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Undercover Cops (1992)
Undercover Cops (アンダーカバーコップス, Andākabākoppusu) is an arcade-style beat 'em up video game developed and published by Irem, originally for the arcades in 1992. It is Irem's first attempt in the modern beat 'em up genre that was founded by Kung-Fu Master. Players control "city sweepers", a police agent-like group who fight crime by taking down thugs in New York City in the year 2043.
Warriors of Fate (PSX/1996)
Warriors of Fate, known in Japan as Tenchi wo Kurau 2: Sekiheki no Tatakai, is a side-scrolling beat-'em-up game produced by Capcom. It is the second arcade game based on the Tenchi wo Kurau manga, following Dynasty Wars. Originally released to arcades in 1992, home versions of the Sega Saturn and PlayStation were released in 1996. A version for mobile phones followed in 2005. Capcom later included an emulated version of the arcade original as part of the Capcom Beat 'Em Up Bundle released digitally for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Windows on September 18, 2018.
Burning Fight (1991)
Burning Fight is a beat 'em up arcade game released by SNK in 1991 for the Neo Geo MVS system.Introduced to capture a share in the then-popular beat 'em ups market, it was meant to compete with Technōs' Double Dragon, the leader of the genre at the time. Three years after its release in the arcades and on the Neo Geo AES, it was released on Neo Geo CD as the only other home version.
The game is produced by Eikichi Kawasaki, one of SNK's founders and the man behind various well-known SNK titles, such as Fatal Fury, Art of Fighting and Samurai Shodown series.
A re-released version of Burning Fight is included in SNK Arcade Classics Vol. 1, which was released for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable and Wii in 2008.
Burning Fight[a] is a beat 'em up arcade game released by SNK in 1991 for the Neo Geo MVS system.[2] Introduced to capture a share in the then-popular beat 'em ups market, it was meant to compete with Technōs' Double Dragon, the leader of the genre at the time. Three years after its release in the arcades and on the Neo Geo AES, it was released on Neo Geo CD as the only other home version.[3] The game is produced by Eikichi Kawasaki, one of SNK's founders and the man behind various well-known SNK titles, such as Fatal Fury, Art of Fighting and Samurai Shodown series. A re-released version of Burning Fight is included in SNK Arcade Classics Vol. 1, which was released for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable and Wii in 2008.Final fight (1989)
Final Fight is a side-scrolling beat-'em-up video game produced by Capcom. Originally released as an arcade game in 1989, it was the seventh title released for the CP System hardware. Set in the fictional Metro City, the game lets the player control one of three street fighters: former pro wrestler and city mayor Mike Haggar, expert brawler Cody Travers, and modern-day ninja Guy. The trio set out to rescue Jessica (Haggar's daughter and Cody's girlfriend) when she is kidnapped by the Mad Gear Gang.
The game began development as a sequel to the original Street Fighter released in 1987, under the working title Street Fighter '89, but the genre was switched from a fighting game to a beat 'em up and the title was changed to Final Fight following the success of Double Dragon. Final Fight was ported to various home computers and consoles, including the ZX Spectrum, Super NES and Sega CD.
It became a major commercial success in arcades, selling 30,000 arcade units worldwide while becoming the highest-grossing arcade game of 1990 in Japan and the year's highest-grossing arcade conversion kit in the United States. The Super NES version also sold 1.5 million cartridges worldwide. It spawned the Final Fight series, followed by several sequels. Its development team later worked on the original Street Fighter II, and some of the characters from Final Fight later appeared as playable fighters in other entries of the franchise, such as the Street Fighter Alpha sub-series.
King Of The Monsters (1991)
King of the Monsters is a fighting game developed by SNK, released for arcades in Japan in 1991, and ported to the Neo Geo AES later that same year.The game features playable giant monsters that are reminiscent of characters from kaiju and tokusatsu films.
In 1992, a sequel titled King of the Monsters 2 was released for arcades. Months later, King of the Monsters was ported to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. It would then be ported to the Sega Genesis in 1993. It was included in the video game SNK Arcade Classics Vol. 1, which was released for the Wii, PlayStation 2 and PSP in 2008.
Wolfenstein 3D (1992)
Wolfenstein 3D is a first-person shooter video game developed by id Software and published by Apogee Software and FormGen. Originally released on May 5, 1992, for DOS, it was inspired by the 1981 Muse Software video game Castle Wolfenstein, and is the third installment in the Wolfenstein series. In Wolfenstein 3D, the player assumes the role of Allied spy William "B.J." Blazkowicz during World War II as he escapes from the Nazi German prison Castle Wolfenstein and carries out a series of crucial missions against the Nazis. The player traverses each of the game's levels to find an elevator to the next level or kill a final boss, fighting Nazi soldiers, dogs, and other enemies with knives and a variety of guns.
Wolfenstein 3D was the second major independent release by id Software, after the Commander Keen series of episodes. In mid-1991, programmer John Carmack experimented with making a fast 3D game engine by restricting the gameplay and viewpoint to a single plane, producing Hovertank 3D and Catacomb 3-D as prototypes. After a design session prompted the company to shift from the family-friendly Keen to a more violent theme, programmer John Romero suggested remaking the 1981 stealth shooter Castle Wolfenstein as a fast-paced action game. He and designer Tom Hall designed the game, built on Carmack's engine, to be fast and violent, unlike other computer games on the market at the time. Wolfenstein 3D features artwork by Adrian Carmack and sound effects and music by Bobby Prince. The game was released through Apogee in two sets of three episodes under the shareware model, in which the first episode is released for free to drive interest in paying for the rest. An additional episode, Spear of Destiny, was released as a stand-alone retail title through FormGen.
Wolfenstein 3D was a critical and commercial success and is considered one of the greatest video games ever made. It garnered numerous awards and sold over 250,000 copies by the end of 1995. It has been termed the "grandfather of 3D shooters", and is widely regarded as having helped popularize the first-person shooter genre and establishing the standard of fast-paced action and technical prowess for many subsequent games in the genre, as well as showcasing the viability of the shareware publishing model at the time. FormGen developed an additional two episodes for the game, while Apogee released a pack of over 800 fan-created levels. Id Software never returned to the series, but did license the engine to numerous other titles before releasing the source code for free in 1995, and multiple other games in the Wolfenstein series have been developed by other companies since 2001.
Unreal Tournament (1999)
Unreal Tournament is a first-person arena shooter video game developed by Epic Games and Digital Extremes. The second installment in the Unreal series, it was first published by GT Interactive in 1999 for Microsoft Windows, and later released on the PlayStation 2 and Dreamcast by Infogrames in 2000 and 2001, respectively. Players compete in a series of matches of various types, with the general aim of out-killing opponents. The PC and Dreamcast versions support multiplayer online or over a local area network. Free expansion packs were released, some of which were bundled with a 2000 re-release: Unreal Tournament: Game of the Year Edition.
Powered by the Unreal Engine, Unreal Tournament received universal acclaim, often being considered one of the greatest video games ever made, with reviewers praising the graphics, level design and gameplay, though the console ports were noted for having limitations. The design of the game shifted the series' focus to competitive multiplayer action with the releases of sequels Unreal Tournament 2003 in 2002, Unreal Tournament
Quake
Quake is a first-person shooter game developed by id Software and published by GT Interactive. The first game in the Quake series, it was originally released for MS-DOS, Microsoft Windows and Linux in 1996, followed by Mac OS and Sega Saturn in 1997 and Nintendo 64 in 1998. In the game, players must find their way through various maze-like, medieval environments while battling monsters using an array of weaponry. The overall atmosphere is dark and gritty, with many stone textures and a rusty, capitalized font. Quake takes heavy inspiration from gothic fiction and the works of H. P. Lovecraft.
The successor to id Software's Doom series, Quake built upon the technology and gameplay of its predecessor. Unlike the Doom engine before it, the Quake engine offered full real-time 3D rendering and had early support for 3D acceleration through OpenGL. After Doom helped popularize multiplayer deathmatches, Quake added various multiplayer options. Online multiplayer became increasingly common, with the QuakeWorld update and software such as QuakeSpy making the process of finding and playing against others on the Internet easier and more reliable. Quake featured music composed by Trent Reznor and his band Nine Inch Nails.
Despite receiving critical acclaim, Quake's development was controversial in the history of id Software. Due to creative differences and a lack of leadership, the majority of the team left the company after the game's release, including co-founder John Romero. A remastered version of Quake was developed by Nightdive Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks and was released for Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One consoles in August 2021, including the original game's extended content and two episodes developed by MachineGames. The PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S versions were released in October 2021.
Commando (1985)
Berzerk (1980)
Alan McNeil, an employee of Universal Research Laboratories (a division of Stern Electronics), had a dream one night involving a black-and-white video game in which he had to fight robots.It was named for Fred Saberhagen's Berserker series of science fiction novels.
"Evil Otto" was named after Dave Otto, security chief at McNeil's former employer Dave Nutting Associates. According to McNeil, Otto would, "[smile] while he chewed you out."[3] He would also lock McNeil and his fellow employees out of the building to enforce a noon-hour lunch, as well as piping beautiful music into every room.
The idea for a black-and-white game was abandoned. At that point Stern decided to use a color overlay board for Berzerk.A quick conversion was made, and all but the earliest versions of the game shipped with a color CRT display. The game was test-marketed
Gato (1987)
The player is tasked with chasing Japanese shipping across a 20-sector map while returning for resupply as necessary from a submarine tender. The islands on the map are randomly generated and not based on real-world geography. Combat is conducted using a screen with a view through the periscope and at various gauges and indicators. The game has multiple difficulty levels, the highest of which requires the player to translate mission briefings which are transmitted only as audible Morse Code.
The MS-DOS and Apple IIe versions contain a boss key which replaces the game screen by a spreadsheet.
The timing of the game relied on the computer's CPU clock-speed, rather than the time-and-date clock, making it unplayable as 80286 CPU-based computers came onto the market.
In 1985, Computer Gaming World praised the game for being simultaneously easy to play and having deep, detailed strategy.1991 and 1993 surveys in the magazine of strategy and war games, however, gave it one and a half stars out of five, stating that "it was adequate in its time, but not exemplary in any regard".Compute! stated that "Gato promises realism, and it delivers ... [it] lives up to its claims".Jerry Pournelle wrote favorably of the game in BYTE, stating that he wished he could slow the game down but "I've certainly wasted enough time with it ... Recommended", and that he preferred the black-and-white Macintosh version to the color IBM PC version.
Marketed by Spectrum HoloByte, Gato had originally been developed by student programmers in Boulder, Colorado.
Gato sold well - being reported in Billboard magazine in June 1985 as coming in at number 6 of a national sample of retail sales and rack sales reports.
https://archive.org/details/atr_Gato_1987_Atari
Sonic CD
The Sega CD's flagship game, Sonic CD was conceived as an enhanced port of Sonic the Hedgehog 2, but was reworked after lackluster sales of Sonic 2 in Japan. It was developed by Sonic Team—the team directed by Sonic designer Naoto Ohshima—and was designed to show off the technical capabilities of the Sega CD system. The game features the debuts of Amy Rose and Metal Sonic, and includes animated cutscenes produced by Toei Animation. Two soundtracks were composed for the game: the original score was composed by Naofumi Hataya and Masafumi Ogata, while the North American score was composed by members of the Sega Technical Institute.
Sonic CD is often called one of the best games in the Sonic series and the platform game genre. Reviewers praised its exceptional size and the time travel feature, which they felt added depth. The music was also praised, though some believed the game did not use the Sega CD's capabilities to its fullest. It sold over 1.5 million copies, making it the Sega CD's bestseller. The game was ported to Windows as part of the Sega PC brand in 1996, and to PlayStation 2 and GameCube as part of Sonic Gems Collection in 2005. A remastered version, developed by Christian Whitehead using the Retro Engine, was released for various platforms and mobile devices in 2011.
Sonic CD is a side-scrolling platform game similar to the original Sonic the Hedgehog. Players control Sonic the Hedgehog as he ventures to stop his nemesis Doctor Robotnik from obtaining the magical Time Stones and conquering Little Planet.Like previous games, Sonic can destroy enemies and objects (such as certain walls and television monitors containing power-ups by rolling into a ball, and collects rings as a form of health. Sonic can also perform a "spin dash" and a "peel-out" that increase his speed.The game is split into seven levels called rounds; each round is split into three zones, the third of which culminates in a boss fight with Robotnik. Players start with three lives, which are lost when they suffer any type of damage without rings in their possession; losing all lives results in a game over.
Sonic CD is differentiated from other Sonic games by its time travel feature, which allows players to access different versions of stages set in the past, present and future.Sonic starts the first two zones in the present, and can travel through time by hitting signs labelled "past" or "future" and maintaining speed for several seconds.By default, future stages depict neglect and decay after Robotnik has conquered Little Planet.Players are encouraged to convert each zone into a "good future", with bright colors, no enemies, and few obstacles.To achieve a good future in each zone, players must travel to the past—a primitive, overgrown landscape—and destroy a hidden transporter where enemy robots spawn.The third zone is always set in the future, its timeline dependent upon whether the player destroyed both transporters.
By finishing a level with more than 50 rings, Sonic can access a special stage, in which he must destroy six UFOs in a pseudo-3D environment within a time limit.Time is reduced swiftly if the player runs through water, though a special UFO which appears when time is running out grants extra time if destroyed. If the player destroys all the UFOs before the time runs out, they earn a Time Stone.Collecting all seven Time Stones, or achieving a "good future" in every zone, unlocks the best possible ending.The game also features a time attack mode, where players can replay completed levels in the fastest time possible; a "D.A. Garden", where players can listen to the music of completed zones; and a "Visual Mode", where players can view the opening and closing animations.
https://archive.org/details/SonicCDPCUSA
https://archive.org/details/SonicCDWin95
https://archive.org/details/SonicCDSega1996
Cadash
The game setting is a medieval fantasy world similar to that of the high fantasy seen in The Lord of the Rings. The demons and abominations of nature who reside in the underground kingdom of Cadash have not forgotten that, thousands of years previously, they once shared the light with humans. Then one rose among them who was especially powerful, a demonic wizard born of a human woman – the Balrog (Baarogue or Baalogue in the arcade version, and Barlog in the TurboGrafx version). The Balrog promised his followers they could, in time, emerge from their subterranean prison and rule the world of men, taking revenge on humans for their prior defeat in battle and subsequent exile, if the Balrog could mingle his blood with that of a human king. The Balrog and his demonic armies gathered in force over the centuries, and are now powerful enough to emerge to the surface and make war with the unprepared human kingdoms which had not known war for millennia, all of which quickly fall to the Balrog. The human world is almost entirely laid to waste by the Balrog. However, this was not enough for the Balrog, whose prize is the mightiest of all human kingdoms, the Kingdom of Dirzir. One night, the beautiful Princess Salassa is kidnapped by the Balrog from the Keep of Deerzar, the capital city of Dirzir, and taken underground to the dreaded Castle Cadash. There the Balrog plans to initiate the ritual which would magically bind himself to the human princess, becoming all-powerful and invincible. Dilsarl, the distraught and helpless elderly King of Dirzir, has vowed to give his entire kingdom to the one who would rescue his beloved only daughter, and many brave heroes have disappeared into the depths of Cadash on this quest.
Cadash is an early example of what would become a fairly common trend in Japanese-made arcade games of the early 1990s: the "platform-RPG". Cadash borrows many principles of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link's gameplay, combining side-scrolling platform action with an RPG system of statistics, levels, money and magic.
Four characters can play at once in the arcade version, and up to two players may select from four different characters in the console versions: fighter, mage, priestess, and ninja, each with different attacks, statistics and skills. Players then proceed through each level, killing monsters and bosses, collecting keys to unlock doors and collecting gold and experience. Gold is also taken from slain foes and treasure chests. Villages sell items, weapons, armor and (in the console versions) extra lives, with each village encountered providing better equipment. Some villagers and benevolent creatures will also provide information. The arcade version has a limited game time, which can be extended by buying progressively more expensive hourglasses at shops, or by picking up rare bonuses. In shops, and in hidden places, are medicinal herbs which restore 10 HP if brought to zero, and antidotes which cure poison inflicted by specific foes. There are also two elixirs in the game that act like medicinal herbs, except that they restore all HP.
There are five stages in the game. Stages one, two and four consist of two worlds, above and below ground. Stage three consists of three worlds. Stage five is set entirely within Castle Cadash. The environments differ significantly, from pleasant meadows to caves, and from forests to underwater environments. Some foes encountered in these levels are derived from common mythology while others are completely made up for the game.
In both the arcade and the TurboGrafx-16 versions, there are four playable characters. However, the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis version only has the fighter and mage as playable characters, as the priestess and ninja characters are missing. In all versions of the game the characters vary significantly in terms of power and abilities.
The arcade version supports a four-players "link" mode using two Cadash cabinets, with some limitations, such as each player having to pick a different character, and characters playing on the same machine being forced to keep up with each other, unable to venture "off screen". Two-player mode is available in the console versions. The characters are:
Fighter: identified as "Toru" in some game manuals, the otherwise unnamed fighter is a Conan the Barbarian-style warrior who lives by his muscle and his sword. The fighter has powerful melee attacks, the highest defense and the highest agility in the game when using a particular weapon. However, compared to the other characters, he is unable to use any magic spells. Being a close range fighter, he is initially disadvantaged against ranged attacks and flying enemies due to the short reach of his weapons. To combat ranged attacks, the fighter can purchase and wield a shield to block most enemy projectiles, including dragons' fire. The fighter's quick movement and attack speed, especially with his end game weapons, allows him to make short work of most enemies and bosses once he closes the distance.
Mage: the silver-haired, bearded and green-robed, unnamed mage, with a slightly hunched back, is the court wizard of Dirzir and chief advisor to the king. The mage draws on the wisdom and magic of the ancients who were able to banish the demons to Cadash in the distant past, and can also rely on his magic staff when his magic reserves need to replenish themselves. He has the most powerful offensive capability in the game through his spells, but is also physically the weakest and slowest character. Among all the characters, the mage requires the lowest amount of experience to gain levels, being able to reach the maximum level as early as the halfway point of the game. As the mage gains levels he learns new and more powerful spells, calling upon the elements and the very forces of nature to assist him; after obtaining the Wizard Staff, he is able recover 1 mana point per second and cast spells at half the original mana cost. However, his spells do not work on certain creatures, including the undead, forcing him to evade them or fight with his limited melee capability. The mage's devastating spells allow him to be a powerful boss killer; he is the only character who is able to take down the final boss easy and fast.
Priestess: the young warrior-priestess is the most appropriate character for beginners, who have yet to learn the game's differences and enemy arrangement, thanks to her defensive spells which allow her to heal and negate damage. Offensively, she is competent against normal enemies due to the long reach and penetration of her final weapon. However, her weapons are the slowest among all the characters in both attack and recovery, making her the weakest boss killer in the game. Defensively, she is able to cast a highly useful protection spell that absorbs 32 damage and removes the knockback from getting hit. The priestess also has the ability to add more playing time in the arcade version of Cadash (30 seconds in the Japanese version, and 60 seconds in all other versions). In the Japanese version of Cadash, the priestess is a much less effective character overall: she is the least suitable character to bypass the second level and fight stone golems for lucrative experience (which is a well-known and critical strategy when playing optimally) since she cannot compensate for her weakness at that point in the game with the much cheaper medicinal herbs sold in the overseas versions, and she cannot exploit staying at inns to increase the playing time due to the exorbitant inn prices in the Japanese version.
Ninja: the mysterious ninja is a master of ranged combat who has excellent agility, the highest natural defense, and exclusively uses concealed projectiles (shurikens and throwing knives) to attack with. He is the only true long range character in the game, being able to kill enemies as soon as they appear on screen. The priestess eventually gains a weapon that travels a long distance, but the ninja outclasses her in terms of attack recovery, projectile speed, and raw damage. The ninja's attack takes the fewest frames to come out compared to the other characters; he is unparalleled when it comes to taking down normal enemies, and is also a very efficient boss killer. When wielding certain weapons, he has some special abilities such as spreading fire and being able to penetrate enemies and walls with projectiles. The ninja's sole disadvantage is that he has the highest experience requirements to gain levels, and so it may take longer to progress the character, but this is largely overcome by the fact that he gains the most status points per level and his ability to dispose of enemies, and hence gain experience, is the quickest among the four characters.
In the early 1990s, Cadash was ported to the TurboGrafx-16 (in 1991) and the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive (1992). Both home console versions of Cadash eliminated the time limit that existed in the original arcade version.
The Turbo Grafx 16 (PC-engine) version of Cadash, which was translated into English by Working Designs, implemented many changes to the original game, including agility, defense, spell costs and damage, to better balance the characters. Formerly challenging characters such as the fighter and mage were greatly enhanced to rival and even surpass the priestess. To accommodate the differences in hardware power, the levels were divided into large rooms and halls connected by doors and corridors, whereas the arcade game used large, seamless levels. The PC-engine version features colorful, new designs and graphics that are a sharp contrast from the darker shades used in the arcade and Genesis versions. The PC-engine version does not allow any continuing in one-player mode, although dead allies could be revived at inns in two-player mode.
The Genesis port excluded two of the four playable classes, keeping only the fighter and mage. The port was not entirely accurate although the graphics were similar, albeit with a much darker palette. The giant kelp boss was removed entirely from this version. The healing value of herbs, damage from enemies, enemy AI and many more aspects of the game were altered. This is the only version of Cadash where the player can buy elixirs, which serve as extra lives, in item shops.
The Japanese and US versions of the original arcade game are much more difficult than the other versions. The most noticeable changes are that the player can only carry half as many herbs and antidotes, and herbs are considerably more expensive to buy. The price of sleeping at an inn increases from 50 to 200 to 1000 to 6000 to 30000 gold with each subsequent stay, while in the overseas versions the maximum price for staying at an inn remains at 5,000 gold. The hidden Dragon Amulet only rewards 10,000 gold, as opposed to the maximum amount of 65,535 in the other versions. As for differences in character gameplay, the priestess's Recover Time spell adds only 30 seconds to the game's timer, as opposed to a full minute in the other versions. Finally, bosses have much more health in the Japanese and US versions of Cadash, which is easily apparent by comparing the number of attacks (such as the Mage's Explosion spell) required to defeat the bosses.
Aliens versus Predator (1999)
Like the 1994 Alien vs Predator game for the Atari Jaguar, Aliens versus Predator offers three separate campaigns, each playable as a separate species: Alien, Predator, or human Colonial Marine.[2] Each player character has different objectives, abilities, and weapons. The single-player campaign presents the player with a conventional series of levels to progress through that are designed around the abilities of each character.
As the Colonial Marine the player uses a number of weapons to combat Aliens and Predators. The marine wears armor for protection and uses an image intensifier and flares to improve visibility in dark areas.
Blood Omen 2
Blood Omen 2 chronologically bridges the stories of the original Blood Omen and Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, but it takes place in an alternate timeline created by the events of Soul Reaver 2. Centuries after Blood Omen, Kain is opposed by traitorous vampires and the minions of The Sarafan Lord, and sets out to continue his ascent to power.
While Crystal Dynamics' Soul Reaver team began to produce Soul Reaver 2, a secondary crew started work on Blood Omen 2 in 1999. They sought to create a more action-focused entry in contrast to the Soul Reaver games' emphasis on puzzle-solving. The final product was a commercial success, becoming a Sony's "Greatest Hits" title, but received average reception, with critics citing its lower production values and lack of innovation relative to the Soul Reaver games as flaws.
Bloodwych
All of the champions fall into the four classes of Warrior, Mage, Adventurer or Thief, each with their own particular capability. Within each class there are four characters available, each with their own colour of Red, Blue, Green or Yellow. Each colour also has its own particular advantage, largely with respect to the families of spells the character will be most adept at casting and developing. However, that colour is also important when it comes to matching up coloured rings later in the game to magnify the effects of spell-casting.