{"id":210,"date":"2007-10-01T14:40:00","date_gmt":"2007-10-01T19:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/archives\/210"},"modified":"2016-07-07T18:44:38","modified_gmt":"2016-07-08T01:44:38","slug":"thorgals-quest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/archives\/210","title":{"rendered":"Thorgal&#8217;s Quest"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/10\/thorgal-spaceship-1.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/10\/thorgal-spaceship-1-300x225.png\" alt=\"thorgal-spaceship\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-3588\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/10\/thorgal-spaceship-1-300x225.png 300w, https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/10\/thorgal-spaceship-1-768x576.png 768w, https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/10\/thorgal-spaceship-1.png 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>I <a href=\"\/stack\/archives\/145\">mentioned before<\/a> that I own three games that are based on French comic books, but this turns out not to be true.  Rather, I own one game based on a French comic book (Druillet&#8217;s <em>Salammbo<\/em>), and two games based on <em>Belgian<\/em> comic books.  No coincidence, either: the same artist provided the source material for both.  One of them, <em>XIII<\/em>, has been off the Stack for some time.  The other, <em>Thorgal&#8217;s Quest<\/em>, really should have been finished long ago too &#8212; it&#8217;s essentially a one-sitting game &#8212; but I took a break in the middle, and by the time I got back to it I had activated the nVidia glitch and made the game unplayable.  (Even with my new graphics card, there are occasional video problems and even crashes, but nothing that couldn&#8217;t be overcome by saving regularly.)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/10\/thorgal-french-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/10\/thorgal-french-1-209x300.jpg\" alt=\"thorgal-french\" width=\"209\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-3592\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/10\/thorgal-french-1-209x300.jpg 209w, https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/10\/thorgal-french-1.jpg 383w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 209px) 100vw, 209px\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/10\/thorgal-box-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/10\/thorgal-box-1-209x300.jpg\" alt=\"thorgal-box\" width=\"209\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-3593\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/10\/thorgal-box-1-209x300.jpg 209w, https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/10\/thorgal-box-1.jpg 261w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 209px) 100vw, 209px\" \/><\/a><em>Thorgal&#8217;s Quest<\/em> seems to have been a straight-to-bargain-bin release.  I picked it up mainly because the packaging was designed to fool you (successfully, in my case!) into thinking it was part of Cryo&#8217;s <em>Altantis<\/em> series.  Apparently the original title is <em>Thorgal: La Malediction d&#8217;Odin<\/em>, but the North American release is <em>Curse of Atlantis: Thorgal&#8217;s Quest<\/em>, with &#8220;Atlantis&#8221; in much larger letters than &#8220;Thorgal&#8221;.  (I&#8217;m calling it <em>Thorgal&#8217;s Quest<\/em> here to split the difference.)  It just shows how provincial fame is.  According to <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Thorgal\">Wikipedia<\/a>, Thorgal is &#8220;one of the most popular French language comics&#8221;, and a best-seller as recently as 2006, but over here, it&#8217;s so unknown that a tenuous connection to a semi-obscure adventure game series gets top billing.  <span class=\"footnote_referrer\"><a role=\"button\" tabindex=\"0\" onclick=\"footnote_moveToReference_210_1('footnote_plugin_reference_210_1_1');\" onkeypress=\"footnote_moveToReference_210_1('footnote_plugin_reference_210_1_1');\" ><sup id=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_210_1_1\" class=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_text\">1<\/sup><\/a><span id=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_210_1_1\" class=\"footnote_tooltip\"> See also the 1983 laserdisc game <em>Cliff Hanger<\/em>.  No way would that get released today without the name &#8220;Lupin III&#8221; plastered all over it, and probably &#8220;Hayao Miyazaki&#8221; as well. <\/span><\/span><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_210_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_210_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top right', relative: true, offset: [10, 10], });<\/script><\/p>\n<p>The <em>Atlantis<\/em> games are first-person adventures based mainly around gratuitous self-contained puzzles slapped arbitrarily on various ancient-civilization backdrops &#8212; not the sort of thing I&#8217;d easily recommend to others, but sometimes I&#8217;m in the mood for it.  For example, I was in the mood for it when I bought <em>Thorgal&#8217;s Quest<\/em>, which instead turned out to be a third-person adventure game based mainly around hunting for small objects and occasional archery mini-games.<\/p>\n<p>Thorgal is a Viking warrior who, in the cutscenes, looks kind of like Mick Jagger wearing a tunic and a prominent facial scar. The game starts out with him doing the Odysseus thing, stranded far from home and family by a storm at sea brought on by the wrath of the gods.  Enter a magician who shows him a harrowing vision of the future: Thorgal shooting and killing his own son.  Thorgal immediately decides that the vision must really be about a shape-shifting villain adopting his guise, and rushes to get home and protect his son before it&#8217;s too late, making gamers everywhere shake their heads sadly.<\/p>\n<p>On the way to the lee of the island, where he hopes he can hire a boat despite the storm, Thorgal has an adventure involving some canny bandits who keep the villagers cowed with a fake dragon.  Then he almost drowns, only to be whisked away by the same magician to a place called Between Two Worlds, which is your basic Ethereal Void with floating rocks and everything.  It was at this point that I really started to suspect that the game was based on a comic book, especially when I met the Guardian of the Keys.  Partly it was her apparent role as some kind of cosmic keeper of the balance.  Partly it was her appearance: a sexy woman with vivid magenta skin wearing basically nothing but strategically-placed locks of hair.  But mainly it was the way that Thorgal already knew her from previous adventures.  You could practically see the captions referencing back issue numbers.<\/p>\n<p>Before the Guardian of the Keys can send Thorgal back home, he has to pass a trial involving an interactive representation of his past.  And it is here that I learned of his extraterrestrial heritage.<\/p>\n<p>Seriously, now, this has got to seem less bizarre to a player who&#8217;s familiar with the source material.  It makes me wonder how certain other adaptations I&#8217;ve played must seem to outsiders.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/10\/thorgal-cryo-1.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/10\/thorgal-cryo-1-300x225.png\" alt=\"thorgal-cryo\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-3589\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/10\/thorgal-cryo-1-300x225.png 300w, https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/10\/thorgal-cryo-1-768x576.png 768w, https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/10\/thorgal-cryo-1.png 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>It&#8217;s also at this point that the Atlantis material creeps in and provides Cryo an excuse to re-use their Altantean skyboat model. Thorgal&#8217;s spacefaring parents, it seems, are descendants of people who fled dying Atlantis for the stars centuries ago.  Based on what I&#8217;ve seen online, I&#8217;m not at all convinced that this is canon.  It might just be Cryo winking at the fans, much like the <em>Sam and Max<\/em> cameos in the old Lucasarts games.<\/p>\n<p>I won&#8217;t say much more about the story &#8212; Thorgal does get home, and the prophecy does come true but not in the manner anticipated, just like you&#8217;d expect.  All in all, the production is a bit amateurish.  There&#8217;s some very nice art in the backdrops, but there are also places where the hand-drawn bits are too visible and don&#8217;t mesh with the 3-D models well.  The story is completely linear, even in some cases blocking actions for no logical reason until you&#8217;ve clicked on an NPC often enough to get all his scripted dialogue (even if the last bit is just &#8220;Farewell and good luck, Thorgal&#8221; or something.)  It&#8217;s far from the worst adventure game I&#8217;ve played, but it&#8217;s clearly built for Thorgal fans, who are expected to be a little forgiving.<\/p>\n<div class=\"speaker-mute footnotes_reference_container\"> <div class=\"footnote_container_prepare\"><p><span role=\"button\" tabindex=\"0\" class=\"footnote_reference_container_label pointer\" onclick=\"footnote_expand_collapse_reference_container_210_1();\">&#x202F;<\/span><span role=\"button\" tabindex=\"0\" class=\"footnote_reference_container_collapse_button\" style=\"display: none;\" onclick=\"footnote_expand_collapse_reference_container_210_1();\">[<a id=\"footnote_reference_container_collapse_button_210_1\">+<\/a>]<\/span><\/p><\/div> <div id=\"footnote_references_container_210_1\" style=\"\"><table class=\"footnotes_table footnote-reference-container\"><caption class=\"accessibility\">References<\/caption> <tbody> \r\n\r\n<tr class=\"footnotes_plugin_reference_row\"> <th scope=\"row\" class=\"footnote_plugin_index_combi pointer\"  onclick=\"footnote_moveToAnchor_210_1('footnote_plugin_tooltip_210_1_1');\"><a id=\"footnote_plugin_reference_210_1_1\" class=\"footnote_backlink\"><span class=\"footnote_index_arrow\">&#8593;<\/span>1<\/a><\/th> <td class=\"footnote_plugin_text\"> See also the 1983 laserdisc game <em>Cliff Hanger<\/em>.  No way would that get released today without the name &#8220;Lupin III&#8221; plastered all over it, and probably &#8220;Hayao Miyazaki&#8221; as well. <\/td><\/tr>\r\n\r\n <\/tbody> <\/table> <\/div><\/div><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> function footnote_expand_reference_container_210_1() { jQuery('#footnote_references_container_210_1').show(); jQuery('#footnote_reference_container_collapse_button_210_1').text('\u2212'); } function footnote_collapse_reference_container_210_1() { jQuery('#footnote_references_container_210_1').hide(); jQuery('#footnote_reference_container_collapse_button_210_1').text('+'); } function footnote_expand_collapse_reference_container_210_1() { if (jQuery('#footnote_references_container_210_1').is(':hidden')) { footnote_expand_reference_container_210_1(); } else { footnote_collapse_reference_container_210_1(); } } function footnote_moveToReference_210_1(p_str_TargetID) { footnote_expand_reference_container_210_1(); var l_obj_Target = jQuery('#' + p_str_TargetID); if (l_obj_Target.length) { jQuery( 'html, body' ).delay( 0 ); jQuery('html, body').animate({ scrollTop: l_obj_Target.offset().top - window.innerHeight * 0.2 }, 380); } } function footnote_moveToAnchor_210_1(p_str_TargetID) { footnote_expand_reference_container_210_1(); var l_obj_Target = jQuery('#' + p_str_TargetID); if (l_obj_Target.length) { jQuery( 'html, body' ).delay( 0 ); jQuery('html, body').animate({ scrollTop: l_obj_Target.offset().top - window.innerHeight * 0.2 }, 380); } }<\/script>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I mentioned before that I own three games that are based on French comic books, but this turns out not to be true. Rather, I own one game based on a French comic book (Druillet&#8217;s Salammbo), and two games based on Belgian comic books. No coincidence, either: the same artist provided the source material for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[177,181,178,176],"class_list":["post-210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventure","tag-altantis","tag-comics","tag-cryo","tag-thorgal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3596,"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210\/revisions\/3596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}