The Immortal - for NES
(A game I found interesting as a child even though I never could progress very far.)
To start, I'm a bit surprised that no one has submitted this game yet. While there is a published Genesis run, there are differences beyond graphics including level layouts, combat options, and enemy mechanics.
The Game
The Immortal is an isometric dungeon crawler/adventure game in which you play as an unnamed wizard searching a labyrinth for your mentor Mordamir.
The goal is to collect various necessary items scattered around a labyrinth and use them to progress deeper into the dungeon to continue your search. As with most adventure games, there are unneeded and useless items as well.
Even with the benefit of 3 lives per level, this game is known to be very difficult to play normally as there are numerous insta-death traps littered throughout the game.
There are 7 Levels of varying shape which must be conquered to beat the game; the last two being rather small.
With tool assistance, this game becomes much much easier to traverse.
TAS Notes
- This game is full of lag frames where input is irrelevant.
- In most cases, hand to hand combat is avoided as it requires a separate combat screen which tends to slow the game progress. Enemies are dodged either on foot or via exploit.
- The exploit is actively holding the amulet, as doing so temporarily allows enemies to walk right through you without damage or initiating a combat screen.
- One exception to avoiding combat is at the end of Floor 5 where the wizard must circle the floor symbol clockwise 3 times to open the ladder door. Multiple uses of the amulet would be necessary during this circling therefore taking longer than simply besting the troll in combat.
- Items are picked up and chests are opened only if necessary for progress.
- Non-hostile NPCs are only engaged when necessary for progress.
- This game has two endings.
- This run does not save Ana thus resulting in the 'Bad' Ending.
- A run saving Ana would result in a slightly longer run, and would only impact the endgame text. (See below)
- Death is used once to save time (Mini-Wizard get's squashed like a bug.)
Ending Comparison
'Good' Ending
The journey out of the dungeon takes two days. On the second day, you meet Ana near the entrance. You suddenly become aware that the water has invigorated you with new youth and your association with Ana turns in a direction you would never have anticipated when you met her four days ago...Congratulations! Adventure Completed
'Bad' Ending
The journey out of the dungeons takes two days. As you travel, your thoughts return to Mordamir and the dragon. They were alike in a way; each the only survivor of a civilization destroyed by the other more than a thousand years ago. They were an equal match also, and it seems strange that you would tilt the balance of a conflict forged so long ago...Congratulations! Adventure Completed
- 'Good' and 'Bad' are labels others have attributed to these two endings, not me.
- In my opinion, the 'bad' ending actually has deeper meaning regarding the story.
- The only reason I could concede that saving Ana as being the 'good' ending is the 'saving the damsel in distress' concept and the greater degree of game completion.
- 'Ending 1' and 'Ending 2' might be better labels.
feos: Simplified the branch for now.
Clearing the branch, as Ana feels like a mere side quest in this version, and only the ending text is different.
And finally accepting this run, as it looks optimized considering the intricacies of the gameplay. It mostly follows the RTA route, just with a bit of tool-assisted efficiency.
The feedback is average, which is as good as this game can get. If you know what's going on, you might get entertained, and after I familiarized myself with this game, it did look alright. But if you don't know the game, it's really hard to appreciate the optimality. In the end it's not ground-breaking compared to RTA. And the look of the game barely changes throughout 10 minutes. Accepting to Vault.
If this was a Moons run, it could make sense to have the Ana version published instead of this probably, but for Vault, I highly doubt that her branch would be different enough to warrant a separately published full completion version.
