Destiny of the Doctors is a 1997 action video game published by BBC multimedia and developed by Studio Fish.
The game is based on the science-fiction TV series Doctor Who, which centres on the humanoid alien known as The Doctor, a benevolent time traveller. The Doctor travels in the TARDIS, a time machine that's much bigger on the inside, facing foes such as his evil rival The Master and the genocidal alien Daleks. One key feature of the show is that the Doctor regenerates into a new form (played by a different actor) each time he's facing death. When Destiny of the Doctors was released, there had been seven different incarnations of the Doctor.
Gameplay consists of traversing the TARDIS's many rooms whilst completing tasks set by the Master (Anthony Ainley), in order to save the first seven incarnations of the Doctor. You are playing as Graak (a psychic being made up of the Doctor's willpower) and are aided by all seven Doctors (William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker And Sylvester McCoy, telepathically) and his ally the Brigadier (Nicholas Courtney, via a radio).
It features voice acting by Anthony Ainley, Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy and Nicholas Courtney, as well as audio clips taken directly from the show and impressionist David Coker (who supplies extra voice lines for the First and Second Doctors). Anthony Ainley also provided live action cutscenes for the game which would prove to be his last performance in the role. Jon Pertwee was due to record dialogue for the project but died before this could be completed. As a result, his incarnation speaks entirely through dialogue taken from his on screen performances and the game is dedicated to his and Terry Nation's (who created the Daleks) memories.
The gameplay is as follows, you select and incarnation of the Doctor to save and then complete a task for the Master (Collect an object and bring it to him, answer a riddle, complete an odd one out puzzle and many other things) and then face off in a boss battle against the Master).
Destiny of the Doctors contains examples of the following tropes:
- The '80s: The sound effects and location design are very reminiscent of this era of the show in particular.
- Acceptable Breaks from Reality: The Doctor and the Master's TARDISes now connect seamlessly via a corridor maze because... reasons?
- Alien Sky: Siralos's orange sky holds bulbous, greyish orange clouds.
- Anachronism Stew: For example, the Quarks appear as the main villain during the First Doctor's level, despite their first (and only) TV appearance being during a Second Doctor story.
- Broad Strokes: Despite being released a year after the TV movie, there are almost no references to it (possibly due to legal issues). The Master explicitly refers to the "seven complete incarnations" of the Doctor, seemingly ignoring Paul McGann completely. The unnamed monsters who capture the Master and put him into a cell in the game's ending cutscene are often speculated by fans to be the Daleks, thus leading directly into the Master's execution on Skaro in the TV movie's opening scene, but this has never been given any official acknowledgment.
- Cast from Hit Points: The Graak starts with 9999 hit points, but any exertion reduces that. Fortunately, there are enough restorative crystals for it to gain enough hit points to finish restoring the Doctor's incarnations.
- Energy Beings: The Graak, an "electro-telepathic entity," appears as a broadly humanoid outline of ethereal blue spheres.
- Expy: Siralos, with its ability to solidify thoughts, seems to be inspired by Solaris.
- Gameplay Protagonist, Story Protagonist: The Doctor is of course the main character of the game's story, but the character you actually control is an energy being called the Graak, ostensibly manifested by the Doctor as a physical entity to take on the Master and provide their means of escape.
- Heroic Sacrifice: The game ends with the Graak giving up all its remaining hit points to fully restore the Doctor's incarnations and break them out of the Determinant once and for all.
- Reality Warper: Siralos, "planet of pure mental energy," has enabled the Master to trap the Doctor's first seven incarnations in the Determinant, an arena of controlled, solidified thought.
- Rule of Cool: Most of this game makes no sense in the greater Doctor Who canon but it is fun enough to get away with it, especially for the time it was released.
- Shout-Out: The Autons are defeated by using the radio transmitter to play a segment of Tony Blackburn's radio show that apparently messes with the Autons' electronic senses and causes their heads to pop off.
- Underwater Level: A trapdoor in the TARDIS swimming pool leads to a submerged labyrinth full of Sea Devils.
- Voice of the Legion: Invited to ask the First Doctor particular questions, the Graak reveals a fantastically deep, distorted voice.
- Warp Zone: The TARDIS console room acts as this, since it enables you to level select the Doctor you next wish to save.
- Weaponized Offspring: From a certain point of view as Graak is a psychic being made of the Doctor's willpower who is capable of independent thought but is used as a pawn to fight the Master.
- Worthy Opponent: Of all the Doctor's incarnations, the Master considers the Third Doctor to have been his most worthy foe, praising his cunning and ingenuity.