Theron's Quest

Description

Theron’s Quest is an adaptation of Dungeon Master for the TurboGrafx-16 / PC Engine console. The Japanese version was released first in Japan on September 18, 1992 and later the English version was released in the USA in 1993.

Japanese title: ダンジョン・マスター　セロンズクエスト (Dungeon Master Theron’s Quest)

The Theron’s Quest reference information you will find on this site comes from the English version of Theron’s Quest.

The game is not a direct port of the original Dungeon Master game because of the hardware limitations of the console. The original game required at least 512KB of RAM on Atari ST. On PC Engine + Super CD-ROM² the game uses all of the 256KB of RAM to store the code, graphics data and dungeon data, and an additional 64KB to store ADPCM sound data (RAM dedicated to sounds on the PC Engine, containing the same data for all seven dungeons). Another limit is that there is not enough backup memory for a full saved game. That is why instead of the big original dungeon, the adaptation provides seven small dungeons, each fitting in the 256KB of RAM and containing only a small subset of the creatures, items, spells and graphics of the original game. This all makes the game less interesting than Dungeon Master, because you don’t have the time to train your champions and to use all the items you may find. Because you can’t save the game at any time, the designers have put many Altars of VI to resurrect your dead champions, and not much creatures to fight, so the game is very easy (on the other hand, you don’t have to play a dungeon several times before being able to finish it in a single playing session, which is not bad after all).

Some of the dungeons have parts copied or inspired by the original dungeons of Dungeon Master and Chaos Strikes Back. You must complete the “Ak-Tu-Ba” dungeon first and complete the “Demon’s Gate” dungeon last. You can complete the five other dungeons in the order of your choice.

You play the game with a character named Theron and three other champions selected among seven. These three champions lose their skills and items upon completion of each dungeon, and the game is only saved between dungeons. Theron also loses his items between each dungeon, but keeps his skills and statistics.

The game has a new story told in the introduction and endgame sequences. Each dungeon also has a small introduction with a text description and a scolling image.

The goal of the game is for Theron to retrieve seven treasures looted from the monastery of Ya Bro Dain, in order to become the Grey Lord’s apprentice:

Each of these items is located in one of the seven mini dungeons:

Platforms

Games

Theron's Quest for PC Engine / Turbografx-16

Magazines Music Videos

Trade shows

Theron’s Quest was shown at the following trade shows:

Winter CES (Consumer Electronics Show) 1993 in Las Vegas between January 7 and January 10, 1993

Magazine articles

Electric Brain (USA)

TurboPlay (USA)

VideoGames (Germany)