I have just played through this game, with TRAINER (infinite lives). Besides running twice into situation, where I could not figure out a way to continue (being 'locked' in an area with no way out), it was quite a fun experience.
However, there were a few things that were at least somewhat annoying:
1. No horizontal scrolling but simple screen swapping made it a much less smooth experience than it could have been, and rendered a few 'move to the next screen' actions more difficult a/o more hazardous. The Amiga version takes the cake here.
2. Crappy vertical scrolling, way below the level of what the Atari ST computers could do.
3. Platforming as such is slightly problematic, as JUMP is performed by pushing the stick UP. As the player needs to gain speed and also, a certain level of precision is needed, this is probably the most sore point of the game (even in the Amiga original).
4. A few graphical glitches, that were not ironed out prior to the release. Nothing big, but tells about the effort put into programming this version (aka not [good] enough).
All in all, the Amiga version is superior, but if you can live with those deficiencies, the game is actually fun and holds up quite fine. Though, admittedly, it's quite difficult, without the option to SAVE a game. Luckily, there are at least passwords one can use to skip to WORLDs further in the game and not have to replay each time from the very beginning. These are:
WIZARD: World 3
GUILD: World 5
SPELLS: World 8
ARCANE: World 10
DRUID: World 12
FAERIE: World 14 |