Roger Zelazny's CHRONOMASTER I Retro Review

[@MrEdders123]

Hello everyone, just a quick note to let you know that a few weeks after I released this video, CHRONOMASTER was finally made available on GoG.com and Steam :D

[@seanbrawley7488]

I presume stuff like this doesn't do the numbers, but a video essay of a game people haven't played that doesn't have one already is content worth making. Great work.

[@MrEdders123]

Thanks! That's my goal with the channel :)

[@HansAlRachid]

You have a fascinating knack for covering the genuinely obscure - much appreciated! I feel like most retrospective video essays have a tendency to cover well-treaded ground for the most part, only rarely offering new insights. Good stuff, is my point!

[@MrEdders123]

Thanks! Yeah I try to cover (relatively) obscure stuff unless I have a particular interest in a more well-known game. :)

[@pantonearqm2791]

I want to thank you for reviewing old unpopular games, I played Meat Puppet and Chronomaster thanks to your reviews and enjoyed both despite their issues. Can't wait for next review.

[@LloCiDul]

Dude. I thought I knew everything about my favorite author, Roger Zelazny... didn't know he was involved in a game. Only found thus after stumbling upon your Baulders Gate reviews, which were excellent, so I checked your channel for similar long videos. Your doing gods work, this is great man! Please keep making videos, you'll hit the algorithm jackpot someday man. 💟

[@MrEdders123]

Thanks! I really enjoy doing videos on obscure titles like this, especially when they have a bit of history behind them. I was actually a bit apprehensive since at the time of the review I'd only read Chronicles of Amber and didn't know much about Zelazny, let alone Lindskold, but after reading Isle of the Dead I saw a lot of the influences on Chronomaster. The developer (Dreamforge) also made several AD&D games prior to Baldur's Gate (e.g. the Ravenloft series). I will definitely try to cover more point-and-click adventures in 2023!

[@nmonk8280]

I'm really enjoying your content - this is rapidly becoming one of my go to channels thanks to level of analysis and often genuine scholarship. Even for these sometimes forgotten games! Carry on the good work mate, hope you see some continued and wider success, you deserve it

[@MrEdders123]

Thanks :D I wouldn't have been able to find a lot of this information without sites likes Mobygames and Archive.org

[@mostlydead3261]

@@MrEdders123 I gather most of my info from wikipedia..

[@WarLore]

now THIS is the level of obscurity I like

[@2HeadedHero]

Capstone: The Pinnacle of Entertainment Software Well that brings back some horrifying Witchaven flashbacks

[@MrEdders123]

hehe Capstone had an interesting corporate history, I should cover it if it crops up in another video some day

[@2HeadedHero]

@@MrEdders123 Even though Civvie has made their company into a meme, I'd be really interested in the story behind them!

[@misterkefir]

Always happy to watch a well made obscure video game review. Thanks, man.

[@anjetto1]

Look bro. Okay. Listen to me. This is good stuff. I don't want you to get discouraged

[@alexhuff426]

All of your videos are excellent. Well researched. Lovely editing. Engaging writing.

[@mironovsan]

In the end of the review after "Hear it now" voice a sound of thunder should be added. That line was used in a sound testing to see that you set up the sound settings correctly.

[@MrEdders123]

Yeah I wanted the music to kick in as a wee joke tho :)

[@noneofyourbusiness7965]

A great review!

[@MrEdders123]

Thanks!

[@R0omwithoutawindow]

Great review!

[@RIlianP]

Roger Zelazny's fiction was always blurred the line of sci-fi and fantasy, Jack of shadows, Roadmarks, Lord of Light, Creatures of Light and Darkness, Donnerjack, and others, all are based on the stipulation that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, and vice versa, but without going into something as pedestrian as lovecraftian cosmic horror as many of the modern authors do. Hell, even in The chronicles of Amber there is a character that found some technologically advanced cyberpunk world and likes to spend majority of his time there instead of classically fantasy Amber.

[@TheMadAfrican1]

"Impale them on the thorns of justice" is a legitimately great line. It feels like it was said by Homelander or Peacemaker or a very serious version of The Tick. Or maybe it's just that Data said it.

[@MrEdders123]

Probably came from Lindskold or Zelazny, though I think I've heard the line before 🤔

[@bloodrunsclear]

It’s weird hearing Brent Spiner voiced someone who isn’t Data O_o

[@AcroNoumenon]

I'm proud of you.

[@MrEdders123]

Thanks mum.

[@LilMalygos]

Probably one of... two? games which were made by DreamForge but not published by SSI. Second being "Anvil of Dawn", published by pre-3DO New World Computing (I guess SSI not wanted to publish a fantasy video game not made in DnD universes). This one published by Capstone, yea "pinnacle of interactive intertaiment" huh. Well, I can clearly see traces of DreamForge work - some 2d hand drawn assets, cutting dialogues (I think ther voice engine was cpu speed dependent). However there is a one thing about dreamforge: their 2d art was absoluetly awesome in my opinion. Their VGA hand drawn graphics matched only people like Westwood. However, their 3d pre-rendered things were horrible. I remember those low detailed pre-rendered videos in Menzoberrianzan or Veil of Darness. I love old video game graphics, I love classic 3d in terms of low poly flat shaded graphics and visuals of early 3d acceleration era, however I never really managed to "get" into 3d pre-renders of the era, espessialy from before ~1996. There are some titles like Disruptor on PS1 where it fits and done well, but then Iook at this and like - ehh, it would've looked better as a hand drawn art. But this is my personal opinion. Nice mention of the perspectives on science fiction and fantasy. My husband is a long time fan of classical science fiction work, and we both enjoy old style "sword and planet" stuff. Things in this era were more wild, with a lot more imaginative concepts. With things which many people will count as "crazy" or "insane" nowadays. With different perspectives on space, time, universe, they often tried to explore beyond our sence of reality. Modern science fiction try to stay in conventional narratives and known worldview for the most part. This worldview is expanded since past century, however still far from free mind exploration of old fictional work. With Might and Magic, clip of which you showed while talking about this matter, is an interesting thing. When Heroes spin-off was created it was initially detached from old MM games. However, Might and Magic 6 re-welded universes together. And since Heroes of Might and Magic 2 and 3 have probably bigger community than the rest of the series, and since those games did not had sci-fi elements, people try to ignore them or even more, hate people who try to bring those elements from original series into Heroes. Which is ironic, since Might and Magic 7 was in parallel with the HoMM3 events and planned HoMM3 expansion should've featured sci-fi-ish content (which met hate from Heroes comunity, which led 3DO, masters of NWC at the time to cancel plans, which led in changes and some people leaving company and in the end, demise of NWC, MM series and 3DO itself).

[@MrEdders123]

Yeah it's interesting looking back at older stuff and seeing the blend of genres, both in the 1980s and the pre-Tolkien era of the 20th century, where it intersected with Lovecraft, colonial literature and things. I remember as a kid I absolutely hated what gets called "isekai", like Ultima with the real-world-to-Albion connection because it made the setting feel more fake to me. I only liked settings that were totally divorced from real life.

[@tknewyork18oo29]

Looks like a pretty cool game need a good reboot..

[@HelmetHair]

Was going to ask if you read the tie-in novel, but you mentioned you didn't. I have a soft spot for stuff like that, but usually it's pretty cheesy stuff and not that well written. Anyway, great review as always.

[@MrEdders123]

Yeah I couldn't find an ebook version, and I doubt it was worth the cost of shipping it to Asia :)

[@Richardiii2]

I really love Roger Zelazny. So many of his early/mid career novelettes are just excellent. Also he was well known for mixing fantasy and Sci-fi. His early novels, most of which were heavily inspired by myth were written intentionally so that they could be interpreted as either. I highly recommend Lord of Light if you like that sort of thing. However stay away from Creatures of Light and Darkness. One of the worst books I've read.

[@MrEdders123]

Yeah I liked his short stories more than Chronicles of Amber et al, to be honest. I think Chronomaster came at the tail end of a wave of text or point-and-click adventure games that were promoted as being made in collaboration with famous writers (e.g. Harlan Ellison, Douglas Adams etc.) Zelazny seems (according to Lindskold) to have been quite interested in the open-ended nature of having multiple choices/endings in games, so it's a shame he passed away before experimenting with that.

[@KaylaJoyGunn]

Five seconds in, and.. Is that Brent Spiner?! And why is he reading his dialoge like a university drama major..?

[@MrEdders123]

Yeah, Spiner and Perlman are in this.

[@davidt1995]

Great video !

[@MrEdders123]

Thanks ;D

[@Salantor]

It is fascinating to me that a person with a low attention span can produce hours long videos on old-school cRPG, which are known for being slow as snail on sleeping pills. In other words: good job sir!

[@mostlydead3261]

u should review some horror games for october.. KKKodex have a soft spot for Undying so u could review that..

[@MrEdders123]

Undying is too well-known imo

[@lipsontajgordongrunk4328]

Who the hell wrote that review for The Dark Eye and gave it a 42% That game was incredible.

[@MrEdders123]

I'd like to cover it one day, depends on how in-depth other reviews are

[@Superschokokeks]

I stil think there's a lot of untapped potential in games D: Going for a cinematic approach to reach more audiences didn't help that fact, altough I understand why this is the way most succesful games and IP turned out this way

[@wabbit234]

What if they had called it TimeWonk? Do you think it would've sold better? What about ContiniumJank?

[@MrEdders123]

It definitely got lost in a jumble of other titles with similar names

[@elbarto6668]

*#WTDuck** is going on?!...*

[@realamericannegro977]

This looks like Omicron

[@MrEdders123]

Omicron?

[@realamericannegro977]

@@MrEdders123 Omicron Tje Nomad Soul on Dreamcast and PC

[@user-tr4os8mc4v]

But seriously, review a good game.

[@MrEdders123]

No!

[@mostlydead3261]

@@MrEdders123 if u insist on obscure games maybe ur oKKKtober video should be on some more obscure horror game like Killing time or Curse The Eye of Isis.. u prolly played both..

[@MrEdders123]

@@mostlydead3261 I'm already playing Deathtrap Dungeon for this month's game. Probably won't do "themed" videos as there's too much pressure to complete them on schedule. :( I did write a review of Killing Time on RPG Codex a couple of years ago, though.

[@Superschokokeks]

I rather find disappointing that most settings nowadays stay in their abitrary boundries. Games like Chronomaster are bloated with creativity and doesn't resembling anything we have seen. Like a child - the true wonder of exploring a new world. Well of course we saw dunes, castles and a skeleton with a top hat, but we didn't saw them in one setting. And on another note: dragons with mounted guns and carrying atombombs - why not? What else do you want to do with dragons if not turning them into warmachines :| Anyways, my point is: if we stop using always some made up restrictions in our made up stories, we probably would have more unique made up stories to explore and make up some stories in our head as well. (Of course the story itself should have rules to follows)

[@hermantcherdakli2053]

So the idea behind this channel is to make bad reviews of bad games and hope the "bad" parts somehow cancel out? It's not working, Ed

[@MrEdders123]

Who's Ed?

[@migueldegreef6565]

The f are you talking about