8.8 /10 1 Votes8.8
| 4.4/5 My Abandonware Initial release date 1988 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Similar Strategic Studies Group games, Role-playing video games | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Fire King is an action role-playing video game. It was developed by Strategic Studies Group and distributed by Electronic Arts in 1988 for the Commodore 64/128 and MS-DOS. It was sequel to another game of the same style titled Demon Stalkers: The Raid on Doomfane. The game has been compared to Gauntlet, with its top-down view and endless enemies spawning from monster generators, but differs in that it contains more plot and puzzles than the typical hack and slash game.
Contents
Plot
The player becomes one of six characters, first appearing in a room above the town square of the town in Stormhaven Bay. The harmony of the land is controlled by the great elemental forces of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water, each controlled by a mage. The Fire Mage was king until he was slain by a magical beast of superhuman strength and size. Although this monster was slain, another magical beast appeared and began to dine on villagers. New enemies roam the countryside, leaving it to the player characters to confront the beast in the catacombs and end the terror.
Reception
The game was reviewed in 1990 in Dragon #158 by Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser in "The Role of Computers" column. The reviewers gave the game 4½ out of 5 stars. Douglas Seacat of Computer Gaming World noted, "The synthesis of action and RPG is an interesting, if not altogether successful one." Seacat praised the plot but noted the pace of the action did not match the slow-paced inventory system, commenting that, "The entire game just seems to have a rough edge, as if it weren't finished yet."