joining
in on the siege you may find some gold and a sword from a dead
guard.  At the end of the battle you get a free patch up job by
the healer as promised to any one who survived.  If you win!!

On the journey to the next town you meet up with much the same
things as before but this time it is 20 miles away, and so it goes
on until you reach the castle walls, where you meet a young bard
who will congratulate you for getting this far. You are then told
that you must go back and get your trusted friend the cleric and
only then will you have a chance of defeating the evil wizard. You
then leave the body of your fighter behind while your spirit floats
back to the beginning, where you go through the whole thing again.

Now this is when the gameplay started to get a bit thin, and I
still carried on, but this time as a cleric.  The second journey
was much the same as before (a little bit tougher perhaps but much
the same), when I finely reached the castle walls for a second
time I was meet by the young bard again and told the same thing as
before but this time to go back and get my trusted friend the
fighter?.

Well, that did it for me I just couldn't go through that again, it
was getting too repetitive and just a bit boring.  I'm sorry to
say this but unless I've missed something to this game it just
doesn't get going.  It starts off interesting on the first journey
but the novelty soon wears off and you're unlikely to try again.