This review contains spoilers
It's very hard to quantify a 42 year old game with a score. But, what's important with a game this old is that it's still fun! The very simple premise of getting into a castle, stealing their chalice, and running it back to your own castle still holds up. The game's of course very simple though perhaps best experienced blind. Not everyone's gonna be able to really get into it, but you may be surprised at how the intended emotions the game wants to give off, are still effective to this day. So as funny as it sounds, spoiler warning. All you really gotta know going in is that pressing select on the screen with a number cycles between 3 different quests, intended to be played in order.
I like how you hold the items differently depending on how you run into them, adding a small wrinkle to combat / item management / tools. The first level is the smallest one. It serves to teach you what all the items do, and allows you to learn the goal of the game on a smaller map with less obstacles. The second doubles the size of the map with more mazes and another castle. I like that the second level makes the bridge a mandatory item. Kinda cool to be able to walk through any wall as long as you place the bridge on top of it.
The biggest addition though to quest 2, is bats. They fly around and will sometimes swoop in and steal the item you're holding. If they're already holding an item they'll swap it, basically trading you. These can be a bit obnoxious, but if you've got the patience for a bat stealing your key mere steps away from opening the final castle, they do add some much needed depth to the game. I like to see it as non-scripted story telling. Items begin being taken all over the map and shuffled around, who knows what the bats are doing off screen. Seems like they sometimes drop the items off at a designated spot (I think, if they just happen to cross into that room, not sure they're actually coded to GO there on purpose)
The antics that can happen with the bats is pretty wild. For example the bats can actually carry the dragons. Scary stuff. Had an interaction where a bat used a dragon to eat me while I was holding an important key. I didn't want the bat to drop the dragon and steal the key so I grabbed the bat, while in the dragon's stomach. This gave me some movement. Allowing me to grab the key, (which dropped the bat, making it fly me around, still in the dragon) I dropped the key in a good spot and once the bat was far enough away I pressed the respawn button. Walked back and the key was right where I left it.
Absolutely wild interactions like this feel like they really capture the imagination in a way many modern adventure games struggle to do imo.
The dragons are great and also the only way to die. Something fairly unique is that you don't actually die when eaten. You can twitch around in their belly. This is what allowed the freedom to play with the bat that way.
I also appreciate that there's no lives or game overs. It would be much harder to appreciate this game if it reset entirely after being eaten, as especially in level 3, they can be very oppressive. But at the press of a button you'll be taken back to your castle ready to try and squeeze past them again. Really keeps the pace up and lets you get immersed in a single playthrough since it only truly ends when you either win or give up. The dragon's piercing bitcrushed roar paired with the sudden screen transitions may actually shock you a bit at times. The way they chase you once you grab the chalice out from under them can easily feel very tense. I like that they don't just kill you with touch damage either. They actually trap you in their mouth for a moment and you have a split second to get yourself out before you're swallowed.
Level 3 is interestingly, a randomizer. Super cool to see an item randomizer built into what was among the first of its kind, as that's only really blowing up in the modern age with fan made mods for the most part. Older Resident Evil games played around with the idea but for the most part it's not something you see a whole lot even today. I hear it's technically possible to get an item layout that makes the game impossible to complete. Which isn't ideal but the game's VERY short, so it's not too big a deal imo.
There's is actually a hidden 4th level in a way. You may have heard about this game being the first example of an Easter egg. Well, fed up with Atari's policies on not crediting their programmers, the developer hid his name in the game under their noses. There's a very specific, VERY cryptic set of events you can do to access a hidden room. Involving a 1 pixel item hidden in a dark room behind a wall you need the bridge to cross and taking it to a very specific place with like 3 other items to open a wall. I love this stuff.
This has always been one of my favorite Atari games, first played on one of those plug and play consoles in the 2000's. It feels kind of weird to score it so high for some reason, but I really don't see a reason to arbitrarily score it lower for its age. I think it succeeds very well in what it set out to do, in ways that still feel ahead of current year. I'm just impressed by how not-aged it feels. Of course, coming from someone who really appreciates the less structured nature of classic niche adventure games. It's not something that's going to hold your attention for weeks or anything but what it accomplished so long ago is more than I can ask for. Rad game :)
I like how you hold the items differently depending on how you run into them, adding a small wrinkle to combat / item management / tools. The first level is the smallest one. It serves to teach you what all the items do, and allows you to learn the goal of the game on a smaller map with less obstacles. The second doubles the size of the map with more mazes and another castle. I like that the second level makes the bridge a mandatory item. Kinda cool to be able to walk through any wall as long as you place the bridge on top of it.
The biggest addition though to quest 2, is bats. They fly around and will sometimes swoop in and steal the item you're holding. If they're already holding an item they'll swap it, basically trading you. These can be a bit obnoxious, but if you've got the patience for a bat stealing your key mere steps away from opening the final castle, they do add some much needed depth to the game. I like to see it as non-scripted story telling. Items begin being taken all over the map and shuffled around, who knows what the bats are doing off screen. Seems like they sometimes drop the items off at a designated spot (I think, if they just happen to cross into that room, not sure they're actually coded to GO there on purpose)
The antics that can happen with the bats is pretty wild. For example the bats can actually carry the dragons. Scary stuff. Had an interaction where a bat used a dragon to eat me while I was holding an important key. I didn't want the bat to drop the dragon and steal the key so I grabbed the bat, while in the dragon's stomach. This gave me some movement. Allowing me to grab the key, (which dropped the bat, making it fly me around, still in the dragon) I dropped the key in a good spot and once the bat was far enough away I pressed the respawn button. Walked back and the key was right where I left it.
Absolutely wild interactions like this feel like they really capture the imagination in a way many modern adventure games struggle to do imo.
The dragons are great and also the only way to die. Something fairly unique is that you don't actually die when eaten. You can twitch around in their belly. This is what allowed the freedom to play with the bat that way.
I also appreciate that there's no lives or game overs. It would be much harder to appreciate this game if it reset entirely after being eaten, as especially in level 3, they can be very oppressive. But at the press of a button you'll be taken back to your castle ready to try and squeeze past them again. Really keeps the pace up and lets you get immersed in a single playthrough since it only truly ends when you either win or give up. The dragon's piercing bitcrushed roar paired with the sudden screen transitions may actually shock you a bit at times. The way they chase you once you grab the chalice out from under them can easily feel very tense. I like that they don't just kill you with touch damage either. They actually trap you in their mouth for a moment and you have a split second to get yourself out before you're swallowed.
Level 3 is interestingly, a randomizer. Super cool to see an item randomizer built into what was among the first of its kind, as that's only really blowing up in the modern age with fan made mods for the most part. Older Resident Evil games played around with the idea but for the most part it's not something you see a whole lot even today. I hear it's technically possible to get an item layout that makes the game impossible to complete. Which isn't ideal but the game's VERY short, so it's not too big a deal imo.
There's is actually a hidden 4th level in a way. You may have heard about this game being the first example of an Easter egg. Well, fed up with Atari's policies on not crediting their programmers, the developer hid his name in the game under their noses. There's a very specific, VERY cryptic set of events you can do to access a hidden room. Involving a 1 pixel item hidden in a dark room behind a wall you need the bridge to cross and taking it to a very specific place with like 3 other items to open a wall. I love this stuff.
This has always been one of my favorite Atari games, first played on one of those plug and play consoles in the 2000's. It feels kind of weird to score it so high for some reason, but I really don't see a reason to arbitrarily score it lower for its age. I think it succeeds very well in what it set out to do, in ways that still feel ahead of current year. I'm just impressed by how not-aged it feels. Of course, coming from someone who really appreciates the less structured nature of classic niche adventure games. It's not something that's going to hold your attention for weeks or anything but what it accomplished so long ago is more than I can ask for. Rad game :)