Gaming : The Black Onyx (Third Gen)

The Black Onyx

Box cover

Game Details : 

Developer : Henk Rogers
Publisher : Bullet-Proof Software
Designer : Henk Rogers
Artist :  Rieko Kodama
Platform : Game Boy Color, MSX,Famicom, PC-6001,PC-8801, PC-9801,SG-1000

Release date :

PC-8801

JP 1984
MSX
JP 1985
Famicom
JP July 14, 1988

Genre :  Role-playing game
Mode :  Single-player

Game Information

This game was one of the most influential games to be released in Japan, created by Henk Rogers an American living in Japan. This game introduced a new kind of genre to the country, RPG  (Role Playing Game) and is considered to be an inspiration to many great grames such as Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy. The game could only utilize 15 fixed colours and only two can be mixed in the same 8x8 pixel tile due to the limitations of the SG-1000.

Plot 

A town called Utsuro is Engulbed in darkness and it is up to the player to form a party of heroes to tavel into dungeons to find the legendary Black Onyx. This will rid the darkness by breaking the curse and thus bringing light back into their light.

Gameplay

The players have the opportunity to create  a party that is limited to 5 members. The caves are found hidden in locations throughout the town. Once the player enters the cave he will have to face a 6 leveled dungeon which are colour coded. To progress thorough the game these dungeons must be won in a specific order. When the order is correct the player will find the black Onyx.

Only Melee combat can be found in the game because there is no dept/distance measured in the game. players can travel to the town to deposit money and upgrade items and heal themselves.

Expansions

Due to the limited amount of memory Expansions where created to further split the games and allow more features.

The Fire Crystal - Added a magic system to the game
The Moonstone - Added a wilderness exploration feature to the game
Arena - Added an Arena battle feature to the game.

Main Menu

This is where the player can choose several options to manage his warriors or continue to progress the game. Due to the limited colours there is too much blue which can be found in the background the floor the text and the walls. The text at least was visible.

Character creation

It gave you the ability to create custom warriors an let you select from a large ammount of hairstyles and a few cloathing options . These choices don't matter that much as they will be covered when armor is worn. With the black background it was easier to bring out all the items needed to be shown.

Dungeon/Town interface

To the top left you have the names of your warriors and the ammount of life each one has. Underneath you have two boxes on displaying your warriors and the other displaying who you are interacting with, being the npc's or the enemies 

Underneath that you will find a description of the action being chosen  in this case its the purchasing of a horned helm. In this box you will also find the battle logs when fighting an enemy. 

The bottom box holds the types of inputs you can enter to manage yourself at the specific location. The top right holds a visual representation of the town/dungeon you are moving through. 

[PC-88] The Black Onyx (1984) (BPS) [Translation]