18 replies to this topic

[sku_u]

I was wondering what system(s) made Gauntlet the closest to arcade quality?

I still love this game. I'll never forget the day I played for almost 2 hours getting somewhere around round 200 in an arcade in Disney World.

[desiv]

You paid, what is it, like $30 to get into Disneyworld and played Gaultlet for 2 hours???

It's a great game, but... :-) :-)

I've heard good things about Gauntlet II for the Amiga, but haven't seen it. I wasn't all that impressed with Gauntlet for the Amiga when I had it.

I like Garrison (I think that's what it was called) tho.. :-)

desiv

[Adrian M]

The Sega Genesis was the first system that did the game justice.

The NES version was horrible as were all the various PC and home computer versions back in the 80's. Gauntlet 2 for the NES was a pretty big improvement complete with most of the voice and smoother gameplay.

[SS]

Adrian M said:

The Sega Genesis was the first system that did the game justice.

Yup. The strangely titled "Gauntlet IV" for the Genesis contains a superbly translated port of the original arcade game as it's 'Arcade Mode'. The ‘Quest Mode’ is also very well done.

It's a Tengen (Atari) release, BTW.

[Xot]

Well, there's the PSX version on Atari Arcade Hits 2....

[Ze_ro]

The best version, of course, would be using it through MAME. It's the next best thing to having the arcade machine itself.

--Zero

[SteveW]

Speaking of the Amiga, did anyone play Gauntlet III on it? They completely destroyed the game. Slowed it down to a crawl, gave it a strange point of view, and threw in a bunch of other elements that screwed up the gameplay. It's totally unrecognisable as Gauntlet.

[Trooper]

I absolutely loved Gauntlet on my 130XE, it was one of the few games I really ever felt was worth the $15 I paid for it. I used to play it for hours on end, then one day my cassette player decided to chew the tape and I had no backup since I was a stupid kid who never thought about the possibility of this happening. I remember I almost cried when I found out that the game was destroyed

Troop

[Adrian M]

SS said:

Adrian M said:

The Sega Genesis was the first system that did the game justice.

Yup. The strangely titled "Gauntlet IV" for the Genesis contains a superbly translated port of the original arcade game as it's 'Arcade Mode'. The ‘Quest Mode’ is also very well done.

It's a Tengen (Atari) release, BTW.

Indeed. And if I recall correctly, it was the first 4 player game for the Genesis.

THe various EA Sports games (and those weird J-cart games from Camerica) came later.

[tiggerthehun]

I've been enjoying it on the Midway's Classics disk for the X-Box. Lots o' good games on that one. I'm also diggin' Marble Madness and Paperboy.

[hepcat]

Speaking of Gauntlet 4 for Sega Genesis, has anyone ever beaten this game in "Quest Mode?" I vaguely remember killing a dragon at the end of the game, at which point you're supposed to win some kind of treasure. Instead I was somehow send back to the beginning of the game. It was quite disappointing and frustrating, as it's pretty tough to make it to that final dragon. Anyone have any info. on this?

--Jason

[RJ]

PSX Atari Collection 2 version is the best I have out of 3 versions.

Of course, the Lynx version is one unto itself...

[Ze_ro]

RJ said:

Of course, the Lynx version is one unto itself...

If memory serves me, Gauntlet: The Third Encounter, was actually a game that Epyx was working on back before Atari bought them out. When Atari took over, they just slapped the Gauntlet name on it and threw it out the door.

I would have been a little more convinced of it's Gauntlet roots if the game had actually let you play as the warrior (Y'know, since he's featured prominently on the cart's label and all...)

--Zero

[MegaManFan]

tiggerthehun said:

I've been enjoying it on the Midway's Classics disk for the X-Box. Lots o' good games on that one. I'm also diggin' Marble Madness and Paperboy.

Same way I've been playing it! For laughs one night, I poured in enough credits to get my health to roll over, and to the game's credit it remembered the extra digit even though it wasn't displayed - I put the warrior in the middle of four ghost generators and let it drain through the rollover all the way back down to 0. I racked up about 140K points that way but of course it didn't meet the "points per credit" standard, so no high score for the MMFster.

Incidentally what's up with Joust only letting you enter your initials 5 times? WTF? Did the arcade do that too? I don't remember it that way or in any of the other emulated versions I've played.

[King Atari]

The best I've played is Gauntlet IV for the Genesis. The only thing noticeably different is background music. I don't remember if you can turn it off or not.

[Shannon]

Yes Joust does limit you to putting your initials in 5 times.

I remember running into that limitation when setting up mame for some family members..

You see... I was determined to fill up the high scores of all the games I set up for them with my initials..

[Dones]

Adrian M said:

The NES version was horrible as were all the various PC and home computer versions back in the 80's.  Gauntlet 2 for the NES was a pretty big improvement complete with most of the voice and smoother gameplay.

Are you referring to Tengen's Gauntlet? Yes it didn't have the voices, but it was better than Gauntlet 2. Tengen's Gaunlet follows the NES trend at the time of making not-so-straight ports of arcade games (eg, Strider, Ninja Gaiden).

Gauntlet allowed for two player simultaneous action. The game's gameplay was good back then. It didn't include the dungeon voices, but it did have amusing game tunes (nothing memorable though) during and off levels. It included 100 levels, which at the time was impressive. Levels were divided by group motifs like woods and invisible walls. The game had an ending (if you managed to beat it). It included a password feature to help you keep progress of your character, a feature which added lasting playability. Best of all the password feature allowed you to take your character with you and play with other people, very much like Gauntlet Legends.

There is a collector's interest in this game. It was made by Tengen before they started publishing unlicensed black carts. Because of this, there are two versions of Gauntlet, the licensed gray and the unlicensed black (grey being more rare). The game also came with a cool, big Gauntlet poster depicting the Gauntlet logo with the four characters underneath.

In contrast, Gauntlet 2 was licensed and made by another company. Sure it was closer to the arcade version, but it suffered because of it: it had sparse sound effects and almost no music. You couldn't save your progress so it had limited playability. It didn't come with a cool poster. Collectible-wise it isn't as rare or valuable as Tengen's.

Thinking of the topic's subject, Tengen's Gauntlet isn't the closest port but it tried to implement some ideas that were seen more that a decade after in Gauntlet Legends.

[Fellow Atari Man]

hepcat said:

Speaking of Gauntlet 4 for Sega Genesis, has anyone ever beaten this game in "Quest Mode?"

Yeah, I have, there's two different endings, and both of them suck

hepcat said:

I vaguely remember killing a dragon at the end of the game, at which point you're supposed to win some kind of treasure.

Well, it's THE ultimate prize: immortality. If they ripped off the ending from Gods for the same system, it would've been better than what they ended up doing. But they didn't, and it wasn't.

hepcat said:

Instead I was somehow send back to the beginning of the game. It was quite disappointing and frustrating, as it's pretty tough to make it to that final dragon. Anyone have any info. on this?

Yeah, what probably happened (if memory serves me correctly, it's been a while since I've gone through it) is, after you defeat the dragon, you're asked if you want to enter the land of eternal life, or something. If you choose no, the dragon comes back to life, you have to go through the notions of killing him again...but he won't die, you only stun him for several seconds. You have to get the hell out of the exit, or else he'll start attacking again, and you'll be stuck there with him, where you WILL die, as there's no killing him that time around.

I forget what the ending says there when you die--come to think of it, maybe that makes three endings?--but when you bail out of the exit and talk to the shop elves, they ask you why you didn't choose the land of eternal life. The Castle can't be entered again, so you must nail the shootable wall below you (I think it's the room you enter to get a password), enter, and the music starts up and words scroll by, giving some crappy ending, I forgot what it was...maybe something in regards to no one discovering the secrets of the castle ever again; many have tried, but to no avail, blah blah.

The other ending is if you say yes to entering the land of eternal life, or whatever, you BECOME the dragon; you can move and shoot fireballs and all...meanwhile, whatever character you controlled throughout the game appears right in front of you, and all it seems you can do is blow fireballs until your character dies (? I never have gotten that one), then you get the music and the words appear saying that the thrill of finding the treasure in the castle is gone forever, as all adventurers have given up on it, or some nonsense.

So don't worry about it, you didn't miss too much.

Oh, and to King Atari: yes, on the Options screen, you can shut off the music, which I always do when I play the arcade version (since I'm used to it that way), but I leave it on for the Quest version, since it kicks ass

[bergbros2]

The Lynx version indeed started out as an Epyx game called "Quests and Treasure Chests". It is like Gauntlet in that it has mazes, however it has some very un Gauntlet like aspects like the characters, enemies, quai roleplaying aspects, computers (!!). The best aspect is the ability to Lynx up with up to four players. It is a fair game but no where near the best arcade ports the Lynx has.