Legendary Series 1: Battle On Upitoonur

What's A God To A Non-Believer?

If you haven't realized it yet, let me say it outright. This game is kind of bonkers.

It really captures that manic ZZT energy of games made by young authors, where anything can happen because it doesn't matter whatsoever if it makes any sense for it to.

The clearest example is early on when Rod is still escaping from prison. At the end of the room filled with guards is a god guarding the exit named Ryuthogakakash. Not to be confused with the villain Ryuthar. Kakash refuses to let anyone through as they will surely die to what's up ahead (spinning guns).

This leads to a sort of puzzle where players need to choose things to say and do in order to convince Kakash to let him through. At first, the options are somewhat reasonable. Directly asking to pass, praising the god, and well... asking if they like to fight.

You can learn about how Kakash has no friends. You can wonder if he's telling the truth when he says if he showed you some of his moves and he refuses lest he eliminate everyone nearby. You can also of course claim to be able to beat him up yourself.

Then you get a few different prompts of punches, kicks, and shooting the god. Depending on what path through the menus Rod ends up taking, he might call a truce and have to restart the conversation. Alternatively, he might be thrown to the ground, have his gun taken, and be "shot in the head nine times", for an automatic game over.

Or he might kick the god to the ground and while he's down "pump his back full of metal", losing ten ammo in the process but winning the fight.

This game is absolutely incredible, is what I'm saying.

While hardly on the same level, a number of smaller oddities can be found throughout the game. Care for a drink from a water fountain? These can be safely drank from to restore some health. Turning down the water produces a message about how the water is fine, pure, fresh, and won't kill you.

It's not lying, but don't expect to drink again as the fountains dematerialize after use. How wasteful!

Ro-opal's help goes beyond supplies, and in the unexpected direction of housing. Not once, but twice during the game players come across safe rooms with beds to rest in and a note from Ro-opal hoping they enjoy their home away from home.

The first one is tiny, although it has a massive three board basement to accompany it. The second however, has a surprising number of amenities.

Like this blender in the kitchen. I don't think you should put gems in there, but you can! And just try to guess what happens when you do (click to reveal):

This one is going to be with me for a long time.

You can also get a number of foods and drinks from the vendor. Thirty gems for the best chicken you've ever had.

And the duplicators mean you can get infinite of everything if you wanted.

Sincere Flattery

In addition to all the oddities, there are plenty of familiar comforts for the ZZTer frightened of the funny screen resolution and colors. Like a lot of ZZTers earliest games, you can tell which games Jag played by how they inevitably manifest in Jag's creation.

The bank vault from Town is represented of course. How well these mechanisms are implemented varies wildly. Some authors don't realize you can push things too far and just get inside, or make it so some numbers don't need to be interacted with at all to allow the main mechanism to slide open. This one gets a pass, but is certainly odd in that the lights are on the entire time. Instead of having players find a combination and then input it, Jag tasks them with pushing each component of the lock into place without the actual combination mattering so much. It's only the "push last" that explicitly ties this to the bank, rather than just being a lock-style slider puzzle.

Another popular inclusion here is the iconic Z.U.T.S. from Best of ZZT. Like giant centipedes, it too is an irresistible siren call to the new ZZTer. Yet at the same time I feel like I've run into more instances of the boards being lifted and modified rather than folks putting in the effort to build a little roller coaster ride from scratch.

Jag doesn't copy here, which is appreciated. Truthfully, given how many paths in this game are already this twisty for no discernible reason, it's kind of nice to get a break from navigating them, even if the pushers are significantly slower than the player.

Alas, the praise for a non-plagiarized Z.U.T.S. is short lived. This "Keeper of the Keys" forces players to ring the doorbell to get the key with the guardian object being identical to the one from Town save for the guardian's message being changed to the much less iconic

Endless Distractions

You can tell that Jag had quite the time assembling this game when you start looking at it from the editor. Most ZZT games are assembled in the same order players experience the game. The game begins at the beginning of the board list, and ends at the end. That's not really the case here.

And I don't just mean a menu tacked on at the end! This game's board list starts with the opening prison sequence, but doesn't include the stealth board. The fight with the game's final boss Ryuthar is board seventeen out of fifty-two.

It gets weirder though. There's a significant amount of content in this game that comes before the game starts as well as after it ends. The main menu offers the usual play and credits options, while also including an interview board where you can learn about the author and not one but two "Meet The Team" boards.

The interview with Jag isn't as exciting as it could be, for our only look at an author with just this one release to their name. They're busy with school, like computers, and have made some games with Game Maker 4 that I would love to see for myself.

The "team the meet" is more interesting. You don't get any in depth information, just names of a surprisingly large number of testers as well as Jag being depicted with a crown and scepter. It looks like this game had its testing come from outside the ZZT community, with testers including siblings, friends, and friends' siblings. ...Or given the sheer number of bugs that I don't doubt Jag would have been capable of fixing, this is more the list of people he intended to have do the testing. I keep forgetting the game is explicit about being a beta with bugs.

The second team board is for all the losers out there. Several characters here are fictional which is preferable. You get some dated language with one character, and Barney is also among the crowd of course. There's a "Max" clone that Rod doesn't seem too happy to see as well.

The real star of the board is Jacob, a person who is clearly real (and given a last name to boot) that Jag really has it out for in the way that only a (presumed) twelve year old can.

I can't even decipher the complaint here. Both stories have a made up language? That seems to be the only thing this guy is saying is similar. If only there were more ZZT games to shine light on this amusing drama.

All this text meant that without even starting the game I had a good hundred screenshots already.

Once the game actually begins, the distractions don't go away either. Just a few boards into the prison section, an alternate exit labeled "Lobby" can be found with a note warning players to save before entering.

What you get is not a lobby, but rather a bathroom, a true ZZT staple.

It's also probably the most hideous looking board in the game, but that's not important.

A scroll explains that the board is for "humor only". You do not need to go here at all, but if you want to spend time bothering people in a public restroom, here's the perfect opportunity!

And while the board can be reached very early on, it's reasonably down the list in terms of board number, suggesting Jag took a bit of a detour to implement it. This is noticeable even in normal play as the parts of the board that are blocked off by objects have attendants that ask for payment before you're allowed to enter.

When players first arrive, they won't actually have enough gems to be able to get inside most of them. This in turn leads to doing what you can do: shooting them instead. Half are immune thanks to secretly wearing power armor, but the rest give the player access to two of the rooms when killed.

The occupied room features a ladies toilet. For ladies only. You can get pepper sprayed with a blast of stars if you try to interact with the woman currently on said toilet. Fair enough.

The other toilets are all yours. Giving you the option to urinate only to notice there's no way to flush. A second use leads to the obligatory flood of yellow slime spreading a mess all over the board. Early on, this can be game-ending due to a lack of ammo, hence the multiple warnings to save.

The bottom-most room is filled with various bits of icky things. A dead body, mouse poop, and a bucket intended to be used as a toilet. Rod, having some dignity, refuses.

There's the question of the second passage that's inaccessible with another nearby object. This is the alternate entrance found much later in the game that allows players to revisit the bathrooms with money this time.

Since all the toilets are the same there isn't really any that much reason to return. Looking at a dead body and a toilet/bucket is the only thing that can't be done on the first visit, though players won't know that at the time.

It's just... kind of here. What's really surprising is how little there actually is to do here. This seems like it wants to be a fuck around and find out board where you have a large number of interesting items to interact with. Except the only only thing here are toilets. If you want to flood a half dozen toilets with Rod's infinite bladder, all the more power to you. Whatever it takes to tick the box of having a flushable toilet in your ZZT world I suppose.

The diversions extend to the game's endings as well. The game's main ending consists of beating up Ryuthar in battle, leading to him activating the planet's self-destruct mechanism and fleeing into space. It's a pretty somber ending, with the assumption being that everyone on the planet is killed, presumably including your trusted friend Ro-opal and Ryuthar getting away. Rod reaches a ship to escape with himself, watching the planet explode behind him and wondering if he'll ever see his family again. Roll credits.

Dark isn't it?

Alternatively, players can read a scroll in the second home Ro-opal builds for Rod which gives a password and no clues what it's for. Just before the final fight with Ryuthar, an alternate path can be taken where an object asks for the password which has to be entered by setting a flag via the cheat prompt. When Rod takes this path, he finds a transporter and returns to Earth, where his mother was worried sick and his father seems to have thought he went on vacation. Rod sees a ship fly overhead that drops a message in the bottle signed by Ryuthar stating that they'll meet again.

It's also not a great ending. Things seem a little more promising for Rod, and Upitoonur hasn't blown up, so folks are certainly more alive than the alternative. However, with Ryuthar still at large, it's only a matter of time before Rod is once again abducted by those who want his blood. It's happier in the short term, but there's still no real closure.

When all is said and done, players are dropped to a post credits scene which has a few bonuses for those still demanding more Upitoonur content. A bonus ending board shows Ryuthar reaching another planet to begin his conquest anew, fighting and quickly subduing another alien thanks to his superior weaponry.

Then there's this freely accessible maze room. One more giant winding path for the road. Luckily, you can speed things up by shooting the breakables used for shading to quickly access the inner layers rather than going all the way around.

I have no idea what this board is here for. It's early enough in the board list that I guess Jag just never bothered attaching it to the main adventure and didn't want it to go to waste. It's not very fun to go through, and reaching the passage in the center just takes players back to the credits board, so it offers nothing other than a last chance to pad your high score with a few extra points.

The post-credits room mentions searching for hidden secrets as well. Fake walls are hidden on the left and right sides that also lead to more weird boards.

On the right you'll find yet another maze. This one is invisible with some exclamation point objects that cause the entire maze to temporarily flash. The other objects next to them aren't enemies, but bonus items that give 5000 points a pop. So uh, forget about the previous maze board if you're looking to max out your score. This board alone will let you reach the limit.

Again. I don't know what the appeal here is meant to be.

Finally, there's a hidden preview of the game's sequel, Etioptigiiten's War. Credit where it's due, anyone who makes it to this point has to at least be a little interested in what Jag had planned for the next game. I don't think anybody was hooked on the rich story of Rod's magic blood and the aliens that crave it, but give the way the actual endings go, there's plenty of things about the sequel I wouldn't mind hearing about.

This board doesn't help though. It looks like more of the same, which isn't all that surprising. You get a large room with some spinning guns to cross and six identical aliens that shoot and throw stars at the player who wind up overwhelming the board and shooting each other. This is not selling anybody on anything. This board could just as easily have fit in to this game, and worst of all it's really bad about the stars.

A scroll gives players 10,000 health and ammo so there's no danger. How true that would be in the sequel is unknown. After the surprisingly good use of stars with one of the henchmen earlier, this is a considerable step backwards. Had a sequel happened, this board would have steered me away from getting to it anytime soon.

I just get the feeling that by the end of the game especially, Jag didn't want to or didn't know how to stop. Making all this stuff post-credits is somewhat helpful as it means the main game isn't bogged down by these suddenly shoddy boards. I feel like Jag would've had a better time either focusing on the sequel, or perhaps trying something new with ZZT that would be more fitting of his toilet humor additions.

It makes the game drag a bit even though it's finished, making closing out ZZT and returning to a normal resolution that much more of a relief. It's a step up from something like Sivion that feels like it's twice as long as it needs to be, and collapses around the player while they're still trying to achieve their goals. That doesn't make it a good way for things to end though. I'd have been much more eager for more if the game finished cleanly with Ryuthar's escape, credits rolling, and then maybe a post-credits scene showing Ryuthar's next move.

Final Thoughts

Speaking of surprise endings, that brings us here.

Legendary Series does not exactly live up to its name. It asks players upfront to put in some extra effort to even play the game, a demand which has only become more work since its release. It's loaded with buggy boss fights, extra-lengthy corridors, and its share of unnecessary side-rooms that all make the game longer, both literally and figuratively.

If you give this one a go yourself, don't hesitate to ?ZAP as needed to shorten some of these walks.

But it does have some of that new ZZTer charm to it. The bugs are somewhat forgiven by the game being described as a beta, and there's definitely some promise here. The game feels like a relic for a 2002 release, coming off more as a mid-90s title that's more inspired by official ZZT releases than those made by the post-AOL community. Its focus is simple, just a little action/adventure that pits good versus evil, with a then-relatable protagonist of a teenager in over his head trying to save the galaxy.

It does this with a unique coat of paint offered by third-party editors (or so I hope).

Had the game been a little kinder to the player's time, as well as not so buggy I think this could have had its fans in the form of younger ZZTers at least. The game reads like a story written by a child, and it's easy for a younger audience to become enamored with its world despite how little is actually established. It's expectedly been long overshadowed by its fancier peers of the era. This poor game's date is the midpoint between DavidN's The Mercenary and Quantum P.'s first Operation: GAMMA VELORUM. A dated range not measured in months or weeks, but a brief eight day period. It didn't stand a chance.

Legendary Series is far too simple to have gotten much in the way of positive feedback when it was released. There are still some things worth appreciating here. I love the aliens looking alien via uncommon ligatures and symbols for their graphics rather than smiley faces. The bizarre writing is silly fun without being outright incomprehensible. The boss fights would be reasonable if they could be won, and the non-boss boards provide some engaging if not innovative obstacles to overcome. Legendary Series is a promising first start that had the misfortune of being dead-on-arrival by 2002 standards. Jag appears to have never released anything since, and that makes the game an unusual blip on the radar that never amounted to much fuss.