The Legend of Sword and Fairy (video game)

The Legend of Sword and Fairy
Front cover of the DOS version of this game
Developer(s)	Softstar Entertainment Inc.
Publisher(s)	Softstar Entertainment Inc.
Series	The Legend of Sword and Fairy series
Platform(s)	PC: DOS, Windows, Sega Saturn
Release date(s)	1995 (Taiwan) 1996 (Mainland China) 1999 (Japan)
Genre(s)	Role-playing video game
Mode(s)	Single player

The Legend of Sword and Fairy is a role-playing video game developed by the Taiwanese company Softstar Entertainment and its subsidiaries. The game incorporates elements of wuxia, shenmo and fantasy. Since its release in 1995, the game has spawned a successful video game franchise in Taiwan and mainland China. It was also adapted into the 2005 Chinese television series Chinese Paladin.

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.

Li Xiaoyao, the protagonist of the game, is an orphan who lives with his aunt in a small fishing village near Suzhou, China. When his aunt falls sick, Li travels across the sea to a mystical island in search of a cure for his aunt. He meets a maiden Zhao Ling'er, whom he falls in love with. Although he was forced by Zhao's nanny to marry Zhao and remain on the island forever, he manages to escape with the medicine and succeeds in healing his aunt. However, he loses memory of his encounter on the island because he was tricked into consuming a memory-erasing drug earlier. When he meets Zhao again, he does not remember her but still saves her from a group of enemies, who have destroyed her home and murdered her nanny. He then decides to accompany her to southwestern China in search of her mother, who might still be alive.

Li and Zhao arrive in Suzhou and meet Lin Yueru, the spoiled daughter of a wealthy martial artist. Li unexpectedly defeats Lin in a martial arts contest and wins her hand-in-marriage. When Li shows reluctance to marry Lin, her father threatens to kill him if he does not marry her, so Li pretends to agree and plans to escape later. On their wedding night, a giant serpent was sighted and Zhao disappears under mysterious circumstances. Li and Lin believe that Zhao has been captured by a monster, so they set off in search of her and arrive in Sichuan, where the Mount Shu Sect, a powerful martial arts clan, is based. They learn that Zhao is actually a half-serpent spirit and has been imprisoned in the Demon Prison Tower by the Mount Shu elders. Li and Lin break into the tower and succeed in rescuing Zhao after making a perilous descent to its lowest level. However, they all suffer grave injuries when the tower collapses on itself while they were escaping from it.