Sorcerian is an action roleplaying game produced by Nihon Falcom, first released in 1987 for Japanese home computers (like the PC-88, PC-98 and MSX 2). It features several standard ARPG gameplay elements which are later included in some of today’s Action RPG video games: customizable parties, a dynamic statistic and level-up system. Released in 1990, Sierra On-Line, Inc.' S role-playing game Sorcerian is a Japanese import - a best-seller in Japan for three years. Not only does the game contain elements of role-playing but it features adventuring and arcade action as well. Gameplay is divided into three separate scenarios, each having five progressively harder levels. Here is a hack for Super Mario Bros. Where a mock conversion of the game was done up to look more like Sorcerian for 1 level. I went ahead and translated all japanese to english. It appears the creator of the hack was going the make a game where you could create a party and fight with different characters.

Another stunning Mega Drive cover that shows very little of the game.

PLAYERS: 1

PUBLISHER: Sega

DEVELOPER: Falcom (port by Sega)

GENRE: Action-RPG

RELEASE DATE: 02/24/90 – (JP)

Sorcerian doesn’t so much innovate as it does mash disparate ideas together. The game is actually the fifth entry in Falcom’sDragon Slayer series and is equal parts text-based RPG and side-scrolling action. Start one of the game’s ten quests, and your party fights and explores in side-scrolling mode. When you’re not questing, however, a large branching menu allows you to build party members, pray at the local temple, discuss matters with your elders, train in different skills, and customize your magic abilities.

I only want to see you slaying in the purple cave. Purple cave… Purple Cave.

You can build up to ten different characters for your party, but there are only four classes: Human Fighter, Dwarf, Human Wizard, and Elf (your characters can be either male or female – females have less strength, but usually more intelligence than their male counterparts). After you’ve doled out three bonus points to your stats, assign them a job. The door’s wide open here with up to sixty crazy jobs to choose from: Florist, Midwife, a Stuffed Toy Maker why not. When a character isn’t questing, they’ll busy themselves with their job, which will change their stats and provide additional income.

Quite the ragtag group I’ve created.

Once you’ve assembled your Sorcerian Squad, you have a couple different options. You can gather some of your finest and bravest (no more than four warriors per quest and sometimes three, depending), clad them in the best armor and weapons (or, if they’re Wizards/Elves, the best robes and spells), then choose a quest and hop to it. Or you can hang around the town, boost your skills, and learn how to use the ridiculously complex magic system before venturing out into your adventures. The choice is yours.

These Crypt Gumbies are the worst!

Some of the aforementioned tasks will take a considerable amount of time, in which case, “Advance Time” or “Wait” on the main menu will thrust your party forward an entire year. But just in case you think traveling forward in time bears no consequence for your characters, they will age into dust and die forever if you’re not careful. Humans age the quickest (60 years), followed by dwarves (100 years) and elves (200 years).

You’ll travel all over the world and wonder what it was all for.

The game has ten quests for you to wet your whistle. The quests all have different stories, but the objectives are pretty much the same: kill The Bad Guy, gather loot, explore the area, do it again. Most of the quests have expansive, non-linear areas that require significant amounts of time to parse through. Since there’s no map, you’ll either want to make your own as you progress (bust out that graph paper app!) or see if some kind soul hasn’t constructed their own maps on the Internet; I couldn’t find any, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

Guess I’ll just cross Papette off of the “Places to Visit” list.

If you can make heads or tails of the complex magic system, fighting enemies with magic is the way to go. You can build some powerful spells and, unlike close combat, the spells usually enable you to fight from a distance. The system involves combining different elemental enchantments and seeing what comes from it. Basically, experiment and hope you produce an awesome powerful spell. Thankfully, this system isn’t punishing. Your tampering will either result in stat boosts or, at the very most, your equipment will be fused with the resulting spell. The original game came with a chart that provided some clarity into the magic system, but unfortunately for us Westerners who only know English, it’s in Japanese.

Some light bathroom reading.

Magic is preferable, since fighting with a sword often results in your party taking damage. Your sword is tiny and hit detection is terrible. There were times where I attacked a creature and swore I didn’t touch them, but my life dribbled down regardless.

The Mega Drive version of Sorcerian only saw release in Japan. The version I played was partially translated by the fine folks over atromhacking.net. The main menu and the town were mostly complete, but any dialogue boxes in the quests are unfinished. Thankfully, the game itself isn’t super text heavy, so if you’re committed, you can work your way through without much trouble.

Somewhere in the Rocky Mountains, a girl weeps for her possessed Bratz doll…

Outside of some nice-looking environments and fantastic music, Sorcerian didn’t immerse me beyond the menu portions. The character customization options are fantastic, so it’s easy to lose lots of time building the Ultimate Party. Once you start up a quest and actually use the characters, however, the game loses its appeal. Combat is awkward. The environments, while pretty, are too large and empty. And outside of fighting enemies and trying not to get lost, there’s not a whole lot to do. Falcom’s attempt to blend the contradictory worlds of text-based RPG and side-scrolling action is admirable, but late 80s technology could only take their ambition so far. Sorcerian plays like two games in one, and only one of them is worth experiencing.

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Sorcerian (ソーサリアン, Sōsarian) is a 1987 action role-playing game developed by Nihon Falcom as the fifth installment in the Dragon Slayer line of games. Originally released for the PC-8801 Personal Computer, it has since been released on a wide amount of platforms with the last version released in 2012.

Gameplay[edit]

Sorcerian is a side-scrolling action-RPG. The player can create up to ten characters, from whom up to four members can be present in a party at the same time. Each character is highly customizable, with four different classes/races (fighter, wizard, elf, and dwarf) and over 60 possible jobs/occupations (ranging from clown to exorcist) available for them to perform; each has its own strengths and weaknesses, affecting the seven primary attributes (strength, intelligence, protection, magic resistance, vitality, dexterity, and karma) in different ways,^[5] as well as different equipment limitations.^[6]

The player can choose from fifteen different scenarios, or quests, to play through in the order of their choice. The party must battle enemies and perform tasks within the given levels to clear each scenario, before moving onto another scenario of their choice. The player controls the entire party at the same time, with all four members running in a line, jumping in sequence, and attacking in unison.^[6][7] The party members follow behind in a manner similar to the Options in the arcadeshooterGradius (1985).^[1]Sorcerian also employs class-based puzzles, such as using a high-strength character to force open doors.^[6]

All the characters have a default starting age of 16. Each time a player begins a new scenario, a year passes by, while additional time passes by in towns as a character goes through training or enchants items. The characters age at different rates depending on their race, with humans reaching old age at 60, dwarves at 100, and elves at 200. Upon reaching old age, for every year that passes, a character can die permanently at a random time. There is also an “Advance Time” to speed up the flow of time. Another new feature of Sorcerian was its episodic format that extended across various expansion packs. Besides the default fifteen scenarios that come with the game, there were a number of additional scenario packs released. The aging system was created with the additional scenario packs in mind.^[6]

Release[edit]

It was originally released for the NEC PC-8801 in 1987, and was later ported to other personal computer platforms such as the NEC PC-9801, the NEC PC-88VA, the Sharp X1 Turbo, and the MSX2, for which it was released under the title Dragon Slayer V: Sorcerian. An English version for MS-DOSPCs was published by Sierra Entertainment in 1990, ports for the Atari ST, Commodore Amiga, Apple IIGS and Macintosh platforms were announced,^[8] but not released.

In 1997, Falcom released Sorcerian Forever for Microsoft Windows-based PCs. In 2000, Falcom released Sorcerian Original, a remake of Sorcerian for Microsoft Windows-based PCs. In addition, console versions of Sorcerian with somewhat differing content from their PC counterparts were developed: A version for the Mega Drive was developed by Sega, a version for the PC Engine CD was developed by Victor Musical Industries, and a version for the Dreamcast was developed by Victor Interactive Software. The Mega Drive version was re-released on the Wii's Virtual Console on September 16, 2008.^[2] An iOS version was released on January 20, 2012.

A version of for iOS released on January 20, 2012 by Aeria Inc.^[9] Base game includes 5 free scenarios, maximum party size of 5 characters. Pay versions include 10 extra scenarios, maximum party size of 10 characters.

As part of Sorcerian's 25th anniversary, between December 6 and 20 of 2012, Sorcerian for iOS was released for free, and 3 in-game items (10000Gold, revival LV3 x2, magic item x3) were free, registering as AeriaGames member gets revival LV3 x3 in-game items.^[10] In 2014 the PC-88 version was released along with Romancia for the retro game distribution service EGG.^[11]

Sorcerian Forever

The mobile (iAppli) version, called Advanced Sorcerian, is set to be re-released on Nintendo Switch through the G-Mode Archives label in February 2021.^[12]

Add-ons[edit]

A number of add-on expansion packs containing new scenarios were developed for the PC-8801 version of Sorcerian, by both Falcom themselves and by other companies:

Sorcerian Original

• Developed by Falcom:Sorcerian Utility Vol. 1, Sorcerian Additional Scenario Vol. 1, Sorcerian Additional Scenario Vol. 2 – Sengoku Sorcerian, Sorcerian Additional Scenario Vol. 3 – Pyramid Sorcerian
• Developed by Amorphous:Sorcerian New Scenario Vol. 1 – The Visitor from Outer Space, Selected Sorcerian 1, Selected Sorcerian 2, Selected Sorcerian 3, Selected Sorcerian 4, Selected Sorcerian 5
• Developed by Quasar Soft:Gilgamesh Sorcerian

Music[edit]

The soundtrack to the original Sorcerian was composed by Yuzo Koshiro, Mieko Ishikawa, Reiko Takebayashi, Hideya Nagata, and Takahito Abe. The Falcom-developed Additional Scenarios were handled solely by Ishikawa. The music for the original Sorcerian was arranged by Kenji Kawai for the PC Engine CD release. Rob Atesalp and Ken Allen converted the original score to be a MT-32 MIDI-compatible arrangement of the soundtrack for Sierra Entertainment's English version of the game.

Soundtrack releases for Sorcerian include:

• Music from Sorcerian: The original score to the PC-88 version of the game.
• All Sounds of Sorcerian: The original sound again, this time in the form of medleys for each scenario, along with two arranged tracks.
• Sorcerian Super Arrange Version: A series of three albums featuring arrangements by Hiroyuki Namba. Volume 1 contains a set of arrangements from the base scenario of Sorcerian. Volume 2 contains arrangements from the base scenario and Additional Scenario Vol. 1, along with the original sound of Additional Scenario Vol. 1. Volume 3 contains arrangements and the original sound from Additional Scenario Vol. 2 and Vol. 3.
• Perfect Collection Sorcerian: A set of 3 2-disc albums containing various arrangements of the base Sorcerian soundtrack, similar to the Perfect Collection Ys album series.
• Sorcerian Forever I & II: Two albums containing upgraded versions of the Sorcerian base scenario soundtrack, similar to the Music from Ys Renewal releases.

Reception[edit]

Sorcerian Original

In 1990, Famicom Tsūshin (now Famitsu) reviewed Sega Mega Drive (Genesis) version of the game, giving it a generally positive score of 27 out of 40.^[2]

Sorcerian Mermaids

In the July 1990 edition of Games International (Issue 16), Theo Clarke was disappointed in this game, calling the animation 'rudimentary', and that there was 'little realism in the game.' He thought it was far more an arcade game than a role-playing game, and awarded it a below average rating of only 6 out of 10, calling it 'a well-preserved museum piece.'^[13]

In the October 1991 edition of Computer Gaming World, Scorpia noted it has 'an interesting feature or two' and liked the game's division into many miniquests, stating that instead 'of the usual long adventure, this one sports fifteen separate small quests' which 'allows for a certain amount of variety'. However, she disliked the magic system, and stated 'the action is arcade in style, which is typical for a Japanese game, and some will find this irksome' but noted 'this is not just hack-and-slash, as there are puzzles to be solved along the way'. Scorpia concluded that Sorcerian was a 'good for a change of pace' for those comfortable with 'arcade' action.^[14]

During production of PlatinumGames title Scalebound, game designer Hideki Kamiya said he was inspired by Sorcerian as well as Hydlide 3. He noted the influence of Sorcerian's fantasy theme, 'gigantic monsters,' different scenarios, 'expansive possibilities', 'tons of adventures' and enemies such as a hydra boss and 'lots of amazing dragons'.^[15][16]

References[edit]

1. ^ ^abJohn Harris (July 2, 2009). 'Game Design Essentials: 20 RPGs – Dragon Slayer'. Gamasutra. p. 13. Archived from the original on October 12, 2011. Retrieved 2011-03-02.
2. ^ ^abc'Archived copy'. Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2015-01-14.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
3. ^'Archived copy'. Archived from the original on 2018-03-11. Retrieved 2015-01-14.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
4. ^'Archived copy'. Archived from the original on 2021-01-16. Retrieved 2015-01-14.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
5. ^Sorcerian^{[dead link]} at AllGame
6. ^ ^abcdSorcerian (PC), GameCola.net, October 30, 2010 Archived November 22, 2010, at the Wayback Machine
7. ^Kurt Kalata. 'Dragon Slayer'. Hardcore Gaming 101. Archived from the original on 2018-01-20. Retrieved 2011-03-02.
8. ^'News and new products'. Dragon (149): 79–80 [80]. September 1989.
9. ^'Archived copy'. Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2015-01-14.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
10. ^'2500円が無料に！　アクションRPG『ソーサリアン for iOS』が超絶お得'. Archived from the original on 2018-12-15. Retrieved 2018-12-14.
11. ^'『ソーサリアン ユーティリティーDISK』、『ロマンシア』がレトロゲーム配信サービス'プロジェクトEGG'にて配信スタート！'. Famitsu. October 12, 2014. Archived from the original on January 16, 2021.
12. ^'ソーサリアン - G-MODEアーカイブス'. Retrieved 2021-01-18.
13. ^Clarke, Theo (July 1990). 'Computer Games'. Games International. No. 16. p. 45.
14. ^Scorpia (October 1991). 'C*R*P*G*S / Computer Role-Playing Game Survey'. Computer Gaming World. p. 16. Archived from the original on 2 December 2013. Retrieved 18 November 2013.
15. ^Leone, Matthew. 'Hideki Kamiya: Making Scalebound with a Western publisher'. Polygon. Archived from the original on 2015-10-25. Retrieved 2015-11-01.
16. ^McCaffrey, Ryan (August 26, 2015). 'Ask PlatinumGames Anything About Scalebound'. IGN. Archived from the original on 2015-12-24. Retrieved 2015-12-19.

External links[edit]

• Official website for the iOS version via Internet Archive
• Falcom's catalog pages for: Sorcerian forever, Sorcerian Premium Kit, Shichisei no Mahou no Shito, Sorcerian MIDI Collection via Internet Archive
• Sorcerian at MobyGames

Sorcerian Review