Last of the three clips showing the first scenario from MS-DOS version of Sorcerian, the fifth game in Dragon Slayer series.
In the late 80's Sierra started releasing versions of Japanese computer games for Western computers. First of these was Thexder. This was followed by Silpheed, Fire Hawk (sequel to Thexder), Zeliard and Sorcerian.
Like Thexder, Sorcerian was originally released for PC-8801 which was mostly sold and used only in Japan. Also like with previous games, Sierra developed its own conversion for IBM and compatibles.
Apparently Nihon Falcom set strict requirements for conversion. Possibly due to this the version seems to be very accurate reproduction of original PC-8801 version with the exception of music*.
While MS-DOS version is the only English release of the game, Sorcerian had several different versions in Japan, often offering partially or entirely different scenarios from original.
Additional information:
http://hg101.classicgaming.gamespy.com/sorcerian/sorcerian.htm
* The music was converted to MIDI format in order to adapt it to the hardware of sound cards in IBM and compatibles. In addition to this, the playlist was modified, so in several spots the played music differs from Japanese version.
While the playlist of Musician Guild in English PC version seems to suggest that every tune in Japanese version has some kind of corresponding tune in English release (I am not entirely sure about that, though), it seems that for some reason at least in the version used for recording videos some tunes are not played in the game (such as the victory theme played in first scenario after recovering the sceptre). I haven't yet managed to find out if this is supposed to work like this and if not, what causes this.
The quality of the music itself seems to depend largely on the used hardware. The music on Adlib may vary from somewhat inferior to more or less equal when comparing to PC-8801. However, with MT-32 the music in PC version is actually better than in PC-8801 version. For those interested, the MP3 recordings of MT-32 versions can be downloaded here:
"CD 1": http://queststudios.com/Joomla/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&...
"CD 2": http://queststudios.com/Joomla/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&...
Please note: Due to the original 640x400 resolution of uploaded videos there was more notable degrade in quality during the conversion process of YouTube than in most of my videos (which are usually in 320x240).
The links to other clips:
Introduction and Credits:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5npBT8tJ8U
Creating and Equipping Characters:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juuHpF6JGj0
Gameplay 1/3:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7VnokcpRR0
Gameplay 2/3:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwrWf7HdFp4
UPDATE: "The mystery of missing tune" has been solved. Apparently MS-DOS version plays the winning theme in the first scenario only if player recovers the sceptre before defeating Hydras. After destroying both Hydras the background music changes to reflect the victorious situation. So far I haven't discovered any other instances of missing tunes in MS-DOS version, so it may be that there isn't this kind of problem after all. I also fixed earlier mistake in spelling.
UPDATE (3th of August, 2010): After reading Japanese Wikipedia and Japanese fanpage with Babelfish it seems that MS-DOS version is not based on the original PC-8801 version. Rather, it apparently is based on the later PC-9801 release and has features exclusive to that version (such as portraits for player characters and ability to change the game speed). Apparently other differences between PC-8801 and PC-9801 versions include minor changes in the scenarios and music. At least some of these may apply to MS-DOS version, too. Also, I added one new tag to the video.
UPDATE (29th of March, 2011): I was informed that the original link to the MP3 recordings of the MT-32 soundtrack had broken links to the actual MP3 files. It appears that the website with files, Quest Studios had been redesigned and the MP3 files relocated. The link has been fixed.
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Sorcerian (PC) - Gameplay 2/3by DamoclesAlpha1,528 views
i had this game on the PC back a long time ago, it's too bad they didn't bring any of the updated versions to the US
syxx573 3 years ago