Hours played: 3
Below the Root is an old-style open-world game in the best tradition. [Think of the early Ultimas, for example.] – it’s “in the best tradition” because there’s no towers to climb and no map markers to swat and there aren’t only a handful of activities to do.
Instead, it’s the kind of open-world game where you have to find out what’s going on and you do that by exploring. As you explore, you find tools to deal with the challenges the world presents you – which – in turns – opens you up to more exploring.
We’d commonly call this a Metroidvania, but here, it’s just a very surprising design for a game from 1984.
On first boot, I try playing the game in the composite mode thinking that the colours might be nicer. And it’s true, they are: it’s much better than looking the original CGA palette, but text in the composite mode has never been the best, and I fear this is going to cause long-term eye strain. Maybe in my next session, I’ll just settle for plain old CGA.
After my first few hours playing the game, I learn a handful of lessons, some of which are a little surprising. Some of which aren’t. It really IS a game from 1984. There’s no guide for how to do things yet, so the developers made it up as they went along.
The first serious thing that I learn pertains to movement, which is a little odd. This is the before-times. There’s no assuming it’s WASD. Or, in fact, that it’ll work like you expect it to. Instead, once I press the key for going in a specific direction, the character just KEEPS going in that direction. My keyboard has two sets of directional keys – the number pad and the arrow keys and, at first, I try and control Neric – my chosen character – with the arrow keys. This goes terribly. Every time I send him off in a direction, hitting that same key makes him attempt a jump. This ends up costing stamina, because he jumps into walls and that hurts.
The next thing I learn is something I didn’t talk about when we were discussing the manual: it clearly says I have 50 days to do my task – finding out whatever I can. I hate this. There are no words to describe how much I dislike timers in games. “Oh sure!” Lots of you might argue, “timers are great for tension!” No. No they’re not. They just induce a subtle sort of panic. This specific panic, in me, particularly, is about optimization: am I playing the game in the most efficient way, and let me tell you friends, NO GAME should make anyone feel like this. After all, games are supposed to be fun.
I make lots of little pleasant discoveries, too, one of which is quite interesting for a game this old: facing matters. If I try and talk to someone and I’m not close to them and looking at them, the game just asks “speak to whom?” When I try. This shows great attention to detail. I like this a LOT.
Maybe the most amusing thing I find out in this session – and in short order, too, is that doors don’t always go where I expect: a door that looked like the left hand of a building took me to the RIGHT side of that same place when I went inside. I like this less.
Apart from this, my three hour session really amounts to mapping the place and documenting little things the manual doesn’t tell you. It never explains, for example that you can only climb UP vines. Or, for that matter that swimming is bad and you die when you try. [But the “death” message is hilarious.] or that each player character has their own sprite [neat!]
One very cool thing about the game – and a thing which very much gives away the sentiment of the books [I should think] and the character of the people working on this game is that while other people’s stuff IS fair game, you do have to request those things by speaking to the people who own the items first. Trying to grab something that’s nailed down but not yours just results in the game not giving you that item. Cordiality – and friendliness – go a LONG way in this world. Which is something you can see in almost all of the characters that spend their single line or two of speech talking to you.
I can’t tell you how much I love this. It’s so kind and gentle. It’s absolutely refreshing to see in a game.
As of right now, I have a handful of “objectives.”:
- Raise spirit in the garden.
- Find the temple key to open the gates [which gets me to the right side of the map.]
- Get to a point where I can Kiniport items. I’ve seen at least two that I can grab if I can just get my spirit meter high enough.
Welcome to the game, folks. I hope you’re going to enjoy it as much as I am!