Aspic: Mahebiou no Noroi

Aspic is a 1988 game published by Bothtec.  It’s a FDS game, and feels a lot like a lot of early games.  Unfortunately, there’s so little words in the game, and the game is so abstract that it’s hard to play without any understanding of the language.  If I can find more detail, I should do another post.  I do find the game to be interesting, but it’s very hard to play with my present knowledge.

The hero meets a Farmer while exploring.

Much like Miracle Warriors, the game has a “friendly foes” style of battle system.  I encountered some farmers, and the second option allows you not fight them.  There’s also some warriors on the map, and my second option allowed me to get a warrior as a partner.  The first option gives you a fighting game like real time battle system.  At certain HP amounts, enemies try to run.

The hero finds a small town. The window on the right is very similar to Miracle Warrior's detail view of the world.

The world map, like many early games, can’t handle scrolling.  Instead, it has a noticeable pause and then the screen scrolls to allow you to explore the new “square” of the map.  The map isn’t that bad looking, but it would be easy to get lost.

A building in Aspic is shown here. The arrow is your compass direction, and the F is probably your floor.

In towns or castles, you have a 3D map.  People appear as pale forms until you get near them.  They tend to spit out a two to four word comment when you get near them.  I can’t find any obvious way to talk in any more detail.  The map rotates smoothly, and is impressive for the era.  The first map is red, and the second town I found was yellow.  These differences shows some care in keeping things varied.  Google Translate seems to say that you’re looking to rescue a Princess and find the book of truth.

I found a soldier, and sent in him into battle. Here, he's fighting a clone of himself.

Unfortunately, I can’t tell where to go.  I can’t tell who’s friend or foe.  I can’t tell what I should explore.  So, until I can find more details, this is all I can say.