Game Review: Tales of Maj'Eyal

I've been playing roguelikes for years, ever since I found a copy of Moria on one of those old DOS shareware CDs that went around in the mid-90s, but I've never been very successful at them. I played Angband for years and I don't think I ever got past the tenth level of the dungeon legitimately, my Ancient Domains of Mystery games went much the same--it's only in the last year that I've managed to get to the pyramid and the dwarf village quests consistently--and even though I somehow figured out how to hexedit my Rogue save to max all my stats, I still never won. The only roguelike I've ever won until now was DoomRL, which is an amazing game but doesn't quite have the depth that the previously-mentioned roguelikes do. But today, I won Tales of Maj'Eyal.

I first encountered ToME back when it was called Tales of Middle Earth, and the main thing I remember is that it had almost nothing to do with Middle Earth. Playable ents? Eagles of Manwë flying through dungeon corridors killing orcs? Noldor oozemancers? Starting in the halls of Mandos as a shade and having to fight your way out? I'm not a Tolkien purist, but it seemed about as Middle-Earthy as Angband was, so I shelved it and didn't think about it for years. Later I heard the whole game got a new engine and a new setting, and when it came out on Steam I bought it. And 72 hours, one expansion, and one heartbreakingly close run where the final bosses killed me, I finally won.

Da da da daaa, da dum da da-daaaa.

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