The Immortal is a quirky isometric hack-n-slash action RPG released by Electronic Arts for DOS back in 1990.
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The Immortal is a quirky isometric hack-n-slash action RPG released by Electronic Arts for DOS back in 1990.
It’s tempting to compare this to Diablo since that’s the standard for the genre. However, The Immortal is very different.
For one thing, there’s no mouse control. Everything is driven by keyboard: arrow keys are for movement, Enter and Shift are the action buttons. The game actually controls pretty well once you get used to it.
When you’re up against enemies, you don’t just fight. Instead, you must learn to dodge their attacks, then hurt them when they’re vulnerable. The combat system is easily my favourite part of the game.
What’s not so fun is that you can’t save your game whenever you want, deaths are sometimes cheap, and you have to go back to the beginning when you die. Back in 1990, this was par for the course. Nowadays, it makes for a tedious experience.
Succeeding at this game requires rote memorization. Everything is quite predictable. Once you know how things happen in one room, you can blow past it quite easily. Again, this can be tedious.
I really enjoy the art style. While it doesn’t look all that great on a big monitor, on a small screen like the Steam Deck, it’s an enjoyable experience. I quite like the pixel art, which is quite in keeping with the CRPG style back in the day.
The music and sound effects are quite nice, and this especially made a difference back in 1990 when not everyone had a Soundblaster card. I wouldn’t call the soundtrack a toe tapper, but it is quite atmospheric.
The Immortal is not a terrible game by any means. In spots, it can even be fun. But if it were less tedious, I’d love it even more.
To me, this is more interesting as a piece of history than a game to be enjoyed today.
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@atomicpoet Huh! I wonder how well this might play on Steam Deck.
