Chaos Strikes Back is a continuation of the classic Role-Playing Game, Dungeon Master. It’s a sequel – but not the sequel – to the first game, and was originally released as a stand-alone expansion disk on the Atari ST. On the FM Towns it was published on CD-ROM by Victor Musical Industries in 1990, and there’s a bit of faffing around to do before you can actually start the game*. Thankfully you can at least do this in English as there’s an option to play in that language.

*= Before you can play Chaos Strikes Back you must either create a new party (by entering the prison and choosing from the available portraits), and then save it to a new 720Kb floppy disk; or load a set of characters from a pre-existing FM Towns Dungeon Master save. You then need to enter the CSB portrait editor utility program and then click on ‘Make New Adventure’ to activate and save a new Chaos Strikes Back file to the disk. Only then will you be able to load and start the game…

Unlike the original Dungeon Master, Chaos Strikes Back is different in many ways, but plays very similarly to its predecessor. You still control a party of four from a first-person perspective, except this time you’re thrown into the deep end with a relatively powerful set of characters and are attacked by high-level poisonous worms from the outset. It’s pitch black, and you have no weapons or armour on you, which is highly unnerving, so you have to kill them with fireballs as quickly as possible. You’ll probably also end up poisoned, so have to act quickly to prevent anyone in your party from dying. It’s an intense and fraught opening that gives you a taste of what’s to come…

Chaos Strikes Back is known as a supremely difficult game and was made to be played by people who know Dungeon Master well. That said, many parts of the game change every time you play, so even if you are a Dungeon Master ‘expert’ you’re going to find this game very challenging. There are few walkthroughs available and those that do exist will only be able to help you to a certain degree because item placement, and the layout of some levels, is different every time you begin a new game.

The aim of the game in Chaos Strikes Back is to find and collect four pieces of a magical material, called Corbamite, from which Lord Chaos draws his power, and to destroy them by throwing them into a special fire pit at the end of the game. To do this you need to explore four separate paths, each leading to a piece of Corbum and each themed around one of the four character classes in the game (fighter, wizard, priest and ninja).

The game takes place over ten different levels that intersect each other in a way that can make finding your way around difficult, and you actually begin on level four, which further adds to the confusion. Using a set of established maps will help.

Right from the start you’ll encounter some truly evil traps. Pressure plates with ‘off’ timing when opening and closing pits; switches that remove walls to surprise you with a whole gaggle of monsters; invisible pits; pressure plates that spawn monsters when stepped on; cursed items that you can’t remove, and constantly-regenerating monsters that often creep up on you when you least expect it. In Chaos Strikes Back you should expect every dirty trick in the book, because that’s what you’re up against…

In spite of the high level of difficulty Chaos Strikes Back is still considered to be a classic RPG by those who’ve played it. It is definitely brilliantly-designed with incredibly complex levels and puzzles, and the new monsters are awesomely scary too. Bright red Munchers, for example, can (and will) poison you with the slightest of touches; Deth Knights [sic] are relentless and very difficult to kill; Rives are difficult to see and surprise you by rearing up when they attack; Slime Devils throw poisonous slime at you; Flying Eyes throw fire and poison at you; Zytaz do the same, and Ant Men attack in groups so can easily overwhelm you.

Of course you’ll also encounter some familiar creatures too, but in Chaos Strikes Back the higher-level monsters that you met later in the game in Dungeon Master will greet you early on in this, probably to your dismay. For example: expect to meet a dragon in a narrow corridor relatively early in the game, not to mention a room full of dragons not much further on. Chaos Strikes Back features a menagerie of death around every corner…

If you liked Dungeon Master, this is a must-play game. The FM Towns version is one of the best conversions of Chaos Strikes Back available, with streaming CD audio, responsive controls and lag-free movement. Highly recommended to anyone who likes challenging RPGs. It’s one of the toughest ever made!

More: Chaos Strikes Back on Wikipedia