I got my very first Commodore 64 a few years ago as a gift from my father. It belonged to a friend of my sister’s. He kept it in beautiful condition. A bit of UV discoloration, but it still had all its documentation and even that little card that goes on the floppy drive so the read/write head doesn’t get damaged in transit. Anyway, what’s more important is that it also had three cases full of 5¼” floppy disks. On them were hundreds of bootleg games. There were some authentic disks in there, too, but seriously, just so many illicit copies.

So, I was spoiled for choice. A great way to get into the C64. Sort of. At that point, it’s hard to know where to begin. I’d probably start with Maniac Mansion, but it’s not among the hundreds of games. Zak McKracken is, but I’m happy not playing that again. Street Rod, maybe, but I’d rather just play the sequel on Amiga or DOS. 

Anyway, I’ve really had trouble really getting into a C64 game. A lot of these games are very arcade-like. Extremely short experiences where you shoot for a high score. In fact, many of them are just arcade ports. But every so often, I roll over to my CRT and load”*”,8,1 something new. And finally, I found something that captured my attention for more than 15 minutes: Sword of Fargoal.

LOAD”*”,8,1

Sword of Fargoal first released in 1981 for the C64’s predecessor, the VIC-20. In 1982, an updated version landed on the Commodore, which is the version I’ve been playing.

It’s a dungeon crawler that’s not very far removed from the venerable Rogue. A game like Rogue. A like-rogue, as we’ll call this no doubt limited genre. The (far) goal of the game is to descend the floors of the dungeon in search of the eponymous sword. No, wait, it’s called The Protectorate Sword, according to the manual. The non-eponymous sword can be found somewhere between floors 15-20.

As it is with Rogue, each floor is randomly generated. However, the dungeon is much darker. While you’d only see the contents in a room in Rogue when you enter it, Fargoal only reveals small areas around you as you move about. The map stays visible behind you, but you won’t see items and enemies until they’re directly beside you. It’s like you’re a lawnmower, and you’re leaving freshly mowed grass behind you. Except there’s treasure and monsters everywhere. A dangerous lawn.

Also, like Rogue, combat is automated. Mainly, you just walk into an enemy, and you start exchanging blows until someone dies. If you initiate combat, you can run away if things aren’t going well, but if the monster is the one to throw the first punch, you can only get away by using a spell. Your success in combat comes down to a single stat that increases as you level or find enchanted weapons.

So, really, combat is just luck. A lot of Sword of Fargoal is luck. Sort of like, y’know, Rogue.

MOOD LIGHTING

The main difference between Fargoal and Rogue is more than just mood lighting. Fargoal actually uses art for its graphics instead of just ASCII. But, really, it’s the end goal. Fargoal actually ends. Whether you see the ending or not is another matter.

Also, I’d be amiss not to mention that you can’t move whenever the growl sound is playing. The sound signifies when the enemies are moving, and you’re just stuck in place until it finishes. What’s really amusing is that sometimes this takes a while. Like, usually it’s just like “Gaaaarump,” but occasionally it will go for, like, five seconds, just farting out this noise while you stand there, incapacitated.

I have seen the ending, but it wasn’t on the Commodore 64. Pixel Games re-released the C64 version on digital platforms and included a save feature, and I’d swear that’s the only way I’d ever see the ending. Doing it legitimately requires a lot of consistent luck. Endless luck.

This isn’t immediately apparent. The first 10 or so floors can be overcome with grinding and resilience. You don’t have to keep descending floor after floor, so you can return to higher floors (which are re-randomized and darkened, even if you turn around) to grind and try to find more enchanted weapons. That can work if you’re ridiculously patient and lucky. Run into the wrong dimensional spider or something, and suddenly, you find your health getting drained quicker than you can react to.

FREE PARKING

Health can be refilled with rare (again, unless you’re lucky) health potions, but it also recharges over time. Initially, it’s quick, but as the number ticks higher, the slower it recharges. If you find a temple (where you can also trade gold for XP – the only use for gold), it recharges faster but, like, not that much faster. And you only have to run into the wrong dimensional spider to have most of your health drained. There were times when I’d park myself on a temple, get up from the Commodore to wait for my health to fill to a reasonable level.

But then, it becomes straight horseshit by the time you get to level 12 or so. Suddenly, there are demons who will steal a massive portion of your XP and mages who steal all of your accumulated spells. You can’t fight them. You can’t catch them and get your stuff back. They touch you, then immediately disappear. Straight horseshit.

I’m actually not sure if having XP stolen is really that bad, though. It reduces your level but doesn’t seem to affect your max HP and strength as far as I can tell. Losing the spells, though; some of those spells are rather useless, but it drains what little strategy the game has left.

When you get the sword, you have to climb back up to level 1 and escape. This would be a cool sequence if strong monsters were all you had to contend with. Except, the monsters can steal the sword back and disappear with it, just like the demons and mages. The only difference is if you initiate combat, you can kill the monster and keep the sword. If they initiate combat, you need to go back down and get the sword again. Horse. Shit.

FUN, THOUGH

Fun, though. There isn’t a lot to Sword of Fargoal, but it acts as a distilled RPG adventure. Like, Ultima was released on the Apple II the same year as the VIC-20 version of Fargoal, and that game is ridiculously more advanced. Of course, Ultima was way ahead of its time, whereas Fargoal mainly fits in with the era.

But it’s simple fun. Mowing the dungeon and trying to become more powerful before descending into the hell that waits below is an enjoyable experience. Everything below level 12 sucks, especially when you’re on the Commodore 64 version and can’t save. And it takes a pretty long time to even get that far (my time for completion was three hours). But if you just kind of play it for its freeform adventure and not with the expectation to reach the end, it can be a good time. For a while, at least. Eventually, you’ll want to play something with a bit more chew to it, and these days, you’re spoiled for choice. Like Ultima. Maybe I’ll play some Ultima.

6/10

This review was mostly conducted on a copied Commodore 64 version of the game, with parts played on the digital Steam version. The Steam version was paid for by the author. Screenshots were taken using the Steam version.