The recent remake and extended versions got me thinking about something I have often wondered about over the years, but don't remember seeing directly stated anywhere... is the "evil wizard" in this game meant to be Zaks? Or a different evil wizard?
It's actually kind of weird how the dialog in this game sets up two villains, the king and the wizard, but then neither of them ever appear in the game!
@robin-floyd Hi.
According to the story, it mentions two unseen characters called Wizard Weird and the Evil King who like you said, are mentioned but never seen in the game or ever mentioned on the later games.
I don't know what the Olivers' mindsets may have been around that time, nor why they chose not to revive Zaks for that game.
But, when the game was re-made for the NES as 'Mystery World', Zaks is the main villain this time and the troll is Rockwart.
What's more, Rockwart mentions the King and talking to Denzil mentions the King being away and that Zaks may have tricked Rockwart into keeping Dizzy prisoner in the dungeon. {eggs2}:torch:
Yeah, I think at the time the Olivers hadn't really thought through ideas like Zaks being a recurring villain of the series. It was pretty early days, being only the third game in the series, and of those three initial games (Dizzy, Treasure Island, Fantasy World) none of them have a lot to do with each other story-wise. Evil King/Evil wizard were probably just kind of standard fantasy tropes which they inserted because they fit.
But it is interesting, as you say, that the later NES remake tweaked the details of the story just a bit to make it more consistent with later games, with the wizard ret-conned into being Zaks and the King no longer a villain.