Landstalker looked like no other Mega Drive game. Where most adventures of the time were seen from straight above, Climax Entertainment drew its world in isometric 3D, at 45 degrees from above, so its hero could jump between platforms at different heights and pick up and carry objects. “We pioneered the quarter view in Landstalker,” Climax’s Shinya Nishigaki told Edge in 1996, “and decided this should become our speciality.” The view gave Sega an answer to Nintendo’s Zelda. It also gave players a new way to fall off things, because on a flat screen it is hard to tell how far away a platform really is.
Fast facts
- Developer: Climax Entertainment
- Publisher: Sega
- Released: Japan, 30 October 1992, as Landstalker: Koutei no Zaihou; America and Europe, 1993, as Landstalker: The Treasures of King Nole
- Format: 16-megabit cartridge with battery-backed saves
- Heroes: Nigel, an elf treasure hunter (Ryle in Japan, Niels in Germany), and Friday, a wood nymph
- Re-releases: Wii Virtual Console (2007), Steam (2011), and later Sega collections and subscription services
Climax and the quarter view
Climax was a small company. When Edge visited in 1996 it had about 20 staff in an office block near Shinjuku station in Tokyo, and had made just three games. Its president, Kan Naito, had worked at Enix on the Dragon Quest series before. Edge traced Landstalker to Naito’s “own childhood fascination with miniature toys such as plastic models, trains and action men type figures”: he had experimented with radio-controlled figures, then tried out ideas on his personal computer, and those tests became the basis for the game.
The treasure of King Nole
Nigel is a treasure hunter who works for pay. The wood nymph Friday comes to him for help: she is being chased by thieves who believe she knows where King Nole hid his treasure. Sega’s own magazine, Sega Visions, previewed the American release in the summer of 1993 with “stereo sounds, humorous dialogue and a great three-dimensional graphic perspective”, and promised that along the way the player would “restore peace to a politically divided island nation”.
The German magazine Video Games explained how it played when it reviewed the German version in February 1994. The world is built from single screens that flip as Nigel walks off the edge. Three actions, hitting, picking up and jumping, get him across the island, with no menus of icons. He talks to the people he meets for information, finds stronger swords, helmets and armour, and works through “countless dungeons” for magic items and keys. As in A Link to the Past, the next part of the game opens only when the current task is done. Nigel’s sword charges up between fights for a more powerful blow, Friday revives him when he dies and drops the occasional hint, and the game is saved in a book at the island’s churches.
The jumping problem
Almost every review raised the same complaint. Video Games called the game “the Zelda for the Mega Drive”, but warned that the isometric view too often made you lose track: when you had to hop from one platform to another, it was often unclear where the next platform really was, and one misstep could cost a life. The diagonal controls, it added, were not to everyone’s taste. Its reviewer still thought anyone patient enough to search the island for King Nole’s treasure would not be put off, and that adventure fans would be busy with it “for a long time”.
Others ranked it as a benchmark. When Edge reviewed Square’s Secret of Mana in January 1994, its highest praise was that it was better than Zelda on the SNES and “better than Landstalker on the Mega Drive”. The isometric view kept dividing opinion years later. Reviewing the Wii Virtual Console release in 2007, Retro Gamer said some saw the game as “a classic RPG, others a 45-degree annoy-’em-up”, admired its “wonderfully colourful characters” and “enchanting backdrops”, complained of “scenery blind-spots”, and gave it 88%.
The Stalker games
Climax built on the view. Lady Stalker, a Super Famicom game released only in Japan, followed; Edge thought it fell short of its predecessor. Climax then returned to Sega’s hardware with Dark Savior for the Saturn, released in Japan in August 1996, which, Edge reported, took its inspiration from Landstalker while using the Saturn’s 3D hardware to free the camera. Nigel himself returned in Climax’s 1999 Dreamcast role-playing game Climax Landers, released in the West as Time Stalkers. The Official Dreamcast Magazine in America picked him out among the guest characters: “Lyle, the cocky elfin thief from Landstalker”.
Sources
- Edge issue 37, October 1996, Climax Entertainment feature (Dark Saviour): the company’s size and office, Kan Naito and Dragon Quest, Landstalker as “Sega’s answer to Nintendo’s Zelda”, Naito’s toys, Shinya Nishigaki’s “quarter view” quotation, Ladystalker.
- Sega Visions, August/September 1993, p. 44: preview of Landstalker (the treasure hunter, the island nation, the quotation).
- Video Games (Germany), February 1994, pp. 44–45: review of the German version (Niels, Flora, Massan, the isometric view and its problems, the controls, swords and armour, dungeons, churches and the save book, 16 Mbit, battery, “Zelda für’s Mega Drive”, the delayed German release). In German; the quotations are translated.
- Video Games (Germany), January and February 1993: mail-order advertisements listing the Japanese cartridge.
- Edge issue 4, January 1994, pp. 64–65: review of Secret of Mana, comparing it with Landstalker.
- Retro Gamer issue 44, 2007, p. 95: Virtual Console review (Climax Entertainment, 800 points, the quotations, 88%).
- Sega Pro issue 42, March 1995: buyers’ guide, Landstalker 80%.
- The Official Dreamcast Magazine (US) issue 1, September 1999: Climax Landers preview (Lyle from Landstalker).
- Sega Retro, “Landstalker: The Treasures of King Nole” (database, secondary): release dates, the regional titles and hero names, the story set-up, Steam and later re-releases, Lady Stalker as a Japan-only Super Famicom game, Time Stalkers. https://segaretro.org/Landstalker:_The_Treasures_of_King_Nole
- Sega Retro, “Dark Savior” and “Time Stalkers” (database, secondary): Japanese releases on 30 August 1996 and 15 September 1999. https://segaretro.org/Dark_Savior and https://segaretro.org/Time_Stalkers