Tag Archives: maze

FromSoftware, PlayStation

King’s Field, PlayStation

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With Elden Ring currently wowing gamers I thought I’d take a look at the series that began FromSoftware‘s journey into the action RPG genre, and that would be King’s Field – released in Japan only in 1994 for the Sony PlayStation – and, to be honest, it couldn’t be any further removed from Elden Ring in terms of presentation…

I’ve played a lot of RPGs in my time, and I would go so far as to say that it’s my favourite genre of video game, but King’s Field came as a bit of a shock to me. Yes, King’s Field was an early 3D RPG on the PlayStation, releasing the same year as the PS1 was launched, but it post-dates Ultima Underworld by two years and is archaic in comparison.

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Indescomp, Investronica, Quicksilva, ZX Spectrum

Fred, ZX Spectrum

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Written by famous Spanish software house Indescomp, Fred is a scrolling platform/maze game where you control a cartoon Indiana Jones-type character plundering treasures from an Egyptian tomb, while avoiding contact with ghosts and mummies.

Fred was first released in 1984. In its native Spain the game was published by Investronica, while in the UK and other parts of Europe the game was published by Quicksilva.

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Atari, Atari 7800

Dark Chambers, Atari 7800

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Dark Chambers is a one or two-player maze/action game that was directly influenced by Dandy, in that it was originally written by John Howard Palevich – the creator Dandy – to further expand (or in this case: simplify) the concept of a multiplayer fantasy action game.

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Atari Games, Sega Master System, Tengen, US Gold

Gauntlet, Sega Master System

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The Sega Master System conversion of Atari‘s classic arcade game Gauntlet is surprisingly good. For starters: it’s got the fastest fire rate of any of the home versions available, and it plays with a high intensity. This does, however, make the game especially challenging because the health of your heroes does tend to go down rather quickly.

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Atari Games, Atari ST, Mindscape

Gauntlet, Atari ST

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This 16-bit conversion of the classic arcade game Gauntlet was developed by Atari Games and was first published in October 1987 by Mindscape.

While, graphically, it’s not quite as lush as the original arcade game, it is very close to it and Atari obviously took care with how it looked and played when they translated it to the ST.

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Gremlin Graphics, MSX, US Gold

Gauntlet, MSX

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Another fine 8-bit conversion of the classic arcade game Gauntlet, by Gremlin Graphics and published by US Gold in 1987. The MSX version was created by the same team who did the ZX Spectrum version and therefore is quite similar. Which is not a bad thing as the Speccy conversion is quite excellent.

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Amstrad CPC, Gremlin Graphics, US Gold

Gauntlet, Amstrad CPC

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The Amstrad CPC conversion of Atari‘s classic Gauntlet arcade game is another decent port by Gremlin Graphics, once again published by US Gold in 1987. The same team who created the C64, Spectrum, Atari 8-bit, and MSX versions also made this.

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Gremlin Graphics, US Gold, ZX Spectrum

Gauntlet, ZX Spectrum

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The ZX Spectrum conversion of the classic arcade game Gauntlet is surprisingly good. It was developed by Gremlin Graphics and published by US Gold in 1987 and features all 100 levels from the original, only in multi-load chunks. This was because the game was initially released on cassette only and required loading after a certain number of levels were traversed.

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