Based on TSR‘s Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Second Edition ruleset, Slayer is a first-person Role-Playing Game that was developed by Lion Entertainment and released exclusively for the 3DO in 1994. The game was published by SSI in North America; by Mindscape in Europe, and by T&E Soft in Japan (under the title “Lost Dungeon“).

Slayer‘s dungeons are randomly-generated and are different with every new game that is played. First you create a character, or choose a pre-existing one, then you choose the level of difficulty (and can tweak individual settings, like dungeon depth, monster frequency, poison effectiveness, trap frequency, et cetera), and must then fight and survive until you reach the end of the dungeon, and defeat the boss (who is randomly selected from a number of possible bosses).

Picking up found items is as simple as walking over them (if ‘auto pick-up’ is enabled, which it is by default), and movement, melee combat, magic use, and inventory management are also very simple. Weapons, armour, and other items are easily equipped, discarded or used from the inventory, and there’s also an automap that fills-in as you explore, which is very handy.

One thing I noticed about Slayer is the fact that the inventory graphics are identical to those used in the Eye of the Beholder series, which was also published by SSI, so I can only assume that SSI gave permission to do that (or maybe even insisted upon it). Anyone who’s played the Eye of the Beholder games before will recognise them immediately.

Combat is real-time and is also very simple: face an enemy and press the attack button, or cast a spell at them. To avoid dying you need to rest and eat food often and approach your battles carefully, making sure to upgrade your weapons and armour when you can. All weapons have a ‘cooldown’ period, meaning that they become unavailable for a short while after use, so it’s important to time your blows carefully and not just mash buttons in panic.

Time continues (meaning: you can still be attacked), if you’re stood there with your inventory open, but thankfully time does stop (and you won’t be attacked) if you bring up the rest/map/save menu.

You can save the game at any point, although there’s only one save slot, which is a little disappointing. One thing that did annoy me about this game is that you can open doors, but you don’t seem to be able to close them (when they’ve been opened, doors just seem to vanish), which is a problem when monsters keep walking through them trying to kill you and you can’t close a door to keep them out. The movement controls are a little over-sensitive, which can be a problem when you have to be careful where you’re walking, and it’s also very easy to be killed by attack from behind, so you have to keep an eye on the red dots (monsters) on your minimap in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen.

Graphically, Slayer isn’t too bad. The 3D environments are very simple, and the 2D monster sprites are mixed in terms of quality. Sound effects and music are also a little patchy, but perfunctory. There’s no real story to the game and no NPCs to interact with. Slayer is all about combat and survival in randomly-generated dungeons. Nothing more; nothing less.

Slayer is a relatively simple RPG and may not appeal to players who prefer a more ‘hardcore’ role-playing experience, but the game is quite absorbing, varied and entertaining when you get into it. There aren’t too many games like it on the 3DO. It reminded me of Dungeon Hack, crossed with Towers II: Plight of the Stargazer, and is suitable for beginners on the lowest difficulty settings.

More: Slayer on Wikipedia