The Commodore 64 conversion of the VIC-20 classic, Sword of Fargoal, was published in 1983 by Epyx. It features the same Roguelike gameplay of the original, with a few small enhancements.
Tag Archives: real time combat
Sword of Fargoal, VIC-20
Written by Jeff McCord of Automated Simulations, Inc. and first published for the expanded VIC-20 by Epyx in 1982, Sword of Fargoal is a simple dungeon-crawling, Roguelike action game where you play an explorer who is searching a series of randomly generated levels for a legendary sword.
Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss, FM Towns
Origin/Blue Sky Productions‘ classic MS-DOS RPG, Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss, was released for the FM Towns in 1993 by Electronic Arts Victor, Inc.*
*= Electronic Arts Victor was a joint venture between Electronic Arts and the Victor Musical Industries subsidiary of JVC, established in September 1992 in Tokyo. Electronic Arts Victor‘s mission was to translate Electronic Arts‘ library of games to Japanese language and to distribute them in Japan, as well as to create original titles for the Japanese market.
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Syndicate, FM Towns
Although the FM Towns port of Bullfrog‘s classic Syndicate is in Japanese, it’s still a great game to play if you know what you’re doing. Of course this is not the right version of Syndicate to play if it’s your first time (unless you can read Japanese), but it is a sharp port with crisp high resolution graphics and responsive controls.
Chaos Strikes Back, 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…
Dungeon Master, FM Towns
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.
Mysterium, Game Boy
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 Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Four Swords, Game Boy Advance
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Four Swords is a two-game package developed by Nintendo EAD and Capcom and first released for the Game Boy Advance in 2002 in North America and 2003 in Japan and Europe. It features a slightly modified port of the 1991 SNES classic, A Link to the Past, plus an all-new, multiplayer-only adventure called Four Swords.
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Shadowcaster, PC
Shadowcaster is a first-person fantasy-based action game developed by Raven Software and published by Origin Systems in 1993 for MS-DOS (Electronic Arts published it in Europe). The game uses a modified version of the 3D engine used in Wolfenstein 3D, with icons and point-and-click adventure and RPG elements.
Alcazar: The Forgotten Fortress, ColecoVision
Alcazar: The Forgotten Fortress is a dungeon-crawling action game, designed and coded by Tom Loughry with graphics by Keri Longaway (nee, Janssen), and first published by Activision for the Coleco Adam and ColecoVision console in 1985.
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The King of Grabs 