GamesRPGRPG expansions that offer seemingly endless adventures? Sorcerian did that 36 years agoWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
GamesRPGRPG expansions that offer seemingly endless adventures? Sorcerian did that 36 years agoWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
Pasokon Retrois our regular look back at the early years of Japanese PC gaming, encompassing everything from specialist ’80s computers to the happy days of Windows XP.
As you’ve hopefully already guessed this hasn’t been in preparation for a death-laden dive into Elden Ring’sShadow of the Erdtreeexpansion. I’ve been playing the chart-topping 1987 action RPG Sorcerian and its numerous expansions, which rolled out with much the same impact as Shadow of the Erdtree (at least, within the context of the late ’80s Japan-only PC gaming market).
It doesn’t really care what I’ve already cleared or how well prepared my party is, either. Do I want to flit back and forth between the main game’s base quests and whatever expansion takes my fancy? Sure. I probably won’t get very far, but I can try. How about I meticulously tackle everything in order instead, my party visibly growing old together as they head off on more adventures thanks to the game tracking their individual ages? No problem.
The first expansion, plainly titled “Additional Scenarios Vol.1”, is a smorgasbord of stories encompassing everything from pirates to Amazonian warrior queens. It plays out almost like a collection of fairy tales, every day a new place with a new cast of heroes to befriend and monsters to slay.
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(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom)
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The expansions' wilful bending of everything from basic history to what kind of fantasy Sorcerian itself “should” be oozes confidence and enthusiasm. It would have been easy, perhaps even understandable, if these further adventures had been little more than just old pixels given a quick recolour and a bit of shuffling around, but Falcom chose to lavish each tale with the same level of polish and ambition as any of their better known games. No matter which disc I’m using, I know I’m going to visit places that never existed before and cross swords with bosses that simply didn’t exist before these new floppies came along.
And just like all of my favouriteFromSoftwaregames, there’s an internal consistency to the lands I visit here, a sincere attempt to visually tell a story, to make me believe I’m standing in a single continuous location, even though Sorcerian was made for hardware so basic it was always much happier if it didn’t have to worry about demanding tasks like “moving things around the screen” and “animation”.
(Image credit: Comptiq)
I know I’m not the only one enthralled with Sorcerian’s approach to storytelling. Japanese gamers were so in love with Sorcerian and the narratives that sprang up in its later expansions thatComptiq magazine—which is still going, even if it has skewed more towards covering mobile games like Granblue Fantasy and Fate/Grand Order these days—partnered up with Falcom to launch a grand scale competition to make even more.
A serious amount of thought and effort was expected from these fan entries, just like more modern contests to design new weapons, furniture, and evenhairstylescreated for the likes of Final Fantasy 14. Wannabe designers needed to fully complete a four part entry process, running fromJulytoOctober 1988, filling out and eventually mailing off specially designed competition pages covering everything from map and scenario design to monster attack patterns and NPCs.
The ten winners, announced in theMay 1989issue of Comptiq, received a significant amount of prize money (ranging from 500,000 to 50,000 yen) and got to see their ideas made real and released as a five-part Selected Sorcerian collection, from December 1989 to July 1990. That’s almost an entire extra year of fresh fan-invented adventures, the roughly bimonthly floppy disc releases a primordial form of episodic DLC.
Why did it take so long? Well, apart from the inherent complexity of discussing and deciding on which multi-page fan design documents mailed in the old fashioned way they should include, and then the whole “actually making those ideas real” part, there was also the fact that Falcom had more than 3,000 entries to sift through.
(Image credit: Comptiq)
Over3,000. More than 3,000 people loved Sorcerian enough that they put in four months of work to just have a chance of seeing their idea brought to life. And these fan-made tales turned out to be just as much fun and just as carefully crafted as anything Falcom had come up with, each one sending me off to fight fire-breathing dragons, bandits, and spooky spellcasters.
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