Conan the Cimmerian (1988)

[Cherno]

Since I'm a big Conan fan I finally stumbled upon this game. Videogames based on the famous barbarian are surprisingly rare considering the influences his adventures had on the fantasy genre since the mid-20th century. Of course, there are lots and lots of games that feature shameless clones of the muscle-bound warrior (including the aptly-named Barbarian 1 and 2 and Sword of Sodan).

Fighting a giant snake in the Temple of Set



Conan the Cimmerian is somewhat obscure as far as I can see. It came out on PC and Amiga in 1988, published by Virgin. It has rather nice graphics with big detailed sprites and backgrounds but unfortunately only a few sound effects along with some looping music. In the game, you play as Conan on a quest to revenge the murder of your wife by the evil sorcerer Toth Amon. A nice touch is that the story is told by Akado, an old wizard who sits at a campfire telling the story to young adventurers. Whenever Conan falls in battle or finishes a chapter, Akado will appear in a small cutscene and continue his tale. You start in the city of Shadizar which also serves as a hub where you return after each chapter. The city is pretty big with about 50 buildings you can enter. You will find inns, different merchants, and empty houses you can break into to seaarch for loot, but the guards might catch you and throw you in jail, taking your gold and three months of your life Since Conan isn't a practiced warrior yet, you will have to find a teacher and learn some new combat techniques before he can hope to have any chance against the various foes he will encounter.

A city guard attacks Conan in the street


So, what is it you actually do in the game? Well, it's a good idea to break into all the empty houses and steal what isn't bolted down, selling the valuable gems to get enough money to pay the trainer so you can increase your combat skills. Since you are always short on gold you can also opt to do some side-quests in Shadizar which will yield gold or useful artifacts to help you later on. The main quest line is divides into 7 chapters of varying length, most of these make you visit another location on the continent of Hyboria. There is some minor puzzle-solving and NPC interaction involved but apart from running around, you will do lots of combat against respawning enemies. Whenever combat occurs, as well as in indoor locations, the game switches fromthe overhead view to a side view. The combat system is rather gimmicky; you would expect an action-style combat mechanics but here you basically choose one of three styles (chop, swing and thrust, with each enemy type having one that is the most or only effective one) and then draw your sword and keep pressing the attack button until either you or the enemy dies. Yes, it's as boring as it sounds and even with the Amiga's one-button joystick there had to be a way to incorporate the concept of multiple fighting styles into melee combat other than this.
Total time to completion is about 8-10 hours I'd say, if you loot everything and do all the side quests.

In the streets of Shadizar


Pros:
- Nice graphics, at least for it's time.
- Faithful representation of the world of Hyboria with everything a Conan fan would expect
- Lots of locations to visit

Cons:
- Combat is boring and almost non-interactive
- NPCs keep blocking your way and you bump into them in the city, opening a useless interaction prompt every time
- Most rooms are completely empty and you have to click on every piece of furniture (even plant pots and broken buckets) to find you if it can be searched)
- Enemies keep respawning, even if you kill one, enter a room and exit again
- Those annoying pits in chapter 3! They cause no damage and you can climb out with a rope but they are everywhere, invisible, and sometimes you have to go step-by-step until you find the way through

Overall, I would recommend the game to fans of Conan only, everyone else would be hard-pressed to deal with the rather big flaws. You also need to draw your own maps since you will get lost without them in the dungeons. I played the Amiga version instead of the PC one because even though the PC one supposedly is in VGA, is still has only 32 colors and the palette is much worse than on the Amiga. Also, WinUAE has the handy speed up button that lets you quickly heal in a save spot when Conan's health gets too low. The PC vesion runs much smoother overall, though.

Visiting a sage



Aaaanyway... I wouldn't expect anyone to having played this game, let along finish it, but maybe there is someone who wants to share his experience? I could share a good number of tips as well as maps for all the dungeons.

[dlfrsilver]

This game was a failure, as a result, it's a very hard game to find and buy second hand.

[Cherno]

They should have made the combat as in Dragonstone and the game would have been much better

[DamienD]

I tried it, it's in my WinUAE collection but got bored after 5 minutes of playing

Hats off to you for finishing the game and I also enjoyed reading your 1st post

[s2325]

Yes, I was walking without purpose and got bored but such nice graphics.

[DamienD]

Cherno, you should provide some screenshots for HOL (especially the snake battle)

The entry is seriously lacking in this department.

[Cherno]

Originally Posted by s2325

Yes, I was walking without purpose and got bored but such nice graphics.

Yes, that's another problem... The city is big and like a maze, everything looks the same and there are no signs for shops or inns... I had there is a map in the game box which lists some locations but only about 15%, so I had to laborously enter every door and add the information to the map by hand Once that has been done the complete map becomes invaluable because you have to wander through the city all the time, either during a quest or to sell and buy stuff. It's also interesting to note that every merchant has different prices when buying and selling so it pays to compare.

[James]

Originally Posted by Cherno

Since I'm a big Conan fan

You wouldn't happen to have a copy of this would you?

[Cherno]

I played the pre-installed WHDLoad version.

[desiv]

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

This game was a failure, as a result, it's a very hard game to find and buy second hand.

As a Conan fan, I was surprised to see it on ebay when I did, and bought it before I did any research..
Still glad I got a copy, as it's a nice box and it's Conan on the Amiga. (And I got a decent deal.)

But not a great (or good) game. ;-)

desiv

[Retro-Nerd]

There is even a PC-DOS CD version with CDDA and speech.

https://archive.org/details/ConanThe...ncedEdition.7z

[Cherno]

Wow, that's interesting. I have to try it out

[Cherno]

Well, thanks again for bringing up the Enhanced CD version. It's strange that they would actually release such a thing for this game I tried it and I must say, I'm impressed. It's certainly the best version of the game. It runs smoothly, has the nice Amiga graphics, and most importantly each dialogue as well as the story bits from Akado are fully voiced with high quality! I can't wait to enter the city if Larsha again where the Lizardmen threaten you with a stereotypical reptilian accent wissss lotsss of sss ssssoundsss...

I would also like to add that in my first playthrough on the Amiga I encountered the oocasional bug; I got stuck once or twice in a narow city street corner, sometimes I had trouble exiting an indoor screen, one spider walked crawled into the dungeon wall, and the weirdest thing was when during combat an enemy suddenly floated 2 meteres above the ground, making him impossible to hit! When I started another playthrough on the PC today I killed a thief in one of the residences and he apparently had an unlimited amount of gold in his pockets... I could search him again and again and each time I found some coins. He must have gotten quite lucky in his burglaries!

[ransom1122]

With the love you have given this game have you asked earok if it is at all possible to make an Amiga special edition version of the game with included the DOS added features?

He has done it with Another World DOS version..

[Cherno]

From what I can tell, the Amiga version misses the following things from the PC CD version:

- Speech (obviously)
- Some tile graphics for the city (awnings/market stalls in some places), but it's not noticeable at all
- Combat sounds
- Music is simpler and less pieces I think

However, the Amiga version runs really bad with seconds-long paused even when only opening the inventory or using an item. I'm not sure if that can be made better.

[Minuous]

I could share a good number of tips as well as maps for all the dungeons.

Any chance you could upload your maps/tips, eg. to the Zone? A shame if all your effort went to waste.

If anyone has info about the file format used by this game, I could add support for it to the Multi-game Character Editor.

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by ransom1122

With the love you have given this game have you asked earok if it is at all possible to make an Amiga special edition version of the game with included the DOS added features?

He has done it with Another World DOS version..

...have you actually played the game ransom1122? It's pretty rubbish, which is a shame.

Can't see earok wasting his valuable time on this but you never know.

[Cherno]

Originally Posted by Minuous

Any chance you could upload your maps/tips, eg. to the Zone? A shame if all your effort went to waste.

If anyone has info about the file format used by this game, I could add support for it to the Multi-game Character Editor.

I might do so once I get my second playthrough going. The dungeon maps are more like rough notes at the moment scribbled on graph paper

[ransom1122]

Originally Posted by DamienD

...have you actually played the game ransom1122? It's pretty rubbish, which is a shame.

Can't see earok wasting his valuable time on this but you never know.

Only once when I was 12 I reckon. At the end of the day its still s CONAN game

[clenched]

Cherno - I'm stuck on Tarantia. Please refer to incomplete HOL map to understand what I'm talking about.

There are Iron Demons at the ends of corridors that can't be killed. I need to know how to get past these to finish the map.

Also, two rooms right of the gate keeper is a room with a bird design curtain. There was no escape from room behind curtain.