Legend’s Shannara is a game I shouldn’t have liked. It’s based
on a series of fantasy novels that never had the slightest appeal to me–I’m a
“hard” science fiction man, myself, and fantasy stuff doesn’t normally
do it for me. Dragons and elves and trolls and sorcerers … my eyes just start
to roll back in my head.

Also, Shannara is from 1995, but with a
graphic look and interface reminiscent of much older games. It’s positively dowdy,
in fact, with verb selection reminiscent of quest games from the DOS era.

So
why the heck did I enjoy Shannara so much?

I think it’s because the
game’s designers worked so well within the given format. Yes, the animation is
quite minimal, but all of it is effective. The art is flat 2D backgrounds and
characters, but the scenery is varied and evocative, and the characters are attractive
and appealing. I give the graphics a solid B.

The voice acting is
above average, which is a good thing, because there’s a lot of it. Voice
acting gets a B.

There is a lot of dialogue in Shannara, and
dialogue-heavy games aren’t really my meat. But I put up with it in this game,
because the story is so rich and interesting. If storytelling is a key virtue
in an adventure game, Shannara has that virtue in spades. I won’t go into
the details, but it involves freeing your world from a long-dead evil spirit who
has returned to life, and only the repaired Sword of Shannara can defeat this
evil force. Story gets an A.

The interface also allows for your character
to have companions from time to time. They appear as icons in your interface,
and you can handily speak to them, exchange inventory items, and generally cooperate.
The deeper in the story you go, the more this type of cooperation is vital to
the game.

Navigation in the game is accomplished by two means, both on
the nifty side. The first is a multi-point compass, which shows the directions
you can move as green arrows. The second is a large map, in which you literally
steer your character through the landscape. For general niftiness and ease and
effectiveness of use, the interface gets an A.

The puzzles in the
game are mild but diverting, and generally logical. I give them a pleasant B.

The
game does have one downfall, and it’s the combat element. Now, don’t bail on me
just yet, it doesn’t kill the game. It’s usually very easy to survive combat,
and so it doesn’t become one of those troublesome action elements injected into
an otherwise pure adventure game. No, the problem with the combat in Shannara
is that it just doesn’t work very well. It’s full of controls and buttons, and
it’s really much ado about nothing. This combat element gets a resounding D.

This
weak element doesn’t keep Shannara from being a true pleasure to play,
however. I recommend it to anyone who feels like a little traditional fantasy
play.

Final Grade: B

Note: Shannara is a DOS
game that loads and installs just fine through Windows. Thanks, Legend!

System
Requirements: 486/33
4 MB RAM
2X CD-ROM

Mouse
Sound board
DOS/Windows 95