On the Grid: How Hero of the Golden Talisman Redefined Exploration with its Mini-Map

This blog entry is part of a series covering games that are featured on my website about the Platform Adventure (aka Metroidvania) subgenre's history. It's a site created mainly as a quick reference guide for those looking for the next game to play or relevant and detailed info on earlier games in the subgenre for their other projects.

Released at the tail end of what in the US was an in-between period of the first arcade golden age and a switch to console dominance thanks to the NES, Hero of the Golden Talisman (C64/CPC, 1985) by Mr Chip Software emerged as a fairly unique experience, a couple of years before the term "platform adventure" was coined. The game's story goes like this: An evil wizard has cursed the (unnamed) hero's hometown, and the only way to lift the curse is to find and assemble all five pieces of the broken Golden Talisman, scattered around a dungeon which the wizard calls his home. That's it, there's no story progression or NPCs in-game and the ending consists of two short sentences. Moving on.

From what I've looked at so far, only three games actually merge all of the elements of platform adventure games in a manner we'd expect from a Metroid era release. This is another one in that it also features an interconnected world design, partially non-linear progression, and permanent upgrade usage to progress, although the execution of the last one is a bit of a step back from previous games but we'll get to that. Like Aztec, Below the Root and Journey to the Centre of the Earth, it also features an on-screen item inventory, in this case with 5 slots, where the player stores everything from colored keys opening corresponding doors, weapon upgrades, to consumable spells and items. Whether a technical limitation or a design choice, it leads to players having to commit to what they're going to use for the next 20-30 mins or so of gameplay, and to backtracking for previously dropped items if they weren't carrying what they needed later on (or if they messed up using a consumable). Unfortunately one can't simply drop an item anywhere but have to replace it with an existing pre-placed one, breaking the game's "flow" or sense of steady progression quite a bit. Like Journey this is also a strictly tool gated experience, the player character itself doesn't gain an ability to jump higher for example.

Unlike previous games however (and several following ones, by the way), Hero of the Golden Talisman includes a notable quality of life feature: A mini-map which from the get go shows the full extent of the game world as a checkerboard pattern of unexplored sub areas, quite similar to Legend of Zelda from the following year. It's also an auto-map showing which rooms the player has and hasn't been to yet, and which alerts the player to the presence of items within a given sub area. While it looks like one square on the map would represent one room, it's actually a collection of 4x4 rooms meaning there's more of a navigational challenge to the game's exploration than one might expect from a first glance.

Speaking of differences, the game sadly is a step back from some previous games in terms of its save system, as there isn't even a password save. It's also pretty unforgiving when it comes to the jumping controls as they are in the style of Ghosts 'n Goblins or Impossible Mission - something the game basically teases players with as there are several platforming challenges across multiple screens (this is another flip screen game) where one has to replay a fairly long segment should one fail a jump. I'm assuming this was meant as a more forgiving take on death pits in other platformers, so potentially a good thing, but for me personally the time wasting aspect is as frustrating as dying and repeating a standard platformer level at times. Taking both of these aspects into account, this is a game that most today will not have the patience to sit through without using an emulator. On the other hand, this is likely how most who read this would try out the game anyway.

Looking more closely at the items and how they're used for progression, the game is sadly relatively simple in this regard. Players can find oxygen tanks to let them swim further (they can swim by default), but these are consumables. They can find peaceable ropes which let them reach further in certain spots, and find candles that completely light up dark rooms, functioning like metaphorical keys. Then there are invincibility spells via scrolls, which have to be carefully used so as not to waste them but don't change one's move repertoire or challenge one's timing or aiming skills. There are also scrolls that let players break walls with their shots, similar to the previous ones in use but with less skill involved as these walls are essentially large doors that block a path - you don't need to be selective about blocks to destroy to make it to the other side of a puzzle. Lastly there are different weapons, which players have to switch between at points to deal with different bosses. Yeah, this is the first game in the subgenre to have boss fights, as well as an early game where bosses have particular weaknesses. However, don't get your hopes up because functionally, the weapons all behave the same way (a forward shot), and so do the bosses. This means that while the game does innovate in this area, it comes off as unfulfilled potential to anyone who's been playing games after 1985.

Hero of the Golden Talisman, although largely forgotten like the previously covered games, and maybe not quite as interesting overall, nonetheless played a role in the evolution of the subgenre. With its early exploration of interconnected world design that features some clever spatial awareness challenges, multiple bosses, and its now commonplace but then much appreciated mini-map feature, it helped lay the groundwork for the subgenre's future successes. So let's recognize and appreciate the contributions made by this and other unsung games from the early days of platform adventure history.

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A few games that may have influenced Hero of the Golden Talisman:

-Impossible Mission (1984): This game, also incorporates challenging platforming segments that require precise jumps and timing in the context of an interconnected world, while giving players limited control of their jumps. It also features a mini-map system, however its design is pretty different, and it's only accessible while using the elevators. However it doesn't make use of ability/tool gating nor an item inventory.

-Journey to the Centre of the Earth (1984): Journey to the Centre of the Earth also features a limited, on-screen item inventory and tool gating only. See the previous entry for more info on it.

-Underwurlde (1984) - Both games feature different weapons to deal with bosses (although the ones in this game are simpler), an item inventory and an interconnected world. This game also features ropes, with more advanced physics, however they are preplaced in the game world. Underwurlde doesn't make use of ability or tool gating in a platform adventure sense though.

-Pitfall II (1984): Like this game, Hero of the Golden Talisman features an interconnected world design that requires exploration and sometimes clever navigation. However, as mentioned before, Pitfall II has no ability or tool gating.

A few games that may have been influenced by it:

-Possibly any later C64 or CPC game with a mini-map, perhaps also some console games.

-Zillion - While the main inspiration for Zillion seems to be Impossible Mission, its map system resembles the one used in Hero a lot more.

For a brief overview of the game's features, see its page on my Platform Adventure history website.