Fatal Labrynth

The late 80's/early 90's were a very, very interesting period in gaming history.

I've briefly touched on this before, but the medium was very much evolving and found itself at a crossroads at this time. Better technology, better graphics and better storage led to more unique and ambitious games. The days of almost all games consisting of "shoot stuff, get points" were drawing to a close and developers were starting to try new and unique things with console games. A lot of this stuff, like deep storytelling and more adventure oriented gameplay, was more common on PCs, but for home consoles it was new ground.

It's through this lens that we look at Fatal Labyrinth, released for the Genesis in late 1990 in Japan before making its way to the west in early 1991. It features elements of a lot of different genres, but would generally be classified as an RPG. But if it came out today, it would almost certainly be classified as a "roguelike." That term wasn't really a part of the lexicon for console gamers of the time though, and the fantasy aesthetic probably lead to the RPG classification as it so often did in those days. That's not to say there weren't strong dungeon crawling RPG elements present. so I guess it's an either-or situation.

Fatal Labyrinth sees you in control of an unnamed, silent hero who is attempting to acquire a legendary goblet guarded by an evil dragon. You must climb to the top of his castle, 30 floors in all, while contending with various monsters, traps and other dangers. Each level is randomly generated, so you will never play the same game twice. There control is simple once you get used to it, but it is a little confusing if you don't know what's going on. It took me a bit to realize that there's no attack button. If you want to fight and enemy, you need to walk next to them and press in their direction on the dpad to swing your weapon. It's strange and awkward, but remember, they were just starting to figure out how to make these games work on a console.

Combat is a bit frustrating and in many ways, it almost feels like an early 90's version of the 3D Elder Scrolls games. Hitting the enemy seems to happen at random and the amount of damage dealt isn't consistent. You can throw weapons, but it doesn't seem to do any more or less damage. This makes fighting something of a chore, as you never know when an enemy will take you out with ease. You can miss 5,6,7 attacks in a row and just get destroyed, even by a weak enemy. You can just try and run, but there is a leveling system and you need to power your character up if you want to survive the later stages.

As with most dungeon crawlers, Fatal Labyrinth offers plenty of items for your character to find and equip. There are a variety of weapons, armor pieces and other magical items like canes and scrolls that can help aid you on your quest. The problem is the game doesn't tell you what any of this stuff does before you use it. This was commonplace in games like this at the time. Nowadays it's considered a huge design no-no, but developers used to use this as a form of added challenge. But all it does is frustrate you. You will drink a potion, thinking it's going to heal you, only to find it actually drains your health instead. You will need to break out a spell in a desperate moment only to find the cane you picked up doesn't actually do anything.

This is made even more frustrating by the clunky menus and small inventory. Using items is a huge chore, it takes so many button presses just to do something basic like use magic. This is generally a forgivable flaw in traditional RPGs, but in a game like this it slows the pace entirely too much. Your inventory will also fill up quickly, forcing you to constantly keep opening the menus to drop or throw items. It really slows the game down and adds some unnecessary frustration.

While the game starts with a town section and you can collect gold, there is no way to go back and sell your items. The town is just for story purposes and all the gold does is determine how fancy your funeral on the game over screen (which you will see plenty of) will be. At least it does something. You also have to manage your characters food intake and, credit to the developers here, it isn't just a matter of keeping a meter full. If you run out of food, you will start to lose health until you die. However, if your character just picks up all the food he can eat he will start to slow down and his statistics will decrease. Eat too much and you will die from overeating. I think that my be a first in gaming, I've seen games where you can starve to death but never one where you can eat so much you just die.

I'm being a bit hard on Fatal Labyrinth, but it really does have a lot of redeeming qualities. Games like this may have been technically flawed, but you can clearly see how they influenced the next 20-30 years of gaming. I see its influence in games like Spelunky, Dark Cloud and even elder scrolls games. I can't really recommend Fatal Labyrinth, especially for those who don't have the patience to figure out the quirks of these old school games. If your first console was an XBox or PS2, or you mostly just stick to the Call of Dutys and Maddens of the world, you are going to strongly dislike this game. Even old school gamers will find it cumbersome. However, it might be worth a playthrough, for no other reason than to see an early attempt at a console roguelike/dungeon crawler.

5/10