God of Thunder is a Zelda-like action adventure game, and this is an indie game released around the early nineties.
This is completely compatible with DOSBox, and that's not even the best part. The original Game Developers have now released the originally Shareware production (Shareware was very common for Indie software at the time) as Freeware.

One of the sites to download it from can be found here.

Introduction to the game

Like many Shareware games in the 1990s, God of Thunder features three episodes which can be played as three different games, of which the first one was free, and the other two had to be bought. Well now that the game is entirely freeware you will get all three episodes for free. You can play these episodes in random order, but starting with episode 1 and doing the other 2 in order, will make the game very logic, first of all story wise, but also gameplay wise, as the power ups you gain in episode 1 will be present in episode 2 by default and what you find in episode 2 is by default present in episode 3.

In this game you are Thor, the God of Thunder. You are sent by the supreme god Odin to Earth in order to save save the world from the evil powers of Loki, the god of mischief, and his two minions, Jurmangund and Nognir. Each episode features one town, and in episode one you have to beat Jurmangund to complete the episode, in episode 2 you fight Nognir, and in episode 3 you will (of course) face Loki himself.

During your quest you will face many soldiers of Loki, and a lot of monsters. Your only weapon is Mjölnir. A holy hammer you can throw at your enemies and will always return to you after it hits its target. Additionally during each episode you will learn two new spells that can make your quest easier.

Aside from fighting the game also revolves around puzzling. Each area can contain a puzzle or be part of a great puzzle. Your spells and your hammer can play a big role in solving these puzzles. In some areas you may even need not to kill the enemy as you may get it to help you, and without its help solving the game might be impossible. You will also lose points as a punishment if you kill people who are on your side. It is therefore very important that you don't shoot your hammer away mindlessly as it can cost you. Each area needs to be taken a good look at before you act. The game is not hard, but you have to remain focussed and sharp in order to progress through the game smoothly and therefore the game can offer a real challenge.

Aside from spells you can also find jewels, which serve as money. You can find appels that restore your health, but watch out, some appels are rotten and will hurt you in stead (you can see the difference quite clearly trust me), potions which restore your magic powers, keys you may need to open locked barriers and treasures which just give you points.

Notable characters you can find during your quest are green angels restoring your magic points when standing close to them. Red angels who restore you HP when standing close to them, and apple sellers who sell you apples to restore your health. Of course, once you get into town, the townspeople are bound to have important information for you. And some of them will give you assistance you really require to move on.

The boss battles are all three challenging, but not ultra-hard. The game has three difficulty settings for enemies, so the game is accesible for beginners and still a challenge for the pros, although I must note that the difficulty settings only affect the strengths and weaknesses of the enemies. The puzzles remain as easy or as hard (your choice).

Bugs

There is one known bug in God of Thunder. If you obtain a key item from an NPC and die before leaving the place, you lose the item and the NPC will not give the item again. This can render the game impossible to beat. It's pretty hard to manage this (in fact you mostly need to press the "D" button to die on purpose, which is the emergency escape when you cannot solve the puzzle you're in anymore), but you still need to be aware of this.

Presentation

The presentation of the game is overall quite good. The graphics do look well especially considering they are only taking up 256 colors using a screen of 320x200 pixels (which was the standard of that time). The menus are very easy to navigate through. Tutorials are available in the form of yellow spheres you can touch in order to make Odin tell you stuff, but you can skip that, and the explanations the game gives are often pretty short. The game does also show a sense of humor, so you can have a good laugh every now and then, although the humor is not extremely funny, it does make things a bit easier to swallow.

A tiny interface issue looking a bit ugly is the area number showing in Episode 2 and 3, in order to make it easier to use the hint book you could purchase back in the old time, but you get used to that pretty quickly.

Conclusion

For those who have love for old games, God of Thunder is a must-have, especially since it was an indie production, or at least not an AAA title. The game runs very smooth even inside an emulator and its concept is fun, even after all these years and after many years to come.