Gemfire is a fantasy, turn-based, conquest/strategy war game developed and published by Koei for the NES/Famicom and first released in 1991. It is known as Royal Blood in its native Japan and was called Gemfire for its North American English language release.
The game is similar to the classic Defender of the Crown, in that the aim is to dominate a map of territories that are occupied by opponent’s castles and armies.
Tony Ngo‘s classic Commmodore 64 game, Park Patrol, has a decent conversion on the Amstrad, courtesy of programmer Andrew Rogers and publisher Firebird Software. The Amstrad version was released in 1986 at a budget price (£1.99 if I remember correctly).
John Phillips‘ Commodore 64 classic, Nebulus, is very good on the Amstrad, although it is quite slow and doesn’t have the intermission challenges of its parent. It doesn’t ruin the game, though. In fact: it may be easier to play than the original due to it being slower.
Amaurote is an isometric action game, developed by Binary Design and published by Mastertronic in 1987. It first appeared on the ZX Spectrum and was later ported to the Amstrad CPC, and it suits the machine quite well.
The Amstrad version of SimCity is arguably better than the Commodore 64 original. It was converted to the Amstrad by Probe Software and published by Infogrames in 1989.
I didn’t know that Dragontorc existed on the Amstrad until recently and was pleasantly surprised to find out that it did. Dragontorc is one of my all-time favourite ZX Spectrum games and it translates well to the CPC, flickery graphics included.
Dragontorc was designed and programmed by Steve Turner (of Graftgold fame) and is a sequel to the game Avalon, both of which feature a levitating mage called Maroc on a quest to defeat the forces of evil.
Rainbow Arts‘ classic C64 shoot ’em up, Turrican, was converted to the Amstrad by Probe Software, and it demonstrates how to do this kind of side-scrolling run-and-gun shooter on the CPC. Compared to something like Gryzor, Turrican is streets ahead in terms of presentation and playability.
Castle Master II: The Crypt is the sequel to the ghost-hunting Freescape game, Castle Master, and it was released by Domark in 1990 as part of a double pack with the first Castle Master. As far as I know it was never published as a stand-alone title.
The Crypt is the same as Castle Master in many respects, except that the puzzles and environments are obviously different. The controls and aims are the same as before: destroy the spirits before they destroy you; find keys to open doors, and loot the treasures inside a haunted crypt to score points as you go.
Castle Master is a first-person 3D adventure game set in a haunted castle, where the aim is to destroy spirits before they overwhelm you. The game uses the famous Freescape engine, which was an early 3D engine for creating polygonal environments. It was developed by Incentive Software and first published by Domark in 1990.
I was always under the impression that Paul Shirley‘s classic Spindizzy originated on the Commodore 64 and was ported to other machines, but this interview with Shirley says that the game actually originated on the CPC and was ported to other systems. Since Paul Shirley coded the C64 version himself I had guessed that that was a logical assumption to make, but it now looks to be wrong.
The Amstrad version of Spindizzy – one of the best games ever made in my humble opinion – is pretty much perfect, with crisp, clean, detailed graphics and responsive controls.
