The Apple IIgs version of the arcade classic, Gauntlet, was first published by Mindscape in 1988. It’s a reasonable port, although it doesn’t have the variations in colour that most Gauntlet ports have. The levels in this version seem to be mostly the same colour – grey – with spot colours used for doors, items and monsters. Which is disappointing.
Tag Archives: overhead
Gauntlet, NES/Famicom
The 1988 NES version of Gauntlet was developed and published by Tengen, and – surprisingly – it doesn’t feature the levels from the arcade original, but does its own thing instead.
Commando, Intellivision
I’ve been wanting to add the Intellivision version of Commando for some time now, but every time I tried to play it, I could never get the controls to work properly. Until now…
Gauntlet 4, Megadrive/Genesis
Gauntlet 4 (aka Gauntlet IV) was developed by M2 and published by Tengen in 1993, exclusively for the Megadrive/Genesis. In some respects the development of this game is just as interesting as the game itself.
Gauntlet 4 began life as a homebrew remake of Gauntlet, among a small group of friends in Japan, for the Sharp X68000 home computer. Atari Games, the developer of the original Gauntlet, eventually caught wind of the project and commissioned the group (now named M2) to produce a sequel instead.
Willow, NES/Famicom
Based on the 1988 Ron Howard film of the same name, Willow is an adventure/RPG that was developed and published by Capcom in 1989. It has nothing in common with the arcade game, called Willow, which was released by Capcom the same year.
Xanadu: Dragon Slayer II, MSX
Xanadu: Dragon Slayer II (aka just “Xanadu“) is the 1987 sequel to 1984’s Dragon Slayer. It was developed and published by Falcom in Japan only, but the game is entirely in English so is playable by non-Japanese speakers/readers.
Xanadu is an action RPG that looks and plays similarly to Falcom‘s own Ys series, with side-scrolling town and dungeon sections and overhead, real-time combat taking place on a separate screen. Xanadu was a much bigger hit than its predecessor and was released in MSX and MSX2 versions.
Dragon Warrior Monsters 2, Game Boy Color
Dragon Warrior Monsters 2 is the second game in the Dragon Quest spin-off series, which is a monster-collecting, training, breeding and combat style game in the tradition of Pokémon. It was developed by TOSE Co., Ltd. and was published exclusively for the Game Boy Color by Enix (Eidos in North America and Europe) in 2001.
Dragon Warrior Monsters, Game Boy Color
Dragon Warrior Monsters (aka Dragon Quest Monsters in Japan) is a spin-off from the famous Dragon Quest series, and this is the first game in the DWM series. It was developed by TOSE Co., Ltd. and published exclusively for the Game Boy Color by Enix (Eidos in North America and Europe), in 1998.
The Hobbit, Game Boy Advance
The Game Boy Advance version of The Hobbit was developed by Saffire, Inc. and first released by Sierra Entertainment in 2003. This game is based on Tolkien‘s famous book, and not the Peter Jackson films (the first Hobbit film was released in 2012, and this game actually came out the same year as The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King).
Alien Syndrome, Commodore 64
The C64 version of Alien Syndrome was developed by Softek International and published under their ACE label in 1988. It is a very good port of the Sega arcade game, although it does have one issue that might annoy players…
