Rings of Power (video game)

Rings of Power is an isometric role-playing video game developed by Naughty Dog and published by Electronic Arts for the Sega Genesis in 1991. The player takes on the role of a young sorcerer whose quest is to collect eleven rings and use them to remake a powerful weapon to defeat an evil god.

Plot
A great battle was fought between the holy Nexus and the demonic Void — who battled over the Rod of Creation, which created the world of Ushka Bau. Their battle was so immense, the rod broke into two pieces, and both gods fled with half. This then took the form of eleven rings.

These rings were then entrusted to representatives of each of the six classes (Sorcerer, Knight, Archer, Necromancer, Enchanter and Conjurer). All of the rings have been lost, and the story of the rings has turned to a legend. Master Thalmus has requested the presence of a young sorcerer named Buc, his most promising of students. Buc attempts the quest of finding the rings, restoring the Rod of Creation, and destroying the evil Void once and for all.

Gameplay
Unlike most role-playing video games of the time, such as Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, Rings of Power has a style that shared many similarities to PC role-playing games such as Dungeon Master, Wizardry, and A Bard's Tale. The game is very open-ended, contains hundreds of non-player characters with many different dialog choices, and dozens of quests and random events. Practically every location is available from very early in the game.

Because the in-game map did not have any locations marked and there was no quest journal, many players criticized the game's difficulty as the goal of the game was achieved through careful attention to detail and constant exploration.

There was a glossy paper map sold separately from the game itself that aided in gameplay.

Development
According to Naughty Dog, Rings of Power was originally designed for DOS and Amiga computers until publisher Electronic Arts decided at the time that Genesis games were more profitable. As a result, it became Naughty Dog's first console game. The game's sales helped fund the development of Naughty Dog's next project, Way of the Warrior. Vijay Pande, creator of the Folding@home distributed computing disease research project, served as one of the game's programmers.

Reception
The game was poorly received. MegaTech magazine criticized the controls and difficulty. GamePro claimed it a 'must for video adventurers'.