Rolan's Curse

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North American box art.

Rolan's Curse is an action adventure game developed by NMK and published by Sammy for the Game Boy on 1990-10-26. The player controls the knight Rolan as he attempts to defeat the evil lord of demons, Barius, who has corrupted the land with monsters.

I learned about this game from the video game reviewer Jeremy Parish, who didn't have much good to say about the game, but did point out that he was able to beat the game without too much difficulty, which led me to want to play it and beat it for myself.

Status

I do not own this game.

Review

Good

  • For a Game Boy title, the graphics are pretty decent and there is a fair variety of monsters.
  • Dying is mercifully lenient. You keep all your advancements, and are just returned to the beginning of the map.

Bad

  • The game is extremely repetitive. Each new land is made up, in large part, of rooms from previous lands, only with harder enemies, just configured to form a different map.
  • The music is made up of very short repetitive tunes that become annoying quickly.
  • The special weapons are poorly balanced. In a new map, the magic axe is invaluable at breaking through barriers to reach chests, but, when preparing to fight a boss, the potion of life, which effectively doubles your life power, is vastly superior to the ring, shield, or power crystal.
  • The NPC dialogue in towns is pointless babbling.

Ugly

  • Play control is terrible. Most enemies move faster than Rolan (the bosses especially), and there is no way to increase your speed. You also can't turn without moving, so, if an enemies is approaching you in a narrow winding passage, you're guaranteed to get hit.
  • You lose all your attack and life power boosts at the onset of each new land. Since the bosses are quite difficult, this requires you to spend a fair amount of time grinding enemies in order to boost your stats back up.

Media

Box Art

Documentation

Titles

Language Native Transliteration Translation
English Rolan's Curse
Japanese ベリウス ローランの魔獣 Beriusu Roran no Majuu Barius: Rolan's Demon Beast

Link

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