Dungeon Master (1987)

Dungeon Master (1987) developed and published by FTL Games for DOS, Amiga, Apple IIgs, SNES, TurboGrafx-CD, PC-98, and more. This is a real gem for fans of Dungeon-crawling RPGs. As with many, many games of this era, Dungeon Master takes heavy influence from Dungeons and Dragons, with a few simplifications for the limits of the time. To begin with, you don’t create an original character, you begin in a “Hall of Champions,” where you get to form a party of up to four adventurers by freeing their souls from mirrors. There are only four classes that form the broad gameplay styles; fighters are hand to hand combatants with high strength, ninjas use precision weapons such as bows, and Wizards and Priests specialize in offensive and supportive magic respectively. There’s quite a few characters to choose from, and one of the best parts of the game is how flexible the class system. Some of the warrior-types actually come with a small amount of mana, and you can have them cast spells to learn magic, steadily turning them into a hybrid character. The game uses an impressive first-person perspective that emulates a 3D environment. Games like Alkalabeth also did this, but the quality of Dungeon Master’s art helps this illusion. The dungeon has a set layout, and you’ll mostly be hunting for keys, fighting monsters, and finding secrets to progress. There’s a fleshed out magic-casting system where you need to learn the actual incantations of these series of runes to use spells. Combat is simple, but has enough depth with health and stamina values and a good selection of weapons and attacks. If you pick this one up, it’s pretty engrossing once you get comfortable with the controls, which are simple enough. Dungeon Master comes in at a strong recommendation.