Planet Bob - Playing Rastan (C64)

RSS Bot · May 15, 2009

Hi there!

Here's again some Arcade goodness coming home from Taito!

I'd have bet that there must be a variety of different console versions, but to my surprise only the Sega Master System got it. Since I'm no longer collecting for the SMS, I opted for the C64 version though.

I've been researching it some and saw numerous complaints that the original game had several severe bugs, so I was very happy to find a crack from the mighty Hokotu Force which, besides offering 20 trainers, also claims to have half a dozen bugfixes

It's a standard jump'n'slash game, pretty much like Rygar or Ghosts'n'Goblins. Despite crediting 3 artists, the graphics are rather blocky and on the lower edge of average though. And despite crediting Martin Galway, the music is also a lot closer to generic-video-game-tune than genious.

The game is pretty big, spawning 6 separately loaded stages. A stage consists of three parts: First Rastan usually fights his way to a castle, then through the building, then against the mandatory end-boss, so at least one can't complain about lacking quantity here.

Just like the last Taito game featured here, Sky Shark, the difficulty level is once again beyond good and evil. Don't play this without having reserve joysticks...

Using many a save-state, I somehow managed to beat the first two stages, but ultimately got stuck in the third. There's a couple of skeletons I can't beat for the life of me. But well - I'm having 20 trainers at hands after all, so I decided to even the odds tomorrow :ponder: