Summary
Trolls don't hurt you, they just get in your way sometimes
The Good
Like
Space Quarks, I played this game on an old Apple //e computer and I enjoyed playing it. In this game, you must find 16 treasures that were stolen by King Mark, the Dwarf King, which are scattered around the land. You'll meet King Mark in your adventure. You'll also meet a troll if you happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Troll's Tale was created by
Sierra On-Line, the people responsible for bringing you their top adventure games like
King's Quest,
Space Quest, and
Leisure Suit Larry.
Troll's Tale is close to being one of these adventure games, except there there is no typing involved. Instead, two or three options will appear that read something like "Go through the NORTH door", and all that you have to do is press the [Space Bar] to highlight an option and press [Enter]. This saves you a lot of time as your fingers take a break from pressing keys every five seconds. The treasures that you need to find are listed before the game. When you are in a place where a treasure is, there will be an option that says "Take the" followed by the treasure. Of course, you can't take the treasure if the troll is present, and to make him move along, all you need to do is leave the screen then re-enter it.
Although
Troll's Tale has cheap CGA graphics and considered poor compared to today's standards, CGA was the standard video mode in 1984. CGA composite cards were available that modified the palette to make it look like more colors were added to the game rather than having a purple, cyan, and blue palette. Even the PC speaker was standard in 1984. The background music, which you normally hear in todays games, wasn't heard of back then. You just had to put up with the beeps and tweets throughout each game. I do not have a problem with that.
The Bad
There is a key combination that lets you turn the sound on or off during the game. But what's the point? There is very little sound in this game, only four beeps when you have managed to get a treasure. At the very start of the game, you enter a cave but can proceed no further until you have a flashlight. I went into the cave without this. One of the options say "Turn on the FLASHLIGHT" or something along those lines, so I selected it, only for the game to say that I do not have a flashlight. Seriously, if you enter the cave without a flashlight, then this option should not have appeared.
The Bottom Line
If you need a break from playing those text adventure games, then this game is worth playing, even if it is not up to today's standards.
Rating: **
