Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders is the second SCUMM game from Lucasfilm Games (aka LucasArts), after Maniac Mansion, with game development led by David Fox, and with Matthew Alan Kane as co-designer and co-programmer. It was originally released for the Commodore 64 in 1988, and this enhanced FM Towns port was published in Japan in 1990 by Fujitsu. The game is playable in both English and Japanese.
Continue reading Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders, FM Towns
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…
The FM Towns version of the classic Dungeon Master was ported by FTL Games (the game’s original developer) and published by Fujitsu in 1989 (two years after the original Atari ST version, and three years before the DOS version came out). This was a Japan-only release, on CD-ROM, but the game is playable in both English and Japanese, which is great.
Developed by Maxis Software and published by Asmik Ace Entertainment for the original Game Boy in 1991, Mysterium is an obscure first-person dungeon-crawler in which you play an alchemist’s apprentice exploring a maze – called the Mysterium – in order to complete a test.
The second game in the Castlevania series, Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest, was originally released in Japan (as “Dracula II – Noroi no Fuuin“) for the Famicom Disk System in 1987, and in North America for the NES in 1988. Europe had to wait until 1990 for a release of the game.
The Megadrive/Genesis version of Bits Studios‘ Mary Shelley‘s Frankenstein is a bit of a poor relation to the Super Nintendo version of the game. Mainly because the lack of colour in the visuals tends to make this version look a bit rough when compared to the SNES version. But it is what it is: a fairly bog standard platform game loosely based on Kenneth Branagh‘s 1994 film.
Continue reading Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Megadrive/Genesis
The 1994 Super Nintendo game, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, is an adaptation of the film of the same name, starring Robert De Niro, Helena Bonham Carter and Kenneth Branagh. It was developed by British company Bits Studios and published by Sony Imagesoft in North America only.
Continue reading Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Super Nintendo
The NES/Famicom version of Maniac Mansion was developed and published by Jaleco in 1990 and is still worth playing today. It’s a fine port of a great game and translates well enough to Nintendo‘s machine that it arguably plays even better than the C64 original (although many will cry “Sacrilege!” to that).
Final Fantasy Mystic Quest is a Role-Playing Game aimed at beginners and was the first Final Fantasy game released in English-speaking territories, coming out on the Super Nintendo through Square in 1992. It was actually released in North America first, then in Japan and Europe the following year. The game was released in Europe as “Mystic Quest Legend” which hints at its similarity to the classic Final Fantasy Legend series on the Game Boy.
This 2009 MSX2 remake of the classic Knight Lore was created by Manuel Pazos and Daniel Celemin of Retroworks, and it is a fun addition to the ever-growing number of Ultimate remakes on the internet. The same guys who made this also made the MSX2 remake of Alien 8, which I quite liked.
The King of Grabs 