The Ishar trilogy, published a game a year from
1992 to 1994, is one of the few RPG series native to the Amiga, and
possibly the the only RPG series from France.
Typical for the Amiga, it excels in graphics (though animations were
usually considered weak) more
than in gameplay or a huge gameworld. All three games were available
for the Atari ST, and they were among the few who supported the
Falcon.
According to one forum posting, they used
some special trickery to display the graphics in 32 colours, instead of
the usual 16, and they looked pretty special.
In 1995, the three games were re-released on a CD, but for the PC and Atari only, not for the Amiga.
Screenshots
Reviews
- Ishar III is still alive, NetDanzr says, in fact, it is shining:
Overall, Ishar III is a game you should definitely try and play. It is large and tough enough to give you at least 20 hours of gameplay if you use a walkthrough and maps. Without them, expect a good week or more of hardcore gaming before finishing it. Ishar III is also one of the games where you want to do that extra step before going to bed; too bad that those extra steps transform into several extra hours. However, don't expect anything groundbreaking; the game was well done, but without the spark of genius that produced the previous two games.
- Undoubtedly Silmarils' most successful games
Home of the Underdogs says, and rightly so:
Silmarils touted Ishar I when it was released in 1992 as "a new benchmark for RPG"—a bold statement that turns out to be quite accurate: all 3 games boast exceptional 3D graphics for their times, huge gameworld, alternate solutions to puzzles, and—best of all—different personalities and goals of your party members that make gameplay tenfold more colorful and fun. Ishar III is the best of the series, combining the mundane kill-the-bad-guys-in-Ishar plot with time travel elements.
- The Amiga Games Database has an overview of the series and reviews of all three games by Cathy Macdonald.
On the Mac
All three Ishar games have been ported to the Mac. The first game was black & white. It runs on practically any Mac, and on system 5.
Ishar III came in seperate language versions (the previous games had been multilingual, French/English/German), needed 2400kB RAM and system 7.0. I couldn't find out anything about Ishar II.
