In addition to video games, it has also developed into a media franchise of live-action performances (television series, web series and stage productions, most famously a 2005 television adaptation by Tangren Media starring Hu Ge in his breakout role), audio dramas, comic books, artbooks, novelizations and fan fictions, as well as various digital and collectible merchandises.

Central to the story is Yunnan and its historical Kingdom of Nanzhao, ruling during the 8th and 9th centuries, whereas the depiction of the Chinese heartland vaguely resembles a mix of Tang and Song dynasty settings.

It presents a fictionalized civil war that ravages Nanzhao and its Miao populace, and later spilling into the Han lands, setting off the main plot.

The game mostly features real locations, beginning in Yuhang in northern Zhejiang, and then continuing through the likes of Suzhou and Yangzhou, eventually ending up in the Nanzhao capital of Dali City.

Li Xiaoyao is an teenaged orphan with dreams of becoming a wandering swordsman, living with his aunt, who runs an inn in a small fishing village in Yuhang County.

However, Xiaoyao is soon thrust unexpectedly into a quest across China with Zhao Ling'er, an exiled princess with great powers of sorcery who is the heir to the throne of Nanzhao.

Their effort to reunite Ling'er with her royal parents, as well as to restore peace to the land, would place them in the path of a deadly Black Miao cult, as well as its plot to conquer Nanzhao and thenceforth all of China.

Xiaoyao's aunt suddenly falls gravely sick, and the young man sails to a nearby island, rumoured to be inhabited in recent years by "fairy ladies", to seek a cure.

However, he loses memory of his encounter on the island, after being tricked into consuming a potion of amnesia by some Black Miao warriors staying in the family inn.

The two arrive in Suzhou and runs into Lin Yueru, the spoiled daughter of a wealthy martial artist family, who stabs Xiaoyao after an altercation.

While Xiaoyao initially shows reluctance to marry Yueru, he eventually pretends to agree in order to avoid incurring her father's wrath, but plans to escape later.

Xiaoyao is deeply saddened by Yueru's death, but he puts aside his grief because he has a more important mission to complete: find two rare items which can save the lives of Ling'er and their unborn baby.

They then discover that the drought was actually caused by the evil Black Miao cult leader Baiyue, who has already murdered the Naozhao king, the father of Ling'er.

The trio confront and appear to defeat him in a heated battle, but the crazed cleric summons a massive ancient water monster and merges with it.

Just before he leaves, he sees Yueru, raised from the dead by the grand shamaness' "puppet bugs" and gu magic, carrying his child with Ling'er and waiting for his return among the snow.

The game is a stereotypical adventure RPG where player's characters search through mazes in maps consisting of cities, dungeons, caves and wilderness.

The magic system contains the five elements of wind, lightning, ice (water), fire and earth, which form the descriptors for the offensive spells, each type able to counter another.

The game's music was composed by Lin Kunxin, whose most memorable titles include The Butterfly's Love (蝶戀), Martial Arts Contest for Marriage (比武招親), and Drunken Sword Master (酒劍仙).

[7] In the finished game, this matter was intentionally made ambiguous where Lin is shown standing under a tree in the ending cinematic even though she is supposedly dead.

Yao commented that he invested a great deal of feeling into the story, and the unclear ending was meant to leave events open to the players' imagination.

[1] Zhao Ling'er's death and the question of whether or not Lin Yueru was successfully resurrected have fuelled an abundance of forum discussions and fan fiction.

The game's success eventually led to the creation of the subsequent titles in The Legend of Sword and Fairy series, even somewhat against Yao's wishes.

This is a remake of the Windows 95 version using the Xuan-Yuan Sword 3 game engine, with improved graphics and minimal changes to the original story.

The inn management portion of the game involves lodging and dining, and features day and night cycles with different available gameplay options.