gauntlet

That was excellent! I’m really, really pleased that I’d not been misremembering how great Gauntlet 4’s Quest Mode was. I had been misremembering how easy it was, however. Or was I just being extra cautious, escaping from the towers every time my health was low and I didn’t have a healing potion? Either way, I didn’t die at all. Not even on the end boss. Or the end, end boss after him.

Oh yes, I had forgotten that too. You see, once you’ve beaten all the dragons in the towers and opened up the Castle, then made your way through that, there’s a final dragon boss. He’s much the same as the other four, only he also has four crystals in front of him. You have to shoot all of these crystals in order to be able to damage the dragon as he’s invincible otherwise, and after a few seconds the crystals reactivate. Once I’d got into a steady rhythm though, he was quite simple. After that you’re given the option of escaping from the castle, or learning the secret of eternal youth. Take the first option and you have to defeat the dragon again – the end, end boss (albeit without the crystals this time) – before you can run away. Take the second option and you’re turned into the dragon and have to kill adventurers.

I consider this second option the “bad” ending, so went with the first. And that was it.

For those interested, I was Questor the Elf (I’m always the elf in Gauntlet – he’s the best character) and here are my end of game stats:

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It’s a bit good this, isn’t it? Why i’m asking you, I don’t know. You probably don’t know anyway, and I already know. In fact, it’s my third favourite Mega Drive game. At least, it was a very long time ago and when I started playing it again today for the first time in at least 15 years, I was a little apprehensive that it may have aged badly. Thankfully, I need not have worried: It’s excellent.

Oh but wait – I’m not talking about the main game here. Arcade mode is essentially just the original Gauntlet arcade game, and although that is still an absolutely fantastic thing, the main game mode for me is Quest. Quest is almost an RPG, as your hero navigates four towers with ten levels in each, finding traps to open walls and allow progress to the final floor where a dragon resides. Yes, it has boss battles. As you beat foes, you gain experience which you can spend on improving your stats (shot speed, defence, magic power, etc.), and as you collect treasure you can spend that in shops to gain better equipment (which essentially also just boosts your stats).

So far, I’ve completed the Fire and Water towers, and am about a third of the way through the Earth tower.

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