After centuries in captivity, King Barius, Lord of the Demons, has escaped. In his fury he has cursed the peaceful land of Rolan. Hordes of dark creatures roam free in the countryside. A desperate cry goes out... are there any warriors brave enough to free the people from the curse?
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“Maybe the curse was the game being bad!”
I don’t really like many Zelda games, I know that’s a weird thing to say but they don’t click with me a lot of the time. Why bring it up? Well I watched a video that gave this game that’s similar to Zelda a 4 out of 5 and thought maybe it would be a fun playthrough considering it is pretty short and linear. I was not expecting to be so negative about the experience once I got to the end of it.
You play as a nameless character going through 4 chapters with a boss at the end of each one. You attack with B and use your secondary item with A. You have two different weapons but just stick with the Fire Wand as it’s a projectile and it doesn’t seem any weaker than the sword. It even goes through walls which is really helpful. The movement for your character is terrible as it’s not only slow but he moves by every half tile. It makes it a pain to really do combat depending on where the enemy is placed, especially with a sword.
There’s also the secondary items which I will tell you right now, just get the Magic Axe and then the potion for the final chapter. The reason you want the axe is because it can clear away objects blocked in the way and there’s nothing else to do it and you wanna do this as sometimes they hide attack ups here and you can also get easy shortcuts. There are other items like a ring to hide and be immune to damage, a shield to block projectiles, and a charging item to shoot a projectile but there’s just no reason to use them as they end up just making it harder for yourself. I can’t comprehend just how they balanced this system out.
When it comes to level design itself, it’s horrible. I think it’s baffling just how many rooms get repeated and don’t even try to hide the fact they do it. I get it’s a GB game, an early one in fact but there had to be better ways to prevent something like this. There’s also just nothing interesting in them besides the decent aesthetics. Towns are also all the same with the same NPCs, spouting dialogue that is either just nonsense or trying to copy Dragon Warrior but not even understanding why that was appealing for some. You can’t even go into buildings for damn sake! The enemies also just lack really any variety in how they attack. It’s like they programmed them in the most simple way they could. I think Zelda 1 had more depth than these enemies. This even goes for the bosses where they require zero strategy, not even the final one. Even if you do die at some point which can happen due to little i-frames, you just restart at the beginning of the section you were in with pretty much nothing lost.
The game also just has some annoying things like the enemy respawns being so quick that it’s even hard to make a clean getaway depending on the layout. There’s also hearts you can find in chests to give you more health but guess what? Enemies drop armor that gives you a new half heart so once you know what enemies drop them, you can just find an easy grind spot and have the max amount of health for the level. Did the team not see the issue here? I almost feel like they knew anyway because some of the grind spots feel set up on purpose and if you beat a chapter, your hearts get cut off by half and you have to grind away again to get back to full. I think your power can drop too but it didn’t seem to do it by the end.
You know something, the game reminds me a lot of NMK’s previous game Arkista’s Ring for the NES. It’s got the same movement issue I had when it came to combat, they have similar ideas of being linear overhead games, they both mainly use projectiles (if you’re playing the correct way in RC), and Arkista’s Ring was even meant to have towns that probably worked very similar to this game. It makes me wonder if they were sharing ideas as they both came out the same year. Still at least Arkista’s Ring was a good game even with the issues and tedium it could bring.
I can’t even really praise the music, I think it gets the way they sound right but they all sound too repetitive for their own good. I wouldn’t call it awful but I wouldn’t call it good either, just average. The graphics are also not too bad for the time and I’d say it’s one of the better aspects of the game. There are cutscenes but it’s just text on a blank background, so nothing interesting. I would compliment the boss sprites but besides the last one, none of them are that cool in design. Also I’m sorry to complain about something so little but I hate how the protagonist raises a sword to commend his victory when most of the game had a wand. Like where did he get the sword??
If it’s not obvious by now, I don’t like this game at all. I feel bad hating on it so bad, I know I should be so judgemental considering it was 1990 but there’s just nothing fun about Rolan’s Curse. When I was getting my first impressions, I was expecting to say it was basically just OK. The more I got through it, the more I wanted it to end despite it not being a long game at all. A lot of the ideas presented just need to be reworked and I could see it being a fun, simple but short linear Zelda clone. The game would get a sequel and apparently it is better but I’ll review it another time. I would just advise not playing this game. Sometimes going through the Game Boy library can bring some interesting experiences that I never would have expected for such a limited handheld but then you have stuff like Rolan’s Curse and it’s just…sigh yeah.
I don’t really like many Zelda games, I know that’s a weird thing to say but they don’t click with me a lot of the time. Why bring it up? Well I watched a video that gave this game that’s similar to Zelda a 4 out of 5 and thought maybe it would be a fun playthrough considering it is pretty short and linear. I was not expecting to be so negative about the experience once I got to the end of it.
You play as a nameless character going through 4 chapters with a boss at the end of each one. You attack with B and use your secondary item with A. You have two different weapons but just stick with the Fire Wand as it’s a projectile and it doesn’t seem any weaker than the sword. It even goes through walls which is really helpful. The movement for your character is terrible as it’s not only slow but he moves by every half tile. It makes it a pain to really do combat depending on where the enemy is placed, especially with a sword.
There’s also the secondary items which I will tell you right now, just get the Magic Axe and then the potion for the final chapter. The reason you want the axe is because it can clear away objects blocked in the way and there’s nothing else to do it and you wanna do this as sometimes they hide attack ups here and you can also get easy shortcuts. There are other items like a ring to hide and be immune to damage, a shield to block projectiles, and a charging item to shoot a projectile but there’s just no reason to use them as they end up just making it harder for yourself. I can’t comprehend just how they balanced this system out.
When it comes to level design itself, it’s horrible. I think it’s baffling just how many rooms get repeated and don’t even try to hide the fact they do it. I get it’s a GB game, an early one in fact but there had to be better ways to prevent something like this. There’s also just nothing interesting in them besides the decent aesthetics. Towns are also all the same with the same NPCs, spouting dialogue that is either just nonsense or trying to copy Dragon Warrior but not even understanding why that was appealing for some. You can’t even go into buildings for damn sake! The enemies also just lack really any variety in how they attack. It’s like they programmed them in the most simple way they could. I think Zelda 1 had more depth than these enemies. This even goes for the bosses where they require zero strategy, not even the final one. Even if you do die at some point which can happen due to little i-frames, you just restart at the beginning of the section you were in with pretty much nothing lost.
The game also just has some annoying things like the enemy respawns being so quick that it’s even hard to make a clean getaway depending on the layout. There’s also hearts you can find in chests to give you more health but guess what? Enemies drop armor that gives you a new half heart so once you know what enemies drop them, you can just find an easy grind spot and have the max amount of health for the level. Did the team not see the issue here? I almost feel like they knew anyway because some of the grind spots feel set up on purpose and if you beat a chapter, your hearts get cut off by half and you have to grind away again to get back to full. I think your power can drop too but it didn’t seem to do it by the end.
You know something, the game reminds me a lot of NMK’s previous game Arkista’s Ring for the NES. It’s got the same movement issue I had when it came to combat, they have similar ideas of being linear overhead games, they both mainly use projectiles (if you’re playing the correct way in RC), and Arkista’s Ring was even meant to have towns that probably worked very similar to this game. It makes me wonder if they were sharing ideas as they both came out the same year. Still at least Arkista’s Ring was a good game even with the issues and tedium it could bring.
I can’t even really praise the music, I think it gets the way they sound right but they all sound too repetitive for their own good. I wouldn’t call it awful but I wouldn’t call it good either, just average. The graphics are also not too bad for the time and I’d say it’s one of the better aspects of the game. There are cutscenes but it’s just text on a blank background, so nothing interesting. I would compliment the boss sprites but besides the last one, none of them are that cool in design. Also I’m sorry to complain about something so little but I hate how the protagonist raises a sword to commend his victory when most of the game had a wand. Like where did he get the sword??
If it’s not obvious by now, I don’t like this game at all. I feel bad hating on it so bad, I know I should be so judgemental considering it was 1990 but there’s just nothing fun about Rolan’s Curse. When I was getting my first impressions, I was expecting to say it was basically just OK. The more I got through it, the more I wanted it to end despite it not being a long game at all. A lot of the ideas presented just need to be reworked and I could see it being a fun, simple but short linear Zelda clone. The game would get a sequel and apparently it is better but I’ll review it another time. I would just advise not playing this game. Sometimes going through the Game Boy library can bring some interesting experiences that I never would have expected for such a limited handheld but then you have stuff like Rolan’s Curse and it’s just…sigh yeah.
-Played on Analogue Pocket using a ROM.
-Overall a flawed and extremely basic ARPG.
-Boss fights were fun but too way too easy.
-Used magic staff/wand instead of the sword the entire playthrough. It seems way stronger than the sword.
-Side weapons were all useless. Frustrating to not have the pickax on you at all times.
-Sword only playthrough would be interesting to attempt to increase the challenge.
-Last stage/boss music was a banger. Everything else was monotonous and on a short loop.
-Overall a flawed and extremely basic ARPG.
-Boss fights were fun but too way too easy.
-Used magic staff/wand instead of the sword the entire playthrough. It seems way stronger than the sword.
-Side weapons were all useless. Frustrating to not have the pickax on you at all times.
-Sword only playthrough would be interesting to attempt to increase the challenge.
-Last stage/boss music was a banger. Everything else was monotonous and on a short loop.