Mgccl's Ivory Towerso tired

One of the best game I played in my life would be The Legend of Sword and Fairy[仙剑奇侠传, Xianjian Qixia Zhuan] or usually referred as it's program name in DOS, Pal. The other game would be LF2.

I played this game for 24 hours straight. I cried in the end... like I did when I first played this game when I was 7. The touching feeling is the same... the only difference, is I can't understand the deeper meaning behind the story back then.

The Setting:
The game is in both a Chinese fantasy world and a Wuxia world. Even it's not said in the original game, it kinda follows the following fictional world established by the sequels(which sucks and doesn't have a lot to do with the original).

The world consist of 6 different kind of beings.
The Shen(or gods), don't know where they come from... but Xian can become Shen. Shen can't reproduce. Shen seems to have power to make Xian or other inferior Shen into human.
The Xian, between Shen and Humans. Those are enlightened immortal humans have power beyond normal humans and still tries to reach the level of Shen.
The Normal Eukaryota: Yeah.. like humans, dogs, cats, flower, fungi and all other living things except ones in Archaea and Eubacteria.
The Yao(short for Yaoguai): Like Xian, but instead of humans, it is plant, or w/e other living even not-living things gained a lot power. In normal Chinese culture, anything living thing out of ordinary and not considered as good can be called Yao.
The Mo(or deamon): Just like Xian can become Shen, Yao can become Mo.
The Gui(Ghosts): You know what ghost means right? it means the same thing in all cultures. Usually ghost follows the path given by Buddhism.. they reincarnate as someone else. Before reincarnation, they have to drink a soup, which will erase all their memory.

The Plot:
You can read Wikipedia for the full plot. But Wikipedia's plot missed some info. So I'm going to show you the full plot of the start of the game and abridged version of the rest.
Small spoiler, introduction
Li Xiaoyao(In China, last name position first) was a kid who want to be a great hero and lived with his aunt, who owns a inn. Soon, his aunt got sick, and he want to save his aunt. The Miao leader who lives at his inn gave him a pill(which makes him forget stuff), and told him to go to an island to find a medicine that cure any disease. He go to the island and destroyed the island's special maze and find Zhao Linger. Who gave him the pill. Zhao's grandmanot genetically related come home and wants to kill Li because she fear Li reveals the island to the people they are hiding from. So Zhao's grandma transformed into her Nüwa form(basically...human upper body with snake lower body) and scares Li. She give Li 2 choices, either leave the island without 2 hands and the tongue(so he can never speak to write), or marry Zhao and live on the island forever. If he don't chose, she will eat him. Li is forced to marry Zhao.
The 2nd day after they get married, Li sneak out of the island so he can deliver the medicine to his aunt. After his aunt took the medicine, the pill from the Miao leader come to effect and destroyed Li's memory of past 24 hours. But he remembers to meet a drunk guy with mad skillz. Li sneaks out and meet him. The drunk guy teach him some techniques and left.
When Li tries to sneak back, he found his room got rented by the Miao people. He sneak back to his room from a secrete passage, and found Zhao, who become the hostage of the Miao leader. Li can't remember who Zhao was, but he and Zhao fought off two Miao soldiers who protect Zhao from been taking away.
Zhao and Li goes back to the island, and found everyone got killed and Zhao's grandma is dying. Her grandma told Li to take care of Zhao and died.
Zhao and Li goes back to the inn. Li and Zhao get confronted by the Miao leader. Who reveals the Hei Miao King(In the story, Miao have divided into Hei Miao and Bai Miao) want to see her daughter, Zhao. But Zhao doesn't believe in it and fought the Miao leader. After the Miao leader got defeated, he tries to capture Li's aunt when she walk into the inn, but got killed by her by one simple punch(she's bad ass strong, Miao leader have 800HP for god's sake)
Zhao want's to sleep with Li in the night, but was emotionally damaged when Li seems to forgot about the marriage. Li's aunt took Zhao away and tell Zhao to tell her everything.
The next day, Li's aunt give Li a package form his dead parents, and told him he should help Zhao find her mother. Li agreed.

So the story begins!! Big spoilers starts here

now.. for some small recap of what happened without all the details.
Li meet Lin Yueru, become her fiancee. Zhao disappeared. Li and Lin tries to find her... but she got captured by the Hei Miao people again.. then before Li and Lin meet with her, she got captured by people in Mt. Shu and put her inside the tower that lock Yaos inside.There will be a very touching story before Li and Lin go into the tower, but since it's not that important to the entire series development let's leave that out (some says it's more emotionally touching than the main plot, it's the most referenced segment of the game). Li remembered everything he forgotten and said they will live happily ever after or w/e. They fought the guardian, a Shen(2nd most strong boss in the game), destroyed the tower so they can get out, and release all the monsters during the process.[well... he messed up the world so there can be a sequel...smart] Lin's skull got crushed by a piece of the broken tower and died. Sad, she just said they are going to have a happy life.
The leader of Mt. Shu bring them to a great healer. She told the leader there is no way Lin can be alive again... but she can make her, not dead...[yep. foreshadowing for the ending...]
Zhao needs special medicine because she was pregnant and having a non-human body. So Li tries to find some and meet Ah Nu, the daughter of the Bai Miao Clan leader. They found the medicine. Zhao give birth to a baby.
Zhao finally meet her mother, who was now a stone statue whom the Bai Miao people worships.
Zhao saves the Bai Miao and Hei Miao clan by ending a drought.
Zhao goes to meet with her father, The leader of the Hei Miao Clan, who was just a impostor of the final boss, the religious leader of the Hei Miao Clan. After the boss's defeat, he merges himself with the immortal ancient water demon, he said if it's not because of Zhao (the heir of Nüwa, seems like the only thing can destroy the water demon) is still alive, he can use the demon to control the world a long time ago. It's said nothing can stop him now because the water demon is immortal if there is water around it.
Zhao sacrificed herself to destroy the immortal demon.(wait... isn't the demon immortal???)
The game ends with the death of Zhao.
Only the staff once used by Zhao remains...

The ending was so ambiguous.. no one actually know what happened.
Li leaves Ah Nu to become the leader of Mt. Shu[according to the sequel], which he politely inclined the time when Lin and Zhao are both alive, because the requirements basically means he have no desire. I guess he's desire died with the 2 women he loved.
There is a image of Lin holding a baby in the ending. but isn't Lin died? the official explanation was... it's Lin's body... with Zhao's soul in it. Well I guess it's possible, Zhao is not fully human.

How can Zhao have babies? Because a mix between 2 different species(Zhao is a mix between human and Yao) can not produce offspring with reproductive abilities. But I guess biology over there is different.

There is a great argument about if Zhao is a Yao or something else.
Look at the English title. The fairy suppose to be Zhao, and fairies are considered as Yao. Zhao referred to herself as having the body of Yao, another support. But really... who cares...
Spoiler ends

The rest:
The entire game was written in QBasic.

The graphic was considered successful back in 1995. I don't think there are more than 256 colors, and one pixel are stretched to 4 pixels in the 640*400 resolution. Which means 320*200 screen is enough to retain all the data. Produce such a epic game in that resolution is truly a skill.
The background music? I still remember it now.

Why is the game so touching? I don't know... I don't know why I cried like all other Pal fan when the main characters meet their fate. Maybe, it's the feeling that there is nothing I can do.

Many RPG games have multiple endings, this one doesn't. It's the full impact of fate. Something is going to happen, and the player have no control over them. It's the same of reading a book.

No matter how the sequels, the TV dramas and the official not-that-great novel ruin the original. I will always be a fan of the original Pal.

I'm definitely going to break the copyright law and create a English version of that game. I'm putting hope on SDLPAL. They are a active group, the newest source code update was 3 days ago. I'm offering them a place for hosting on my hosting. Or if they want their own, I can manage for them and pay for their hosting if it's not too expensive(say... $30 per year is ok with me).

For the people who don't want to play the game, it's easy to just record important scenes + add some subtitle to a 90 minute movie. It surely won't take a huge amount of space [320*200 pixel, 256 colors, a lot repeating frames]. This adds to one of my plan after I finish my undergrad years.

BTW I love True Lemon, get your free sample! I actually liked it!
And I got 2 old(1962) textbook for $4.35. Boolean Algebra and its Applications by J.Eldon Whitesitt and Calculus With Analytic Geometry - A First Course by Murray H.Protter and Charles B.Morrey, JR. I need a proper textbook for my AP test.