Unfinished Quests: Prophecy of the Shadow

The first RPG I remember playing was Prophecy of the Shadow.  I spent many hours on this game, exploring forests, fighting monsters, selling treasure for better weaponry, and expanding my vocabulary. 

I admit it: I did feed the felon a bottle of white zinfandel.

The plot line is very standard: you are a mysterious orphan being raised by the local healer.  The world has been falling into disrepair for years now: magic disappearing, the rightful princess disappearing, an unscrupulous regent dealing unscrupulously, prophecies of doom floating around for those in the know, non-humans muscling in on previously human turf, etc, etc,  but everything for you is very ordinary until your master is assassinated and you are left to find your destiny on your own. 

I almost fulfilled my destiny...but I could never find how to finish the game.  Years later, desultory googling about a walkthrough in the hopes of finding out what the ending was supposed to be turned up nothing.  But a few weeks ago I tried again, and found not only a synopsis by another blogger who is blogging through old computer games, but links to DosBox versions of PoS!  Turing bless the internet, and Turing bless DosBox!

I am now on a quest to finish Prophecy of the Shadow and fulfill my destiny!  And I am having a lot of fun playing through this game again.  As in any good RPG, sometimes it takes you a few tries to hack through the creeping ooze:

At least PoS doesn't have mustard jellies (the Baldur's Gate version of ooze on steroids).   On the other hand, there are the PoS equivalent of Beholders, which throw fireballs at you.  I'm working on my strategy with ranged weapons, but honestly the only way I've taken a PoS Beholder down yet is to charge straight in with a great sword and keep reloading until this works.  

I'd forgotten some of the extra touches that make PoS so much fun:

Excuse me, do you sell shrubberies?

I did remember exploiting the poor fight coding: enemies come toward you in a straight line, and if they encounter an obstacle, they will stand and wait on the other side of the obstacle until you move.  I love standing safely on the other side of a bush and slingshotting a bandit! 

We'll see if this time I can finish the game.  Doing so will tie off a frustrating loose end from my early gaming days.