Developed by Obsidian Entertainment and first released in 2015, Pillars of Eternity is an isometric RPG very much in the style of Baldur’s Gate, with a multi character party system, quests and turn-based combat.
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Gauntlet: The Third Encounter, Atari Lynx
While Gauntlet: The Third Encounter is an admirable effort on the Atari Lynx, it has to be said that it really isn’t Gauntlet. Not the Gauntlet that we know and love anyway…
Which isn’t a surprise when you take into account the fact that this game didn’t start out as Gauntlet – it was called “Time Quests and Treasure Chests” and was developed by Epyx, and was later turned into a Gauntlet game by Atari for “brand recognition purposes”.
Toki, Atari Lynx
Toki on the Atari Lynx is a conversion of the 1989 arcade game of the same name. It features an agile ape, jumping through levels of a platform game, and is extremely challenging – just like the original.
Gunple: Gunman’s Proof, Super Nintendo
Gunple: Gunman’s Proof was developed by Lenar and published by ASCII Corporation in 1997. It was one of the last games to be released for the SNES and was only ever released in Japan. An English fan translation does exist, though, which means that non Japanese speakers can enjoy this wonderful game.
In essence, Gunple could be described as ‘Zelda with guns’ or a ‘Wild West Zelda‘, because – graphically – the game does have a lot of similarities to Nintendo‘s classic A Link To the Past. In fact: some of the background graphics, in my opinion, appear to have been lifted from the aforementioned Zelda game, which in reality is no bad thing.
Toki, Arcade
Toki is a relatively obscure platform-based arcade game, by Japanese developer TAD Corporation, which was first released in 1989. And it is as bloody hard as nails!
Astronut, ZX Spectrum
Not to be confused with the animated TV series The Astronut Show, this is a 1984 release for the ZX Spectrum, written by Patrick Richmond and published by Software Projects.
The Staff of Karnath, Commodore 64
The first game in the Sir Arthur Pendragon series, The Staff of Karnath was released on the Commodore 64 in 1984 to some acclaim. Mostly because it was an Ultimate game, and in the eyes of many people (myself included), Ultimate could do no wrong.
Midnight Mutants, Atari 7800
Released only in North America on the Atari 7800 in 1990, Midnight Mutants is a free-roaming, scrolling action adventure with isometric graphics. It was developed by Radioactive Software and the box art features a likeness of Al Lewis, dressed as Grandpa Munster, who plays the role of “Grampa” in this game.
The Last Ninja 2, Commodore 64
The sequel to the classic The Last Ninja was first released by System 3 in 1988 – one year after the original game.
It was designed by the same team as made the first game, except this time they had on board the highly-respected John Twiddy as writer/coder, and Matt Gray doing music.
Graphically, The Last Ninja 2 is arguably better than its predecessor, with more colour and variety in the environments, and some of the gameplay niggles from the first game have thankfully been addressed too. In particular: it is now easier to pick things up!
Zoda’s Revenge: StarTropics II, NES
The 1994 sequel to StarTropics, Zoda’s Revenge again features the red-haired hero, Mike Jones, only this time he’s on a time-travelling adventure searching to find a series of puzzles shapes called “Tetrads”.
These Tetrads are actually a nod to Tetris, and in the Virtual Console re-release of StarTropics II their names have been changed to “Blocks”, probably to avoid any legal problems. But anyway, I digress…