I recently more or less
by accident got an unopened box containing the game Shannara.
I had heard of this game before but never actually played it, perhaps
because I had never read any of the Shannara novels by Terry Brooks
(but that is about to change – I will explain why later). I was naturally
a little suspicious because I’ve seen too many games based on stories
and characters successful in other media that turned out to be complete
duds. My fears were a bit assuaged when I discovered that the team
that created Shannara was led by Corey and Lori Ann Cole –
their best known work is probably the Quest for Glory series
from Sierra (in some ways Shannara is quite similar to QFG
games). But Shannara was not published by Sierra, it was created
by Legend Entertainment Company, in my opinion the makers of many
quality (and fun!) adventure games.

When
I picked up the Shannara box, I thought it was a little heavier
than most games. The box mentions that Terry Brooks’ Sword of Shannara
novel is included. What it doesn’t mention is that this is a 700+
page book, which easily accounts for the unexpected weight – and also
explains why I’m not going to be unacquainted with the Shannara novels
for much longer.

The game starts with an
obligatory animated introduction sequence. It is a strange dream or
vision showing how a sinister and malevolent spirit of the Warlock
King Brona is summoned from the dead. As we learn later, he had nearly
destroyed the world once in the past but was killed by a hero named
Shea Ohmsford. But apparently killing some people is not enough to
stop them and now Brona is back and intent on carrying on with the
unfinished business.

When the vision ends, you
wake up in a forest on the bank of a lovely brook and the game starts.
It turns out that your name is Jak Ohmsford, son of Shea Ohmsford.
What a coincidence! You have a journal where all the important events
in the game will be recorded. Right now it only mentions that you
had a row with your father and decided to go adventuring on your own.
But soon you’ll get more adventure that you perhaps wished for. When
you finish exploring the first screen a are about to leave, an ugly
lizard-like monster jumps out and attacks you.

The first combat starts
– Shannara is not a 100% pure adventure. But the combat is
turn based and no fast clicking is required. Moreover, most of the
battles are not difficult to win. Except for this first one. But when
it seems that the adventure is about to end at this early stage, a
mysterious stranger suddenly appears and blows the monster to smithereens
with powerful magic. He introduces himself as Allanon, the last druid
and friend of your father’s. He tells you of Brona and his monsters
that are preparing to overrun Shady Vale, your home village. But then
Allanon urges you to travel to the city of Leah and warn king Menion
of the impending attack of Brona’s monsters.

You
reluctantly agree to go. Soon you happen upon a young girl trapped
under a fallen tree. You free her and find out that you actually know
her. She’s Shella, daughter of king Menion of Leah. And Menion is
one of the old adventuring buddies of your father. Besides being a
very pretty girl, Shella is also rather dangerous with her bow. Which
is very handy because she quickly decides to join you in your travels
(by looking at the currently empty character slots it is obvious that
she’s not the last person to do so).

Upon arriving in Leah you
discover that Shella’s father Menion is suffering from a mysterious
illness. As a true adventurer you quickly determine that he had been
poisoned and concoct an antidote. Just as Menion is getting better,
Allanon reappears (after you’ve done all the hard work of course).
He explains the situation to Menion and tells you that the only weapon
that can defeat Brona is the Sword of Shannara. Trouble is, not everyone
can wield this powerful weapon. In fact there are only two people
in the whole wide world who can. Guess what, you’re one of them –
the other is your father. You bravely (or foolishly?) decide that
you will be the one to use the sword against Brona (as if the game
gave you any other choice!).

The sword is on display
in a vault in the city of Tyrsis – the next stop on your adventure.
Getting to the sword is not very easy, especially due to monsters
trying to overrun the city and obstructions from the king’s Seneschal.
But in the face of undead and bureaucracy you prevail and get to the
Sword of Shannara. Only to find that it’s broken – oops! Again appearing
right after you’ve done all the chores (could that really be a coincidence?),
Allanon explains that it is possible to reforge the Sword, but it
is no easy task.

Four
magical artifacts and representatives of four races – elves, trolls,
dwarves and gnomes – are required in addition to Allanon’s magic.
Each of the races lives in one corner of the Four Lands. And guess
who gets to do all the legwork! Yes, it is you of course. But hey,
if you get the sword fixed, it should be easy to dispatch Brona and
restore peace and be the hero of the land. And you will find friends
(and some not-so-friendly people) who will help you. And if you want
to find out anything more about the plot, play the game!

Now with the story out
of the way we can concentrate on the technicalities. Shannara
comes in two versions, DOS and Win95. I opted for the DOS version
– DOS may be harder to set up but at least it’s predictable. I wasn’t
disappointed as the DOS version worked flawlessly.

The interface is very similar
to other Legend games – Companions of Xanth is one similar
game I can think of. Each object has a list of appropriate actions
associated with it and a sensible “default” action. You also can (and
have to) have your companions do some useful work. They will also
give you hints about what you should do next. I found this interface
very pleasant to use. There is a textual description associated with
each item and action – the descriptions are often funny and sometimes
contain valuable hints and clues.

The game runs in SVGA resolution
of 640×480 pixels in 256 colors. The cutscenes are computer generated
but the static art is hand drawn and very pretty, similar to the art
in other Legend games. Apart from the cutscenes there is not much
animation but somehow I didn’t see that as a problem at all.

As
for sound, I have to admit that I was not paying attention to the
music, probably because I was too engrossed in the game’s story. There
are some but not many digitized sound effects and lots of digitized
speech, despite the fact that the item and action descriptions are
only textual. That is actually a good thing because listening to them
would take far too long. But every character in the game (and there
are quite a few) talks and the sound is very clear (which is unfortunately
not always the case, especially with older games).

The puzzles in Shannara
are almost exclusively inventory based. Like other Legend games, Shannara
is pretty linear and split into a number of relatively small areas
– which makes the gameplay easier. As for the overall difficulty,
the game is either really easy or I had a very lucky day when I was
playing it: I finished Shannara in about 8 hours without hints,
walkthroughs or any prior knowledge of the world of the Shannara novels.
There is also a slight chance that after 10+ years of active service
as an adventure gamer I might be finally becoming good at it, but
I very much doubt that. As I mentioned earlier, thanks to the input
from your companions it is usually quite clear what you should do
next and there are ample hints in the dialogs and item descriptions
(if you know how to read them of course). Moreover the puzzles are
quite logical. For the most part, everything just clicked into place
when I was playing the game.

I will briefly return to
the combat in Shannara – to tell the truth, I am not sure why
it was included. The difficulty cannot be adjusted. You can only select
who you (and your companions) will attack, such as the weakest, strongest
or the leader. You (or more accurately some of your companions) can
also use magical items which is the key to winning certain battles.
There is no character development and no way to select weapons. But
since the combat requires strategic calculation instead of fast fingers,
I suppose it is okay in an adventure game. I should also mention that
it is possible to die in combat (of course, it’d be pointless otherwise)
but there are not many ways to die outside battles – and if you do,
there’s always the possibility to undo the last thing you did.

The game story I found
to be excellent. The only possible negative is that at some points
the game is perhaps overcrowded with characters and it is not easy
to keep track of who’s who. Other than that, it is a good rendition
of the age old struggle between good and evil. The world of the Four
Lands is a typical fantasy environment populated by elves, dwarves,
trolls and the like and filled with magic. It is usually easy to spot
the villains but not in all cases. The story is not always too happy
and there are some very moving scenes and surprisingly tough decisions
to make. One interesting fact is that nowhere it is mentioned when
and where the story takes place, but from certain hints it appears
to be this very Earth in distant future.

From the above paragraphs
it is probably quite clear that I liked Shannara a lot. Which
I did, therefore the final grade is a sparkling clean A for compelling
story, nice art, good puzzles and fun gameplay. The biggest reason
why it isn’t an A+ is the fact that I was able to finish the game
too quickly (heck, maybe that should be a positive!).

Final Grade: A

System Requirements:

4 MB RAM
2X CD-ROM
Mouse
Sound board
DOS/Windows 95