This modern take on a retro classic sees you take control of a “brave young paddle” on a quest to unlock the mystery of “The Spooky Door”.
Pong Quest is of course a re-imagining of the classic Atari arcade game, Pong, with cute, colourful graphics, a large variety of different Pong balls, and single and multiplayer play modes.
Rapscallion is a bizarre and humorous action adventure written by Albert Ball and published by Bug-Byte for the ZX Spectrum in 1984.
You play an un-named king who has had his crown and castle seized by his arch enemy, Rapscallion the Rogue. Rapscallion has thrown you into the dungeon to rot, but you are saved by your friend, The Fairy Princess, who transforms you into a bird and grants you six lives. This allows you to begin your quest for revenge…
The sequel to the intriguing Game Boy game, Gargoyle’s Quest, was first released on the Nintendo Famicom in 1992 by Capcom. It is another spin-off from the successful Ghosts ‘N Goblins series.
Again, you play as Firebrand – the winged demon from Ghosts ‘N Goblins (and Ghouls ‘N Ghosts) – and again it features platforming action, with an interesting ‘fly-and-float’ mechanic.
This interesting 1990 action adventure platform game is a spin-off from the classic arcade game Ghosts ‘N Goblins.
It features the flying demon character (called Firebrand in English language versions and Red Arremer in the original Japanese version) in the lead role, and who was first seen as an enemy in the Ghosts ‘N Goblins arcade game. That, in itself is quite unusual – getting to play a baddie from an earlier game in a later sequel, and this game is more than just a simple platform game.
Loosely based on the famous Bram Stoker novel, Dracula the Undead sees you taking the role of Jonathan Harker as he tries to escape from Dracula‘s castle and collect evidence to prove the vampire’s identity.
While I wouldn’t call myself a Pokémon fanatic, I do really enjoy the games because they are so well made, and because I love level-grinders. Pokémon Pearl (and its companion, Diamond) is considered by many as one of the best games in the series, and people still love to play it now.
Compared to previous generations, Pokémon Pearl has lots of new features, and compared to later generations: the series hasn’t yet started to collapse under its own weight.
The follow-up to the classic PS2 game Dragon Quest VIII is another fine level-grinder, with cheerful, colourful graphics and mesmerising gameplay. Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies was developed by Level-5 and published by Square Enix on the Nintendo DS in 2009.
Getting straight down to it: Dragon Quest IX (nine) is similar to the previous game in the series, but with a few fundamental changes…
Gunple: Gunman’s Proof was developed by Lenar and published by ASCII Corporation in 1997. It was one of the last games to be released for the SNES and was only ever released in Japan. An English fan translation does exist, though, which means that non Japanese speakers can enjoy this wonderful game.
In essence, Gunple could be described as ‘Zelda with guns’ or a ‘Wild West Zelda‘, because – graphically – the game does have a lot of similarities to Nintendo‘s classic A Link To the Past. In fact: some of the background graphics, in my opinion, appear to have been lifted from the aforementioned Zelda game, which in reality is no bad thing.
The third Phantasy Star game, subtitled Generations of Doom, was released for the Megadrive by Sega in 1990.
Cosmic Spacehead is a 1993 Sega Megadrive release for British publisher Codemasters. It is, in fact, an enhanced remake of a previous Codemasters game, Linus Spacehead’s Cosmic Crusade.
The King of Grabs 