16:33 I just love the potion drinking animation. Dude just vertically drops it like it's the most important drinking contest of his life. No ambiguity there, the contents of that bottle are GONE.
I was always impressed by what they achieved on the PC... but an Apple II? This is insane... I actually prefer these original animations to many that came later.
This game was originally made it for Apple II, Mechner had to resort to several tricks to even include combat in game due to severe low memory limit of 4 kb(Lower than a Email).
Daniel N Speaking of flashbacks. The sega game Flashback has game controls so similar to this, they must have been heavily influenced by this Apple II version since it has the same feel to the character getting around. Out Of This World (Another World) also, I think.
FYI - The graphics looks MUCH sharper and better defined (the frame around the door way for example) on a real Apple IIe or IIc, output to a composite display. Also more accurate color and dithering effects. The aspect ratio looks squashed too. Never was a fan of emulators over the real hardware. Just played it on my IIc on a TV with comb-filter and it looks tons better than on my Apple IIGS even!
Missed out on this one back in the day. It's by far one of the best games the poor Apple could produce. At least I enjoyed BattleTech: Crescent Hawks Inception.
I had that game on the PC! This game I unfortunately had the SNES version, didn't figure I should get the DOS version, though it supported EGA and adlib sound just fine. Oh well.
@@annikasoderlund619 I read somewhere that Mechner was not approached to make or port this to the Commodore 64 because it needed 128K of RAM, even though the graphics and sound of the C64 were far superior. This game was ported to almost every platform EXCEPT the C64 until 2011 when someone finally did, using memory expansion.
I always liked fighting guards around the chopping teeth. You could back them into it and they would be cut in half with some blood streaks appearing on the blades. P.S. if you shuffle forward fast enough when you are fighting the guards, you can switch your position and fight in the other direction.
im glad they got rid of that pause and music every time you defeated a guard on later ports lol. Maybe its hiding some kind of loading it had to do on this version.
While this game didn't come out until years after, it is amazing that it was playable on an original Apple II from 1977 in color. The dawn of the personal computer age.
Actually it requires an Apple IIe, from 1983 (it uses the additional 64K of bank-switched memory, and Double-Hi-Res graphics unique to that machine by using that bank switching, for the title and text screens). Technically though, there is very little difference between an Apple II and Apple IIe from a functional stand point, so yes, your point still stands and EXACTLY what I was thinking while playing it this past week on my Apple IIc!
@@Apple2gs the iie is more easily expandable, memory-wise; in order to use the full amount of possible memory upgrades, you need a special addon that uses bankswitching. I thought the iic had less base ram than the iie, but i looked it up and the iic had more base ram, but the iie was more upgradable.
@@Arkouchie - The Apple IIc, being the same design, also used bank-switching to address beyond 64K (the 65C02 had a 16-bit wide address bus, and limited to 64K). However, unlike the IIe, it had the built-in equivalent of an Extended 80 Columns Card, giving it 128K out of the box. Prince of Persia required an Apple IIe with 128K (and capable of DHR graphics, so a revision-B motherboard). Nothing fancy there, that was a pretty standard and stock set up, even for most schools on a budget. You needed either a 1K or 64K bank-switching card in that auxiliary expansion slot just for 80 columns text! Out of the box, *all* Apple IIc's could run Prince of Persia. An Apple IIe just needed that 64K card (which again, was fairly standard). This game worked on your standard Apple II, no extras added!
Interesting, I was playing this game on real hardware earlier and at 28:16 it's supposed to wildly shift the colors even on the OG version, yet this doesn't happen at all in emulation it seems.
i played the DOS version only, i liked this version seems less sliding in the floor (it makes somehow easier to play) i never finished this game (without cheats) always stuck in level 9
technically 6, How the apple 2's graphics worked was that each 7 pixels needed 8 bits, the first bit changed the colors from green and magenta to orange and blue. 8bit guy goes into further detail.
Yes and sort of yes. There are 12 levels in this game and you start from the beginning of the one you're in if you die or if you load a saved game from that level. Time you have to play through the levels is 60 minutes tops, and it does not reset when you die or save.
The title and ending use Double-Hi-Res mode, which actually don't offer more practical resolution on a composite color display - they actually really offer more colors. But on a monochrome display, it offers more resolution.
@@IsaacKuo That is incorrect, the game was played on an Apple IIgs or IIgs emulator, which shows the ending screen, and only the ending screen, in its Super High Resolution Mode which is capable of near-VGA like graphics.
Well, I would personally say that the gameplay of the Apple II original is much better than the NES version. It's incredibly impressive for the hardware, and I'd call it one of the best games on the platform by far.
@@thepirategamerboy12 Not only that, but the animation is still amazing by today's standards. Even big budget titles often struggle to have animation this realistic.
