The Eternal Dagger

The Eternal Dagger is a top-down role-playing video game published by Strategic Simulations in 1987. It is a sequel to Wizard's Crown from 1986. Demons from another dimension are invading the world, and the only item that can seal the portal is the titular dagger. Players can transfer their characters over from Wizard's Crown, minus whatever magical items they had on them.

The Eternal Dagger
Developer(s)Strategic Simulations
Publisher(s)Strategic Simulations
Designer(s)Paul Murray
Victor Penman
Platform(s)Apple II, Atari 8-bit, Commodore 64
Release1987
Genre(s)Role-playing
Mode(s)Single-player

Reception

SSI sold 18,471 copies of The Eternal Dagger in North America.[1]

Computer Gaming World's Scorpia in 1987 described the gameplay as very similar to that of its predecessor, with a few changed spells and in-battle options. She praised the use of a single character to represent the party, but disliked dungeon combat because of the extra step of maneuvering party members into attack positions. Scorpia also felt the game did not have the same balance as the previous, with magic being a much more effective option overall. She also found combat to be more difficult, with wide discrepancies between the "quick combat" option and tactical combat, and monsters that generally take much longer to kill. Scorpia also criticized the new fatigue, which decreases weapon skill as party members go without rest, for lengthening travel time and slowing down the game. She concluded that The Eternal Dagger was not of the same quality as its predecessor, and recommended patience when playing the game.[2] In 1993 Scorpia reiterated that The Eternal Dagger was "not as good as the previous game" and, despite the "interesting plot idea, this game is only for the patient".[3]

ANALOG Computing criticized the game's "overly complex and poorly designed setup procedure and difficult-to-use command structure", but stated that the time needed to finish the game and its predecessor "is 50 hours well spent indeed".[4] The game was reviewed in 1988 in Dragon #129 by Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser in "The Role of Computers" column. The reviewers gave the game 1​1⁄2 out of 5 stars.[5]

References
  1. Maher, Jimmy (2016-03-18). "Opening the Gold Box, Part 3: From Tabletop to Desktop". The Digital Antiquarian. Retrieved 19 March 2016.
  2. Scorpia (October 1987). "The Eternal Dagger". Computer Gaming World. pp. 46–47.
  3. Scorpia (October 1993). "Scorpia's Magic Scroll Of Games". Computer Gaming World. pp. 34–50. Retrieved 25 March 2016.
  4. Panak, Steve (September 1988). "Panak Strikes". ANALOG Computing. p. 83. Retrieved 30 January 2015.
  5. Lesser, Hartley; Lesser, Patricia; Lesser, Kirk (January 1988). "The Role of Computers". Dragon (129): 32–42.
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