Tritorn

Gameplay

Also released as Tritorn: A Real Time Role-Playing Game, Tritorn was one of the first action RPG (aciton role-playing game) and Metroidvania titles, developed by Sein Soft (also known as Zainsoft) and released in 1985.

It was inspired by Hydlide and Dragon Buster, combining Hydlide's open-world action RPG gameplay with Dragon Buster's side-scrolling hack & slash gameplay.

It was the first action RPG with a true hack & slash combat system where the player needs to press a melee attack button to swing a sword. This was an improvement over the early Dragon Slayer and Hydlide games, which both used a simple bump-attack real-time combat system. Tritorn's hack & slash combat system was more like the Dragon Buster series and later The Legend of Zelda series.

It was also one of the first Metroidvania-style games, combining Hydlide's open world with Dragon Buster's side-scrolling format. It was released around the same time as two other Metroidvania pioneers, Brain Breaker and Xanadu: Dragon Slayer II.

Like Xanadu, the player could throw projectile magic balls. But rather than draining MP like in Xanadu, Tritorn instead has a limited ammunition of magic balls, giving it more of an early role-playing shooter element.

Controls

Numpad - Move left (4), move right (6), jump (8), enter door (5)

X - Swing sword (to slash enemies)

Z - Throw magic ball (limited ammunition)

S - Save data (save anywhere)

L - Load data (load anywhre)