"Um, hello."
"That's the spirit.
We're going to be reviewing Rolan's Curse, an ancient Game Boy cartridge crafted by Sammy in 1990."
"Rolan... Why does that name sound familiar?"
"Doesn't ring a bell with me."
"Weird. Oh well. So uh, who's the 'Rolan' in Rolan's Curse?"
"It's the name of the country the game takes place in. It's been cursed by Barius, a demon king. Cliche as hell."
"Cliche for you, very realistic for me."
"Mysidia got this a lot?"
"Oh yeah. Bozo knights and dragons every other week. Most of them didn't get far."
"So anyway, Rolan's Curse is a top-down fantasy adventure similar to the old Legend of Zelda games. It's slower, though. Wayyyyy slower. Your little knight moves like his armor is made out of hybrid turtle-snails that were raised on a diet exclusively of molasses."
"Can you make him faster?"
"There's a whole mess of items you can find dropped from killed monsters or inside treasure chests to upgrade the knight, but none of them make him faster. They do pretty much everything else under the sun, though. You got armor to raise your max HP, potions to heal you, gloves that raise attack power, a cape that grants invincibility for a little while, a shield to block projectiles, and some other stuff."
"So are there any character classes or anything?"
"No, just the one guy and his sword. Or, if you have any sense at all, staff."
"Why staff?"
"There's a grand total of two different weapons in this game. If you have the sword your knight makes a pathetic jab at the enemy. The other weapon is the Fire Rod, which shoots fireballs that go through obstacles. It does less damage but the reach advantage is so useful that as soon as you find one you'll want to keep it the entire rest of the game."
"Okay, I wanna test this thing out."
"Be my guest."
"Hey, that slime dropped an armor! My max HP went up!"
"Wait for him to respawn and kill him again."
"He dropped another one?! Oh man, I'm gonna have max HP at the very beginning of the game!"
"Sort of."
"What do you mean, 'sort of'?"
"Rolan's Curse has two sets of stats. You got temporary stats and permanent stats. Temporary stat boosts go away after you beat a boss. Armor HP boosts are only temporary. You'll have to farm again when you start the next quest."
"Is there any way to raise permanent stats?"
"Yeah, just look for the Heart and Glove items - they give permanent boosts to your HP and Attack. Enemies never drop them, though, so you'll need to do some exploring."
"The enemies in this game seem kind of dumb."
"That's because there's no AI. Every enemy in the game, including the four bosses, follows a very simple pattern of movement. A couple of them look like they move randomly, but it's hard to tell if it's actual randomness or just a weird pattern. The ones that fire bullets do so at set intervals. The dangerous ones are the ones that can move quickly and take more than a couple shots to kill, especially if you're using the sword."
"The townspeople are weird."
"They are. Some of them talk like medieval peasants and some of them don't. I saw a few that used totally radical slang. Like, one guy told me 'Thou art awesome!' Yeah, cowabunga-eth, dude.
So, what do you think, Rolansephine?"
"It's kinda fun! Very old-school."
"My thoughts exactly. From the primitive, frequently-reused graphics to the basic gameplay, it's pretty obvious that Rolan's Curse was one of the first Game Boy games. It's got some charm, though."
"Yeah. I like fantasy games, and this one's not bad, just..."
"Mediocre?"
"Mediocre."
"Mediocre game gets a mediocre score. Three mantids outta five. Not bad for a game nobody's heard of."
GAME ROOM SCORES:
Episode 1: Golden 20-in-1 (Sega Genesis): 1/5
Episode 2: Rolan's Curse (Game Boy): 3/5
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