The Legend of Sword and Fairy (video game)

The Legend of Sword and Fairy (仙劍奇俠傳), also known colloquially as Sword and Fairy 1 (仙劍一), is a fantasy adventure role-playing video game developed by the Taiwanese game company Softstar Entertainment, incorporating elements of wuxia, shenmo and xianxia and heavy inspirations from traditional Chinese mythology. Initially released in 1995 for the MS-DOS platform, the game was later re-released for Windows 95 in 1997, for Sega Saturn in 1999, and as a re-rendered version for Windows 98/Windows XP in 2001.

The game was a huge critical and commercial success (despite rampant piracy) across Greater China and has been widely praised as one of the most iconic and influential Chinese RPG games of all time, and its further worldbuilding has since spawned a successful video game franchise in Taiwan and Mainland China. In addition to video games, it has also developed into a media franchise of live-action performances (television series, web series and stage productions, most famously a 2005 television adaptation by Tangren Media starring Hu Ge in his breakout role), audio dramas, comic books, artbooks, novelizations and fan fictions, as well as various digital and collectible merchandises.

English translations of the game title
The game title was unofficially translated into English as The Magic Sword and the Chivalrous Youngsters, and Chinese Paladin. Softstar Entertainment officially named it The Legend of Sword and Fairy upon the release of the sequel. However, in the third and fourth instalments, the English title was changed to Chinese Paladin and has remained as such since then.

Plot

 * Note: There are many subtle differences among the numerous versions of the game. The plot provided in this section is based on the original version for MS-DOS and Windows 95.

Li Xiaoyao is an orphan who lives with his aunt, who runs an inn in a small fishing village in Yuhang. When his aunt suddenly falls gravely sick, Li travels to a mystical sea island in search of a cure for his aunt. He meets a beautiful maiden Zhao Ling'er, whom he falls in love with. Forced by Zhao's nanny to marry her and remain on the island forever, he manages to escape with the medicine and succeeds in healing his aunt. However, he loses the memory of his encounter on the island after being tricked into consuming a memory-erasing drug. He finds Zhao abducted by a group of Black Miao warriors living in the inn, who have massacred her island, and saves her. Despite not remembering their previous acquaintance, he decides to help accompany Zhao to her homeland Nanzhao in search of her mother, whom she thinks might still be alive.

Li and Zhao arrive in Suzhou and runs into Lin Yueru, the spoiled daughter from a wealthy martial artist family, who stabs Li after an altercation. Revived and healed by Zhao's magic, they visit the city and chance upon a martial arts contest, where Li is taunted into a fight with Lin and defeats her, unexpectedly winning her hand in marriage (as the official purpose of the contest is to test potential suitors and find Lin a husband whom she will accept). When Li shows reluctance to marry Lin, her father threatens to him, so Li pretends to agree but plans to escape later. On their wedding night, a serpent monster is sighted in the mansion and Zhao disappears under mysterious circumstances. Li and Lin believe that Zhao has been kidnapped by the monster, so they set off in search of her. After a series of adventures through Yangzhou and the capital, the duo ended up in western Sichuan, where the Mount Shu School, a powerful cultivation sect, is based. They learn that Zhao has been imprisoned in the Demon Prison Tower by the Mount Shu's leader. Li and Lin break into the tower and succeed in rescuing Zhao after making a perilous descent to its base level. However, they all suffer grave injuries when the tower collapses.

The trio are saved and nursed by a Miao sorceress, who tells Li that Zhao is pregnant with his child, and that Lin has died from her wounds. Li is deeply saddened by Lin's death, but he puts aside his grief because he has a more important mission to complete: find two rare items which can save the lives of Zhao and their unborn baby. In his quest he meets and befriends A'Nu, a sorceress-in-training and the daughter of the White Miao leader, who tells him that the Miao region has been affected by a prolonged drought, the Kingdom of Nanzhao is in chaos, and the White and Black Miao are at war with each other over scarce resources. After travelling back in time at the Nüwa Temple and retrieves the last of the five elemental pearls, Zhao recovers from her childbirth, fulfils her destiny as a demigod descendant of Nüwa, and summons a rainstorm that restores peace to the Miao land. They then discover that the drought was actually caused by an evil Black Miao cult leader, who has already murdered the Naozhao king, i.e. Zhao's father. The trio confront and defeat him in a heated battle, and Zhao sacrifices herself to destroy an ancient water monster summoned by the cleric.

Li is traumatized by the loss of both Zhao and Lin. He bids A'Nu farewell and travels home alone. Just before he leaves, he sees Lin, now an undead resurrected by puppet bugs, carrying his child with Zhao and waiting for his return among the snow.

Gameplay
The game is a stereotypical adventure RPG where player's characters search through mazes in maps consisting of cities, dungeons, caves and wilderness. The game has no overland map; entry points to subsequent locations can always be found on the current location's screen. The story line is mostly linear, although side quests can be made available via conversation with NPCs, but they do not affect the story's progression. Once the player completes the quest associated with a particular location, there is usually no reason to return there. In most cases, return is impossible, because either the entrance is destroyed or the player travels to the next location via a game mechanic.

Combats can be initiated with plot conversations or when the characters come in contact with random visible enemies on the map. When the characters engage in combat, they are taken to a separate screen, where the battles are purely turn-based. Combatants with higher mobility aplitude will act first, and then actions alternate between the player characters and the enemies. The actions taken during battles mainly consist of normal physical attacks and magical spells. The players may also defend themselves or teammates, throw projectiles and use items, and steal from the enemies. Once the appropriate equipment is obtained, the player may also capture monsters to later turn them into beneficial items. The magic system contains the five elements of wind, lightning, ice (water), fire and earth, which form the descriptors for the offensive spells, each type able to counter another. There are also spells of special physical attacks not related to any elemental type.

The player's equipment is primarily upgraded through treasures looted in mazes and items purchased from shops. Defeating monsters usually make negligible contributions to the player's inventory, but it is the primary source of money. Healing and combat support items can be made from captured monsters as well as bought. The player can also make poison-based weapons using certain types of venomous insects as raw material.

Development
The game was developed by the Kuangtu/Crazy Boys Production Team (狂徒製作群) of Softstar Entertainment, with concept work beginning as early as 1991. The group consisted at that time approximately 12 members, some being very young with little experience in game design. The Legend of Sword and Fairy was their first major RPG project. The production manager was Yao Zhuangxian (姚壯憲), who was 22 years old at the time. The game's music was composed by Lin Kunxin, whose most memorable titles include The Butterfly's Love (蝶戀), Martial Arts Contest for Marriage (比武招親), and Drunken Sword Master (酒劍仙). Lin Jiawen, a graphics artist on the team, was the major contributor to character portraits and animation. She also enthusiastically participated in the designing of the mazes, but her expertise in that area was limited.

Yao faced some turmoil in his love life during the game design process. This influenced him to integrate his own views of love into the game. Yao said, the three female protagonists are based on reality; Zhao Ling'er is like a girlfriend; Lin Yueru is like a lover, and Anu is like a mate. At some point, there arose a dispute regarding to the fate of two of the female characters in the end. In the finished game, this matter was intentionally made ambiguous where Lin is shown standing under a tree in the ending cinematic even though she is supposedly dead. Yao commented that he invested a great deal of feeling into the story, and the unclear ending was meant to leave events open to the players' imagination. In the years that followed the game's release in 1995, Yao did not wish to openly address questions regarding the game's ending. There was an anecdote about the ending: Yao was in favour of Zhao while another producer Xie Chonghui was preferred Lin. In Yao's blueprint of the whole game, the ending is that Lin's body is intact but her soul is destroyed while Zhao's body has disappeared but her soul exists. However, Xie disagreed with this setting. Eventually, this setting was broken by some final changes and the sequel indicated that Lin's body was preserved by a special type of insect.

Reception
The Legend of Sword and Fairy has been praised as the pioneer of Chinese RPGs. It has deeply affected a whole generation of Chinese, and established a particular Chinese style of story-telling and maze-running RPG. Many Chinese consider it to be one of the most classic RPG games ever made.

In the first month following the game's release in Taiwan, The Legend of Sword and Fairy sold over 100,000 copies. Sales reached 350,000 copies in mainland China a month after the game's release there. The game's sales totalled about two million copies, but as many as 20 million copies may be in circulation due to piracy.

The Legend of Sword and Fairy won numerous awards. In 1995, the game won the Best Role Playing Game award from the magazine CEM STAR and the Golden Bag Game award (遊戯類金袋奖) from KING TITLE. The Legend of Sword and Fairy was also on the top of the Best PC Game List of the New Gaming Era (新遊戯時代) magazine until October 1996, for 14 consecutive months; and topped the "My Favourite Singleplayer PC Game" list in the Pop Software (大衆軟件) magazine for ten years.

The Legend of Sword and Fairy is best characterised as a very memorable tragedy. Its plot, especially the ending, has moved many players to tears. Zhao Ling'er's death and the question of whether or not Lin Yueru was successfully resurrected have fuelled an abundance of forum discussions and fan fiction. Yao Zhuangxian became reputed as the "Father of Xianjian", and many players reverently refer to him as "Immortal Yao".

Due to popular demand, the Kuangtu production team released New Legend of Sword and Fairy in 2001. Minor changes were made to the storyline; and the graphics was greatly improved using better technology (new visual effects, reproduced music, some additional storyline details, etc.). The most significant and most requested addition was two new hidden endings. The game's success eventually led to the creation of the subsequent titles in The Legend of Sword and Fairy series, even somewhat against Yao's wishes.

Famitsu magazine scored the Sega Saturn version of this game 6/6/4/5 for a total of 21.

MS-DOS version
First released in 1995, it is often cited as the most successful video game in Taiwan and mainland China.

Windows 95 version
A re-release for the Windows 95 platforms. Some bugs (such as typos) in the former version were removed, and the overall difficulty reduced by simplification of map mazes. Additionally, three-dimensional AVI clips were introduced in place of the original static pictures. Also, the RIX music used in the DOS version was replaced with MIDI tracks.

Sega Saturn version
This is a version designed for Sega Saturn console in Chinese and Japanese.

New version
This is a remake of the Windows 95 version using the Xuan-Yuan Sword 3 game engine, with improved graphics and minimal changes to the original story. Two alternate endings are dedicated to the two female protagonists of the story.

Initial release was in 2001, titled as New Legend of Sword and Fairy, for the Windows 98 platform. It was re-released again as the New LSF XP version for the Windows XP platform.

SDLPal (Unofficial)
This open-source project created by enthusiasts aims to reimplement the main executable PAL.exe with SDL without using proprietary source code. As of 2022, it can run perfectly on Windows (Including x86_64 and ARM64 which was not supported in the original version), macOS, Linux, Unix, Android, iOS, 3DS/Wii (Hacked consoles only), Windows Phone, Xbox One/Series (Under developer mode) and more.

This project was used by Softstar Entertainment to create a modern port for Windows (Steam/CubeGame) and iOS.

The Xianjian Inn
A business simulation/adventure game released in 2001, which ended up a sleeper hit. The story is set in a lighthearted alternate universe based on the original game. The inn management portion of the game involves lodging and dining, and features day and night cycles with different available gameplay options. The female protagonists from the original game may also be taken on dates in the form of adventures in various locales.

Chinese Paladin Online
A MMORPG has been made and is currently in open beta in mainland China, Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore.

Live-action adaptations

 * Chinese Paladin (仙剑奇侠传, 2005) — television series adapted by Chinese Entertainment Shanghai (later known as Tangren Media), starring Hu Ge (his breakout role), Liu Yifei and Ady An.
 * Xianjian Inn (仙剑客栈, 2015) — comedy miniseries adapted from the spin-off business simulation game by Youku, incorporated with plotlines of the original game, starring Leo Wu, Sun Xuening, Xu Yue, Tong Keke and Kingdom Yuen
 * Legend of Sword (仙剑奇侠传, 2015) — theater play by Ranspace Group, showing from April 15 to April 26 at the Shanghai Culture Plaza, starring Wen Zhuo, Tu Hua, Huang Xi and Ni Yan.
 * Paladin Legend (又见逍遥, 2024) — web series adapted by Penguin Pictures, a subsidiary of Tencent Video, starring He Yu, Yang Yutong and Xu Hao.