Remembering Compile: Golvellius

An action-adventure game with a twist or three.

Compile, founded in the early 1980s, was a standout developer in its day. That day is long past now, however: as of November 2023, it’s already been 20 years since the studio closed its doors. In its over two decades, though, Compile showed off influential talent, and became the start of a family tree of developers across multiple genres that’s still growing today. Throughout November, the focus will be on Compile’s games, its series, its influence, and the studios that were born from this developer. Previous entries in this series can be found through this link.

Compile is most remembered — and rightfully praised — for their contributions in the puzzle and shoot ‘em up spaces. Those weren’t the only genres they worked in, however: Compile also had a knack for creating intriguing and ambitious action-adventure games that weren’t truly like anything else in the growing genre. They didn’t stick with it for very long, and there ended up being almost the entire company’s history in between their last two efforts, so the lack of recognition there is understandable. That doesn’t make it less unfortunate, though.

Sure, there were always going to be some Zelda comparisons for any action-adventure title that released before the late-90s, but limiting discussion of something like Golvellius to “is like Zelda” does what it actually is a disservice. Golvellius first released in 1987 for the Japanese home computer, the MSX, just over one year after The Legend of Zelda first came out for the Famicom Disk System, and the differences between them even in that short time were notably significant. Especially when you consider there was another decade of “Zelda clone” being written by critics to come.

Golvellius is an action-adventure game with three completely different play styles. There’s the top-down interconnected overworld that, of course, brought on the comparisons to The Legend of Zelda. That’s where the direct comparisons end, though, other than “the protagonists of both games use a sword.” Golvellius is also a side-scrolling action platformer, and has a number of vertically oriented forced-scrolling stages, too. It doesn’t waste any time throwing you into these different styles and gameplay elements, either, as the game begins in one of the side-scrolling stages, transitions to the overworld after an introductory “boss” fight, and then forces you to conclude that first region of the overworld with one of the vertically auto-scrolling dungeons.

Image credit: MobyGames

Basically, whereas something like (the plenty enjoyable) Neutopia was rightfully called a “Zelda clone,” given it was very much Hudson Soft’s attempt at making a Zelda-like game for their own system to let you know that hey, we have that kind of stuff you like, too, Golvellius does a better job of creating its own action-adventure game that stands on its own and has held up better because of the differences between the two, to boot.

The fact there are hidden cave entrances, staircases, random objects to attack or experiment on to open up pathways or make chests appear, the single-screen, sword-slashing style of play, certainly makes Golvellius a fit for some Zelda comps. The more vital comparison, though, is how Golvellius’ progression is tied into a Dragon Quest-like system, just translated into action-adventure rather than role-playing game terms. Like with the original Dragon Quest (and subsequent ones, too, let’s not kid ourselves), you’re going to spend a lot of time grinding in order to earn the cash you need for the equipment you require to take on progressively more difficult foes. Rather than doing so in a series of turn-based battles until you can raid the local village shop for everything in its inventory, however, you’ll instead slash (action!) your way around different regions (adventure!) as you also look for the various hidden shops and sellers in order to purchase all of that equipment.

Conversely, you can mostly avoid overworld combat in The Legend of Zelda if you’re careful about it, picking up your hearts through successfully completing dungeons and exploration, but fighting is the central progression mechanic of Golvellius. Which is also open-world, in the sense that you can traverse the whole thing as one connected space, but is more linear and requires you to complete a region before you get to move on to the next one.

And because of this more Dragon Quest-like progression system, every region has overworld foes in it that will basically kick your ass if you aren’t careful and sometimes even if you are, and until you’ve managed to purchase or find the equipment you need, they’re going to be a problem for you that has to be dealt with. Running won’t get you very far, since you need to be able to defeat these enemies in order to raise the money to survive long enough to find out where the boss is hiding, and then you also need to raise some extra cash to buy the MacGuffin from the old woman selling them to you at the end of each region. Why does this lady not just give you these all-important crystals that you need to save the world, you ask? We’ve all got bills to pay, you know, and it’s probably better if we don’t ask how she got her hands on all this gear in the first place. Better to just pay up and try to stop the titular Golvellius than argue with the woman who makes fun of you for being too stupid to realize how important what she’s selling is to your quest. (No, really, she does that.)

Golvellius has a sizable map, especially for 1987. Image credit: Hardcore Gaming 101

What kind of items? “Bibles,” for one, which let you hold more money at a time. I don’t think that’s meant to be a criticism of how much wealth is held by the Vatican, but you can take it that way if you’d like. Once you can store more money, you can then buy more expensive items: Life Potions to increase your maximum health, the “Mea” herbs that refill your health meter a bit when you die, or various pendants and rings that grant you specific powers, like cutting the damage you take or letting you destroy stones with your sword. You also need to upgrade your boots to traverse water, or even climb over trees and rocks, better shields to deflect small projectile attacks and then larger ones, and more powerful swords for taking down the game’s stronger foes. You start the game being able to hold a pretty meager fortune, but if you collect all 20 Bibles scattered throughout, you’ll be able to hold 100,000 gold. And you’ll need the space, too: the most advanced boots in the game cost 70,000 gold! Compare that to the cost of the first shield upgrade, at 8,000 gold, and you can see how there’s no way around constant combat in Golvellius.

You’ll also be punished quite a bit for your mistakes in this game, so it’s important to take that grinding and purchasing seriously in order to avoid making them. Some are harsh but not too bad in the long run, like if you let the bottom of the screen catch up to you in a vertically scrolling section, you’ll fail it and have to restart that stretch. Others, though, can have a serious impact on what you were just doing. You can continue after dying, but at the cost of half of your gold. If you die right after a purchase, that’s annoying but no big deal, but dying while you’re most of the way saved up for something expensive? Well, I hope you have a password that saved most of that gold. Those passwords, by the way, are 32 characters long. So try not to die, and hey, at least in the present you can play with save states instead.

While Golvellius originally appeared on the MSX, it was reprogrammed by Sega for their Master System and given “The Valley of Doom” as a subtitle, with Compile still receiving development credit, of course. The basic structure of the game is the same, though, the layout of dungeons and such is different, and the graphics were markedly improved. The MSX wasn’t the most powerful of gaming computers, which is also why Compile then took a lot of what went into the Master System version of their game and released a definitive edition of Golvellius for its successor, the MSX2.

Compile’s move to do that wasn’t a surprise, considering just how good the Master System version of Golvellius (seen in the above video) looked. It made excellent use of the SMS’ expanded color palette and brightness, and some of the game’s enemies — the larger sprites found in the the two kinds of scrolling sections, anyway — have a bit of a Westone style to them, which at least made them feel at home on a Sega console. And it fit Compile’s whole deal, too, since this was the studio with the Randar mascot — Randar appears once in each region, by the way, the little blue orb guy offering to fully heal you at a low, low price, once you find his hiding spot, anyway. You’ll acquaint yourself with him with how often you need to heal to avoid losing your gold by dying, so remember where he is once you do find that hidey hole!

It’s not just the graphics that stand out. The soundtrack is also very good, and it has a fascinating mechanic, too. Every time you upgrade a major piece of equipment — think sword, shield, boots — the music changes. It feels great, in the sense of being better prepared to face the world, and having a new theme to go with it. In conjunction with being able to better handle your foes or just explore new areas, too, it really adds something to the proceedings. The only downside is that if you do get attached to a particular theme, it’s temporary, but hey. So is everything else in life.

Golvellius isn’t a perfect game — stabbing instead of slashing makes combat a bit tougher than it probably needed to be, especially with the “numerous enemies gang up on you from multiple directions” style of behavior in use, it definitely has a lot of grinding in it, the lengthy passwords — but it’s still genuinely fun to play well over three decades after its initial release. While it received three different versions on three different platforms in a three-year stretch, it was mostly forgotten about otherwise. There’s a Disc Station spin-off, Super Cooks, for the MSX2 that lets you see this game’s antagonist, Golvellius, in an apron, and you buy cookbooks instead of Bibles. Hardcore Gaming 101 has you covered if you want to read about it right now. And in 2009, the Master System version received a port to iOS that changed the controls to touch — the rightsholders could really stand to re-release it on modern platforms without those touch controls.

Maybe most upsetting about the lack of Golvellius after its initial release window, though, is that the ending of the first promised a sequel, and then it never came. Golvellius is defeated by Kelesis. The princess, Rena, is now free. And then it turns out Golvellius just looks menacing and evil but is actually a pretty alright dude, and the three set out for a new quest where they’ll work together. Kelesis with his sword, Golvellius with his laser-breath, Rena with… well, this was the late-80s, so whatever she’s doing she’s probably doing it faster with less damage per hit. Someone make that game! Put down the Hyperdimension Neptunia games for a second, Compile Heart, and make that sequel.

While Compile wouldn’t return to Golvellius specifically, they would develop another action-adventure game that took the hybrid concepts even further. The Guardian Legend, released in 1988 in Japan and 1989 in North America, was like a mix of action-adventure by way of the topdown portions of Blaster Master, with the other half of the game being Compile’s emerging bread and butter: a shoot ‘em up. And fans of those games would have to wait until 2000 (and also be able to read Japanese) in order to enjoy the next notable action-adventure game from the developer. That’s Wander Wonder, which Kerry Brunskill covered in detail for PC Gamer earlier in 2023. For those without a rare boxed copy, you need to hope it becomes available for purchase through D4 Enterprises’ Project Egg retro game subscription distribution service, or receives a wider release, though, that’s more of a longshot.

Quite a bit of Compile’s more notable games have been re-released in some format, but some of those only on platforms with a limited reach (Turbografx-16 Mini, Sega Genesis Mini 2, Wii U), and plenty of others haven’t been made available anywhere at all. Golvellius deserves better than a touch-based iOS re-release 14 years ago, and it’s a shame that’s all it’s received in this century. Seek it out if you’re in the mood for something different in the genre that still seemingly stands alone: if you’ve got a tolerance for grinding in classic games, you’re going to love it.

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