Cadash (1989)

 

A couple of years after releasing Rastan, Taito and designer Hiroshi Tsujino unleashed Cadash, which might serve as an indication of how the tides had shifted in fantasy since the decade had begun. Cadash broadly resembles Rastan in that both games were side-scrolling hack-and-slash types (there was no crossover between the teams behind each game), but while Rastan was a pure sword-and-sorcery experience that was made to be a sort of unofficial Conan game, Cadash is a multiplayer, party-based game that tilts more toward the sort of high fantasy that had come to dominate the genre by 1990.

Up to four players can play Cadash simultaneously, each person choosing from a fighter (the closest to the older Conan/Rastan type), a magician, a priestess, or a ninja, each of course with particular strengths and shortcomings. Perhaps following Gauntlet's example a bit, or simply riding the RPG mania that gripped Japan after Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy blew up, each character has a set of hit points, upgradable equipment, and experience levels, and before getting to the monster fighting players can wander a town speaking to NPCs to get hints about what to do; e.g., when in the gnome village, you need to find a magical item that will shrink you down to their level so you can enter their homes and shops and teleport to the next continent over. Instead of simply going in one direction, the dungeons are somewhat nonlinear and exploration could lead to finding chests with extra power-ups, although a time limit meant the players needed to stay focused on the goal.

By the time Cadash was released, people were starting to perceive Dungeons & Dragons as less of the classic sword-and-sorcery experience it was at the start, where adventures were often just about taking care of localized issues or simply raiding dungeons while picking up a lot of cash, and more like epic adventures where parties were akin to Tolkien's Fellowship of the Ring and the fate of the world, if not all creation, was at stake. The story in Cadash is that demons are rising up to conquer the surface world behind their leader, Baalogue, whose name is a mistranslation of Balrog. Baalogue kidnaps the king's daughter, so the king hires the heroes to get her back and end the menace.

It's a reasonably entertaining game, especially with more than one player, and it being not terribly long offsets how the level design can be a bit dull. It's not nearly as visually or musically inspired as Rastan, but it's not bad in those aspects, either.