Xuan-Yuan Sword

Xuan-Yuan Sword is a turn-based oriental fantasy RPG developed by DOMO Studio and published by Softstar Entertainment on October 13, 1990 for MS-DOS. It is the original debut title of the Xuan-Yuan Sword franchise and a milestone in the early history of Chinese-language PC RPGs. The story draws from ancient Chinese legends. Protagonist Yan Chixia, a wandering swordsman, gets caught in the conflict between humans and demons. He travels across mythical lands, fights monsters and seeks the ancient Xuan-Yuan Sword to stop demonic invasion. It features simple turn-based combat, spells and equipment progression. Constrained by the hardware of the era, it uses low-resolution pixel graphics and keyboard controls. The Demon Refining Vessel system had not yet been implemented in this first entry. Originally released in Traditional Chinese for floppy disk, playable on modern computers through DOSBox emulator. Despite its relatively simple mechanics, this game founded the entire Xuan-Yuan Sword IP and remains a beloved classic DOS retro RPG among Chinese veteran players.

These games get the keyboard directly — the controls are whatever the game itself defines, usually in its own help or options screen. Gamepads are detected automatically. On phones you get on-screen buttons.