2026 Special - Realms of Chaos

Endrick and Elandra, siblings who have mastered the arts of sword and sorcery, embark on a quest to restore order to the realms. This is Realms of Chaos, an action-platformer that was originally released during the heydays of shareware. I have fond memories of that time, even though I could never afford to play past the first episode of any game. Decades later, I've somehow obtained almost the entirety of Apogee's classic library. I say somehow because the games were most definitely purchased, but I can't remember when or how. Managing a Steam library with nearly 1,800 titles is a bit troublesome. 

Anyway, I had to stretch the rules quite a lot to fit this throwback into the 2026 Special. The deuteragonists are sword-swinging Endrick and fireball-flinging Elandra. Swapping between hero and heroine is a mere button press away. This is important, because neither character can save the realms on their own. Elandra's magic is essential to defeating the final boss, but every casting costs gems. The hunk of metal that Endrick wields isn't powered by floating collectibles and is better for spongier foes. However, there's stiffness and delay in every slash. You're better off roasting agile monsters. Altogether, I'd say that character usage is a 55/45 split. Endrick gets a slight edge because of his larger health meter. Just keep in mind that the game is over when either sibling dies.

The chaotic realms that you'll be exploring are filled with all-things typical of the genre. Leap from moving platforms to cross beds of spikes. Climb ropes and search suspicious walls for secrets. Spend gems on power-ups that vary wildly in effectiveness. Yeah, this is one design-decision I have questions about. Part of it is because I don't value some power-ups as much as the development team. The magic shield sounds nice, but it sits too close to the player-character to be reliable protection. Buy it if you want an occasional bat-swatter. Temporary invincibility could be cool if the screen wasn't enveloped in an eyeball-searing effect. Really, all you need are the weapon power-ups, because they gift damage increases that last for the remainder of the episode. Find them or suffer to bosses (and some enemies) that have too much HP.

Like just about every other PC game of the era, players are allowed to save whenever they please. For Realms of Chaos' first episode, I treated this feature as a lovely convenience. That changes significantly in the second episode. I'm not sure what happened, but level-design goes from decent to dreadful towards the back half. The second-to-last stage is several mind-numbing hallways populated by monsters of exceptional tankiness. About 2/3rds of it consists of dead-ends and useless power-ups. Bizarrely, one of the exits is false and will send you back to the beginning of the stage. Past that is a vertical corridor with moving walls designed to smoosh adventurers. The one instance that really highlights how frequently players are expected to save is presented as a choice. If the player goes left, then they fall in a death trap. There isn't any indication that left is the wrong way. 

I suppose I shouldn't complain so much, because cheap deaths in short stages where players make their own checkpoints is far from the worst thing I've dealt with today. However, I absolutely have to mention the Stone Golem. Episode 2's end-boss drops rocks that fall quickly and randomly. His boiling saliva is overly tricky to jump over. I actually had to create mid-fight saves when I lucked into a pattern that didn't chew through my duo's already meager health-bar. For a game likely made by fans of NES platformers, they really dropped the ball here. This pile of stones is aggressively overtuned for the game it appeared in.

After the mess I was just subjected to, I went into Episode 3 fearing the worst. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that it was mostly pleasant. Sure, there were annoying jumps. One of the final challenges is a snake-like moving platform (think Super Mario World or Battletoads) that could've gone a lot worse than it actually did. I cruised through the last episode and its bosses with ease. Well, relative ease. Instant-death spikes and knockback-inducing enemies are still as potent as ever. I'm still very perplexed as to why Episode 2 turned out the way it did. Normally, I'd write it off as just me adjusting to the game over an extended period of time, but the truly obnoxious aspects of episode 2 aren't seen anywhere else.

Realms of Chaos is a fine little adventure, or at least it would be if half an episode wasn't perplexingly awful. Still, if it means anything, having the worst part of the game be towards the middle instead of the very end is pretty chaotic.

"Omigosh!"