Recently I have been looking at different RPG’s (partly) for research purposes. I am looking for things to add to the Betrayer. I would like it to be more dynamic and have a more immersive feel. Considering the fact that I’m a cheapskate and don’t own any of the game consoles other then NES, I searched the internet for a good free RPG. Unfortunately Open Source isn’t very good in this department (for non-MMORPGS). I wanted a good old school 2D RPG. And what I found was Ahriman’s Prophecy by Amaranth Games. You can grab it on Cnet. The graphics are clean and look great. Each different town has its own tileset which helps create a unique feeling and atmosphere for each. It is advertised as 50+ hours of gameplay. I didn’t clock my time to the finish but it did last a while. Even though I cheated and used a walkthrough to help.
The story is pretty good though obviously meant for a game. To roughly simplify it: Find the 6 relics to destroy the evil monster who’s being summoned. Even though the dialog between your characters is minimal I felt like I got to know them and their personalities.
My biggest qualm is that the combat gets tiresome real fast. Battles happen right on the map where you have to press the spacebar repeatedly until the opponent or you die. The magic also leaves something to be desired. Maybe I’m missing the obvious but I never figured out how to get to the higher level spells in combat. The ending is also a little lackluster. You defeat the boss and then it says you win and then goes to the game-over screen. I think a unique picture at the end would have done a lot for it.

And on the plus side it also worked fairly good under wine, except it would crash on the first island. So if your bored and like RPG’s I would recommend it, it’s only a 10.32 mb download. If anyone knows of any sweet RPG’s or parts you like in them, post a comment.