Times of Lore (1988)

Origin Systems

Amiga · Amstrad CPC · Apple II · Atari ST/STE · Commodore C64/128/MAX · DOS · Nintendo Entertainment System · ZX Spectrum

2.40 from 5 ratings

27 members have it in their collection · 8 backlogged · 5 wish listed

Times of Lore is a pleasant RPG set in the land of Albareth. You play either a Knight, a Barbarian, or a Valkyrie on a quest to search for the magical artifacts that will restore High King Valwyn to power. The game is played in real-time, similar to the Ultima series. The storyline, game play and battle system are simple. … Read more
Times of Lore is a pleasant RPG set in the land of Albareth. You play either a Knight, a Barbarian, or a Valkyrie on a quest to search for the magical artifacts that will restore High King Valwyn to power. The game is played in real-time, similar to the Ultima series. The storyline, game play and battle system are simple. The graphics and sound are decent as well. This is a good little game that does not have too many puzzles and is just enjoyable to play with not much thinking. Read less
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Release dates

  • 1988 (North_America) Apple II, Commodore C64/128/MAX, DOS
  • 1989 (North_America) Amiga, Atari ST/STE
  • 1989 (Europe) ZX Spectrum
  • Dec 07, 1990 (Japan) Nintendo Entertainment System
  • 1990 (Europe) Amstrad CPC
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Rating distribution

5 stars
0
4 stars
0
3 stars
3
2 stars
1
1 star
1
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Community All Reviews Statuses

Chovus

Status Chovus Jun 13, 2025

Beat as the knight. I tried out all 3 characters and did not notice much difference. The valkyrie was a little faster than the knight. Maybe the barbarian was a little slower but it was very hard to tell. It said he had great strength and stamina. The game played a lot like Gauntlet, only in a small open world …

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Beat as the knight. I tried out all 3 characters and did not notice much difference. The valkyrie was a little faster than the knight. Maybe the barbarian was a little slower but it was very hard to tell. It said he had great strength and stamina. The game played a lot like Gauntlet, only in a small open world with no character progression. Enemies respawned infinitely but were easy to kill and the character had a lot of hp. It was unlikely to die in combat, especially given how often they dropped healing potions and offense scrolls. The characters moved painfully slow so I sometimes used 200 frames per second mode until I found the boots of speed. The only other equipment was the dagger for infinite ranged attack, and the axe which was an upgrade to the dagger. No armor, or new melee weapons or anything. Walkthrough said there was a limited use ring of invisibility but I did not get it. Game was pretty simple in the beginning, going into the woods to fight bandits. Then take a quest from the regent to a far away town. I used an online map because there was no in game map. Even though the world was not that big it would still be obnoxious to wander around looking for everything. It was in that far town that I had to check the walkthrough because much of the game advanced through the dialogue system. You had to find specific people to chitchat with to learn key words, then use those key words on the right person. The story and flavor text were fairly well written. There were 2 dungeons the looked the same and played out the same; avoid enemies while pressing switches. Lame. 1 dungeon had a lich for a boss but it just sat there doing nothing and was invincible. Talking up it resulted in instant death. Looking it up I had to ask some old man at an inn about it who mentioned needing holy water, then traveling to a town to get some. Had to redo that dungeon. The final boss was the same as tha lich, only you had to kill a minion to get a key to rescue a prisoner in the basement who told about the 1 thing that could kill the boss being hidden under his bed. Kind of like a phylactery. Then the game ended. There were no proper boss fights. Having to buy food was a dumb addition but after buying the boots and axe the only other thing to spend gold on was healing at an inn.

I beat this in only a few hours. It was interesting that it was made by the Ultima devs, and I could definitely see some resemblance to those games. The combat was a little fun but overall the game was lackluster, even for the NES.

6.0/10

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