Back to Epic Fantasy Warrior Quest

< Previous Game | Next Game >

Epic Fantasy Warrior Quest XII: Curse of the World Devouring Water

Originally hailed as building on the success of EFWQ XI, EFWQ XII was very well recieved until it was pulled from game shelves and Phonics was put out of business. The cause of this was a lawsuit by Hanna-Barbera and Turner Entertainment who thought that the game was very similar to their cancelled cartoon show The Pirates of Dark Water. While Phonics lawyers and fans argued that there was actually very little similarity the courts decided to award Hanna-Barbera and Turner Entertainment the rights to the game and profits that had come from the game's sale. Phonics had sunk all of its profits from EFWQ XI into EFWQ XII and in order to stay afloat had to merge with CubeSoft to become Cube-phonics. Hanna-Barbera and Turner Entertainment had announced to their fans that they intended to repurpose EFWQ XII into a Pirates of Dark Water RPG. However significants delays in the rescripting of the game and overruns in the budget caused Hanna-Barbera and Turner Entertainment to abandon the project. Since then a fan modded freeware version of EFWQ XII has surfaced among the Pirates of Dark Water fan community.

Story

The story begins during The Great Breakening, when Battal was fragmented into multiple islands by the Geotelespacial Fractarent. From The Sea of Eternal Sorrow seeps a dark evil water that destroys all in its path. A young Cohoris teenager is sent a vision of the this evil and is informed by the gods that he must gather a team and stop the evil water from destroying Battal by collecting 14 artifacts left by Cohor in commemoration of his Fourteen Great Trials. The young teenager, named by the player in the game but called in the handbook Ken, awakes from his visions, gathers a ragtag group of other adventures and sets out on the high seas to meet adventure. The story then progresses by the player moving from island to island in search of the fourteen items which are located on fourteen of the sixteen islands of Breakened Battal. Each of the artifacts also corresponds to one of Cohor's trials as well and do not have to be found in order. A table of items, islands, and trials is below:

During the game it is revealed that Ken is in fact a direct descendant of Cohor and destined to lead his people. After all 14 items are collected the crew goes to the Blackest Isle of Minathok to stop the water from spreading. There they face off with the anthropomorphic manifestation of the water which they must defeat with the 14 items. Once the manifestation is defeated the game moves to the epilogue showing what happens to each character after the final battle.

Gameplay

The gameplay is very similar to the previous installments of EFWQ. Each character has an advancement tree that allows the player to customize his characters which ever way he deems appropriate. There are 6 main characters and 14 other characters that the player may obtain over the course of the game. Movement from one area to the next is done via the overworld map which is zoomable and combat is done in a turn based manner.

Characters

Party Members

• Ken: A Cohoris youth destined for greatness.
• Rena: A young woman who has a talent for Life Elemenstation.
• Terry: A Tribbit thief.
• Rika: An Elven archer.
• Howard: An old Imagineer.
• Tina: A Indie'Ahn bard.

Other Characters

• Andy: A Shushipodian warrior.
• Bill: A Human rogue.
• Eileen: A Witch-Elf sorceress.
• Gerard: A Human fighter.
• Karen: A Zonardian Knight.
• Borm: A Dwarven cleric.
• Harold: A Ninja, cannot be in the same party as Steve.
• Steve: A Pirate, cannot be in the same party as Harold.
• Nameless Bill: Man of mysteries.
• Jane: A Magic Rune Knight.
• Norm: A Free Furniliar credenza.
• Greg: A Siege Engineer.
• Princess June: A Princess of Mandleclang.
• Verus: An Animal Breeder.

Trivia

Besides being sued for copyright infringment this game contained a Peep breeding minigame which was so graphic that it got banned in 5 states. If one succeeded at the Peep breeding game the player obtained Bronze Hoarde as a summonable Elemanifestation. Also the game contains a rather accurate depiction of the Battle of Evermore.

Not to be confused with EFWQ X II: Bubbly Girl Dress Up Party which is derived from EFWQ X: Child of the Elemanifestations and not related to EFWQ XII.