YES! The Genesis/MD version has easily my favorite music on the whole system. I used to sit and listen to the music with my Nomad on car trips as a kid.
Richard Craig Cool. Funny that the Nomad was only ever released in the US. I'm so surprised it didn't get a EU release since Sega was massive in Europe during the 16 bit and even 8 bit days.
Honestly it wasn't worth having... It ate batteries like candy, and the low-response/smeary screen was only about as good as the Game Gear and made some titles impossible to play (Crue Ball being a personal fav that makes a perfect example). It was also huge even without the batteries hanging off the back. It was poorly executed and poorly timed... Two more years and they could've used a transflective screen like the GBC and had a much better portable system instead of "hey look, we made a portable Genesis, practicality be damned!" :-P
Just one small note: The MSX "remake" is actually an MSX 2 game. That's why the game is so colorful, no way you could show those colors on an MSX 2 :) To be quite honest I was surprised when I first saw the oficial port.. it was made by Gremlin Graphics who usually made lazy ZX-Spectrum ports... and while I am pretty sure this version shares a lot of code with the Spectrum version, they actually bothered to make adjusments to use the MSX hardware properly. I never liked Gauntlet too much on any version (Well, maye just Gauntlet Legends on the Playstation), but considering the hardware and how it was made, I thought it was a good port. Also, in 2012 the Atari ST version was ported to Amiga by fans. A few Atari ST games are making their way to Amiga recently by this... there are 2 ways to do it... the "quick" way that needs a souped-up Amiga to make the game work, and the "clean" way that takes sometime but runs at any vanilla Amiga. Unfortunately Gauntlet was ported using the "quick" way, so I can't play it on my Amiga :(
Wow, for someone who's not a fan of Gauntlet you sure know a lot 😀. I'm hoping to get back in to my MSX 2 soon as I really need to get that Retro Core MSX 2 special finished.
If we lived nearby I wouldn't mind borrow you my MSX2+ so you could finish your special :) I grew up playing with my MSX and I had lots of free time when I was a child, I just played everything a lot :D Sometimes I look at MSX games I actually finished without cheating back at a time, games that were both CRAP and HARD and that needed some dedication to actually be beaten... It always makes me think how much free time I had when I was a kid, how I actually bothered to get GOOD in real bad games (Like I mentioned on your Legend of Kage video .... MSX port was awful and still I finished all 4 loops to see the real ending :D)
MSX 2 is a great system. I wonder if a standard MSX2 could be modded to be a +. I know what you mean about games in the past being much harder and we put up with so much more. These days I can't complete many of the games I could when younger. We're spoilt these days.
It can be modded for sure, I just don't know how easy its to do it nowadays. The main difference between MSX 1, 2 and 2+ is the VDP, but I don't know if you can find its VDP very easily today. My own MSX2+ was actually an MSX1 we modded back at the day to be an MSX2+. There was a brazilian guy who made those mods here, he earned a shitload of money back at the day with the MSX (Afaik he created the first ram expansion for it, even before european and japanese guys did it :D). I know he was still doing it a few years ago, but I believe he stopped doing any MSX bussiness for some time now. The MSX was oficially released here in Brazil (there were two models, one of them got heavy exposure on TV ads here), but just MSX1 models. But many people modded those models to become MSX2 or MSX2+ systems. I know there's a cart you can buy that will turn your MSX 1 into an MSX 2, not sure if there's anything like this for MSX2+. But truth to be told... there are about like 10 games that use the + specification, if that much. Some games will work better with an MSX2+ instead of an MSX2 (Space Manbow comes to mind), but games that REQUIRES an 2+ are very few.
Just found out this: msx.hansotten.com/do-it-yourself/msx2-upgrades/ The MSX 2 indeed is a great system, it does have a huge library of games, many very good stuff. But the MSX 1 was already a very good system :) Many excellent games on it too..... even if you have to deal with jerky scrolling sometimes :)
I remember the mid to late eighties as a teenager. I can't say I put much money in Gauntlet. I played it a lot but a few of us could play all day on one credit. We got so good the arcade owner dropped the health to 125 per coin, or was it 75? I forget. They let us play all day because we bought chips and played other games. Fond memories of starting up a game and then letting my mates take over while I went home and had dinner. I think we used to score in the 20 millions playing 8 hours. ELF was my favourite character, although he was easy mode, especially after you got extra speed.. For a challenge Valkyrie was where it was at.
9:29 Actually, that wasn't why the number 4 was slapped onto the title. There was such thing as Gauntlet 3 (well, two of them, but still), and Tengen apparently didn't expect M2 to do so well with the quest mode AND add two other modes.
The Genesis/MegaDrive version sounds awesome! The best sounding version IMO, probably is even better on a Great sound system, much like The Adventures of Batman & Robin does on the system.
rd1979 From what I can see in the above though, only the Mega Drive version seems to be missing the little jingle when you step on to the exit block?!? It's the little things that matter!
***** I can't get over how good the MD soundtrack for this game is. I'm not usually a huge fan of the Mega Drive soundchip, but this is fantastic stuff. I didn't know the composer from FF XII worked on it -- that's another of my favourite soundtracks (and in my top 3 RPGs after Ultima 7 and maybe FF VIII).
batlin When used right the MD sound chip is very impressive. Sadly 99% of western devs didn't know how to use it. Many Japanese devs did thanks to working on the arcade games og the time since many used the same Yamaha FM Synth chip family as the Mega Drive.
Retro Core Am I right in thinking that Snatcher (for Mega CD) used the standard MD sound hardware, rather than streaming the music? That was a fantastic soundtrack. I did enjoy the music from Time Trax and a few other games, too.
This is probably one of the only videos where I will judge and rate all the versions of this game presented. There may be some bias, and it may be iffy since it's my first time, but here I go. NOTE: I will always give arcade 100, so the other ports can easily be graded based on how well it compares to the arcade. ALSO NOTE: More of the score is weighted more on playability, as I think it's one of the most important aspects. Arcade: Pretty self explanatory and fun game. *100* NES: It's nice how they remade the game into something else, but honestly, I'm not feeling this one.... seems rough to play too *61* Atari 8-bit computers: Pretty nice and playable looking. Obviously not the best graphically, but it's a port that works well as it should. *78* Atari ST: Nice port, but it looks (and probably plays) so choppy! I feel like more effort should've been put to this one. *76* Mega Drive/Genesis: Looks colorful with even brighter graphics than the arcade, lots of new modes, and HOLY DAMN that soundtrack is amazing! It plays perfectly too with 4-player support! THIS IS AMAZING! *122* Master System: It looks great and plays well enough for the system, but I don't know why they didn't even bother to add speech, especially since the game pauses anyways when playing the speech, so there's no loss to doing it in SMS. *85* Commodore 64: It looks horrible, but seemly plays really great and smooth for the hardware. *81* Amstrad CPC: Much more pleasing to the eye and it seems to run decent enough. *80* GBA: I don't even have to watch to the video to know that the GBA port is pretty flawed. Graphically, it's pretty great and it competes with the arcade in that aspect well, however, as you said. it controls slow and stiff and is just not fun to manage most of the time. It doesn't even help by the GBA's poor resolution and the hit detection, where difficulty becomes replaced with aggravation. The low quality speeches also gives me some laughs. *63* MSX (fan version): I'd be lying if I said I think the MSX version hardly looks impressive. Smooth scrolling, good playability, and pleasant graphics. *88* MSX (official version): Obviously worse. The graphics, while pleasing to look at, are pretty basic, the scrolling is dumbed down, but it still seems playable enough.... *67* ZX Spectrum: Uh.... this does NOT follow the arcade well AT ALL. This wouldn't be a bad thing if it weren't so poorly designed, or at least has worse design than the arcade game. Graphics... they're okay, but playability is quite hindered with several other flawed aspects. *56* MS-DOS: I actually had to check up other videos of this version in order to give this a fair assessment.... and.... it's probably the worst version on there. Collision detection is WAY off at times, it plays REALLY choppy and somewhat slow, the sound is AWFUL, and the oversight at lvl 59 almost completely ruins the game, but the graphics are at least pretty decent. Still not enough to save that train wreck. *34* In conclusion: It's pretty clear the Mega Drive/Genesis port is the best port out there. Makes sense for the good ol powerful 16/32-bit hardware it has, even for 1988.... oh, and DOS version sucks ass.
Fandango Brandango "The Motorola 68000 is a 16/32-bit CISC microprocessor, which implements a 32-bit instruction set, with 32-bit registers and 32-bit internal data bus, but with a 16-bit data ALU and two 16-bit arithmetic ALUs and a 16-bit external data bus."
The version I had as a kid (and played for what seemed hours at a time) was the Amstrad port … in my head it was near Arcade perfect … I’m now reevaluating all my cherished childhood memories 😆 … still pretty good (for the CPC) I guess, but the subsequent MD version was / is fantastic 👍🏼
The Megadrive port of Gauntlet started as an internal training project for what would eventually become M2. They had no access to the source code and the game was made by reverse engineering the arcade game. Tengen somehow got wind of it and after being shown what they had (which was just a version of the arcade game) they told them if they added more content Tengen would publish it.
17:38 lmfao those Speak and Spell sounds... xD I seem to remember a port of Gauntlet to the NES by TENGEN...but my favorite version, of the original game and not the reboots, is obviously the arcade version, though the Master System version isn't that bad. I've not played any of the other ports extensively though, and didn't even know that there was an MS-DOS port...
I had "Gantelet", the clone by Diecom Systems for the TRS-80 Color Computer. It had no Valkyrie but allowed three players at once, two on the joysticks and one on the keyboard. It had the usual limited four-color scheme most CoCo games used (red blue black white) to enable higher-res graphics. It even had speech (if you had the Speech Sound Cartridge which was an extra hundred dollars). But it ran very slowly and had very limited sound effects.
@@RetroCore Thanks. Here's Gantelet ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-tsvWKjOTK2Q.html The sequel Gantelet II for the Color Computer 3 was outstanding. The sound remained a weakness, but graphics and gameplay were basically exact. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-MNHrMaYcUkY.html
I just learn that M2 was the team behind the Megadrive port of Gauntlet, which was at first design for the X68000. They already did excellent console ports at time.
Joe from Game Sack revealed an interesting tidbit about the NES port. There's no flicker, because all of the enemies are background tiles instead of sprites.
I always learn something when I watch one of your videos! Had this on the CPC 464 back in the day, played it years later on a friend's Mega Drive and always wondered how a game could have had 'three sequels' and yet seem so similar to the original.
He he he, as I said, it was stupid calling the MD version Gauntlet IV :) it caused a lot of confusion. I actually played the Japanese version first so I knew it as Gauntlet. Imagine my excitement when I though Gauntlet IV was an all new game. Good job I played a rom and never bought it.
Not sure about your side of the pond, but here, an NES game called Gauntlet II was released by Mindscape some time after the game you show here. Yeah, I always wondered where III was....
Had to laugh at the Spectrum version introducing Wizards and Demons in level one. Were there Lobbers and Death too? That's a shame about the ST version. Gauntlet 2 on the ST was a great conversion and eventually came free with the system.
For me the GBA version looks almost as emulation, even tough you said it doesn't play well. I didn't know this version existed, I'm gonna try on a emulator :) Great video as always!
The GBA port is obviously written from scratch and isn't based on the arcade version despite using pretty faithful graphics. The warrior can shoot through corners in the GBA version, he also seems to have less shot power than in the arcade version.
Gauntlet almost never made it. When Ed Logg pitched the concept to Atari Management, they didn't think 4 strangers would gather around one machine and cooperate, it was only Ed's established track record that convinced them.
May have already been mentioned before, but there were 2 Ataris when this game came out - Atari Games (arcade) and Atari Corp. (computers/consoles/etc.). That’s why you’ll see the name Tengen used…because Atari Games weren’t allowed to sell computer/console games under the Atari name.
First time i played this game was on my fathers computer in 1992 it was the arcade version i played. In 2006 or 2007 my dad bought me a Midway arcade Treasures collection for PS2 it had this game, Gauntlet 2 and many other great Midway arcade titles. Anyways to me the arcade original and the Genesis/ Megadrive is a great home version and the best to me.
Master System coder, Tony Porter, proved Sega's Master System Technical Department completely wrong, as they had told him having a static panel, with full, 8-way scrolling, was impossible on the hardware, he proved it was.
The Master System uses the map data from the ZX SPECTRUM, despite the coder, Gary Priest playing the C64 version to get a feel for the game. The screen on the C64 is 40 characters wide, yet on 32 on the Sega.
RetroUnlim I think it was one of the expantion packs that were released for the Euro home computer ports. It's titled Gauntlet and has the same title screen as the other versions. It is odd though.
The official fan remake MSX is for MSX2. The bgm tittle use MSX-Music AKA as FM PAC if this is present via cartridge or intern with a MSX2 + or MSX Turbo R :) . Nice video!
I'm glad Tengen outsourced MD port to Japanese developers, especially M2 (the masters of porting), rather than American ones who could have messed up the entire port, especially the soundtrack with GEMS sound driver. In my opinion, the Mega Drive port is as an amazing port as the SNES port of Turtles in Time. Fun fact: MD port of Gauntlet was supposed to be X68000 port starting as a homebrew project by a group of friends who eventually formed M2. They presented the project to Tengen who were impressed by it so much they wanted M2 to port Gauntlet to Mega Drive rather than to X68000. Tengen really wanted to sell the MD port as 4th sequel in the west, they actually were that dump. Fan remake is definitely better than the official port and it's unknown developers were familiar with MSX hardware than most of the official MSX games by any actual developers. I personally don't care about other ports that much.
Awww, man! I had NO IDEA only the NES version had that soundtrack!! That's quite dissapointing, really, I really do enjoy that soundtrack. Though, still, these ports look quite nice! I love that almost all of them used the clever technique or making enemies into background tiles which moved like sprites. I can't imagine how hard that must have been to program!
One thing yes: the official MSX version was made with the MSX1 in mind, not the less popular MSX2, which is targeted at the remake. Not bad for a MSX1 game.
kattmonstret The Lynx version is called Gauntlet the Third Encounter or sometimes Gauntlet 3. So I classed it as a different game. The NES version is also a different game but that is just called Gauntlet so I featured it.
Retro Core OMG, the Lynx's Gauntlet 3 is hilariously bad! I do still load it up sometimes just because of the completely huge roster of weird characters to choose from.
@@RetroCore its a totally different game, originally a stand alone game called Traps and Treasures, Atari rebranded it with the Gauntlet name for marketing purposes.
As with the Atari 8-bit version, it was US GOLD, not ATARI who enabled Gauntlet to be converted, US GOLD bought the home conversion rights. The ST version is missing things like the Thief, some speech samples, due to memory constraints, colours differ due to the ST only being able to display 16 colours on screen. The scrolling is so poor, as the 2 freelance coders who wrote the game, had to write their own software scrolling routines, as the ST lacked any hardware scrolling.
The first home version I played was on the Atari 800XL, over 30 minutes to load from cassette, sloppy controls, awful Collusion detection, characters that jerked all over the shop, 4 colour playfield and such a slow pace.
You can improve the ST version, if your machine has a Blitter Chip and a HDD.. you need tondownload a patch.. Works from hard disk on all ST(E), Mega ST(E), TT, Falcon, any TOS, with min 1MB RAM. 2 Launchers in package - for machines without blitter and for machines with blitter. Smoother scroll with blitter.
At least 3 UK magazines, falsely claimed Bob Armor was working on a conversion for the Atari 7800,alongside Gary Priest doing the Sega Master System version. Were Ace, S magazine and Zero making things up? or simply going on what US Gold told them? And why didn't Atari counter the claims?
I loved Gauntlet in the Arcades so when I heard it was going to be Ported... YOU KNOW IT WAS A MUST BUY! I had an Amstard CPC 464 back in teh day so spent my money on BCA for Gauntlet and the Deeper Dungeons... LOVED IT! I later upgraded to the Atrai ST (If you can call it that...) but Never had Gaunlet for it... and from what I can see here I need to ask WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED???? The Amstrad CPC Version... And 8-Bit Computer Looks and Sounds better than a bloody 16-BIT??? Jesus Atari droped the ball on that one!
I must admit though, Looking back... Graphics were not that good!!!! Still... No offence to C64 Owners, but the CPC version whooped your ass!!! OK the scrolling was smoother on yours but the CPC just looked so much better... Should not gloat... This was US gold after all and I know Sound Wise the C64 should have been the Dogs Bollocks... Which just goes to show how US Gold did a blatant Cash Grab!!!! The C64 Soundtrack should have been the most faithful on this list!!! (I never hated the C64... In fact it was excellent in many way - Especially sound! An amazing Sound chip!)
There is one BIG reason why the home ports only where two players. The machines ONLY had TWO port for controllers. Hard to add two more players when the hardware does not support it to begin with.
@@RetroCore - The standard, out of the box machines only had 2 controller ports. To get 4 you needed to add an additional item in order to play that many at one time.
@@RetroCoreThe Atari 400 and 800 computers had 4 joystick ports, but the A8 version needed a 64K machine to run and the number of 400/800 machines in existence in the UK didn't make it a viable platform.
If there was an Amiga version it would of been a poor ST conversion so not really missing out. Alien Breed ticked all the boxes on the Amiga and was a much better game than Gauntlet
Just love that Megadrive soundtrack.. Didn't know about the "IV" thing! They really did a good job by the look of it, sensibly sacrificing a bit of graphical detail, though still bright and colourful, to keep it running smoothly (as opposed to the ST version). I still play it today on one of those collections, and can happily go from Diablo III back to this.. Recently picked up the PS2 Gauntlet game (different to the Dreamcast version) but have yet to give it a try, I suspect it won't have anything on this though..
Mayhemers After that one, as well as Gauntlet: The Third Encounter for the Lynx. I've heard some people assume that the IV on the US/EU title was also for the fact that there's four modes.
M4R14NO94 That could also be a possibility. But I think it's because they wanted to brag that it was a 4 player version. Either way it wasn't a good idea.
Apparently the ST coder came from a PC coding background, made the mistake of coding in Assembler, not C and using 24x24 pixel sprites on 24x24 pixel background titles, should of coded in C and used 16x16 pixel sprites on 16x16 pixel sprite backgrounds. You'd loose the exact look of the arcade, but you'd get a much smoother frame rate, than the jerky mess we saw on the ST.
You're on point on just about everything save one very minor detail. The C64 was a Euro computer? I understand it was super popular over there, but really? EDIT: There was one more thing. Atari had been split into two separate entities when Warner sold them off. There wasn't really any reason for there NOT to be an Amiga Gauntlet, as Jack Tramiel only bought the home technology division, Atari Corp, and not the arcade division, Atari Games, which first went to Namco before being sold off a billion times and is now part of WB Games.
Yeah, I know that commodore was American but the image is more Euro due to the success they had over here in the home computer market. This si why we kind of say the Amiga and C64 are Euro computers.
Retro Core Well, I'll give you the Amiga. I doubt anyone here even knows what an Amiga IS outside of people involved in the creative industry at the time. I know I'd never heard of it until maybe two years ago. The C64, however, that was huge here too (though admittedly before my time), especially pre-crash. Tramiel's ruthless price war against Atari, however, was part of what allowed the games crash of 83 to happen, which served to sour people on home computers until IBM compatibles started popping up everywhere. Had it not been for Tramiel and Warner completely destroying the gaming and microcomputer industries here, my years of gaming might have been closer to yours than the Nintendo-dominated youth I remember now.
Really enjoyed this but how did you get Gauntlet to work on the Atari ST emulator. Mine doesn't work. It comes up with the in game screen but the character is missing. I have tried all my images and tried it in Steem and Hatari as it doesn't come up in WinSton. Very odd!
It's been so long since I made this video that I don't remember. I do remember I had about 5 images of the game though. I think the one that worked came from a French emulation site called gametronik or something like that.
+Retro Core I found a really good copy of it where you don't need to swap discs and it works. It's not quite straight forward how you start the game so I might do a video on it to let people know how to start the game. I don't know how many people care to play the ST version but there might be a few and it's good to have resources available. I'm really looking forward to the battle of the ports and I really love the retrocore videos as well. I hope your week is going well. :)
Deadly Gaming LV I'm glad you found a working copy of Gauntlett. Making a video to help people out would be a great idea. I'm happy you are liking the recent Retro Core shows and Battle of the Ports. Unfortunately this week's Battle of the Ports will be late again as I'm stuck in Okayama on a business trip. I'll be going home on Friday night. I've been here all week with only my smart phone for company. At least I found a Soft Map shop this morning and bought a few games. I'll make a video tonight and upload it to RU-vid from the phone.
With such simple graphics they shouldn't have problems, but I see that many of them look worse, the C64 version can be improved with hired graphics. Amiga got gauntlet I and II.
+Retro Core 7:12 why is it no surprise the 1985 Gauntlet arcade game ends up on the Atari ST and not the Amiga computer? when Mindscape or US Gold converted (ported) Gauntlet on the Atari ST computer did Atari Games want an exclusive 16-bit version for Atari's ST computer?
They could have easily ported it to the Amiga but since that was Atari's main rival at the time it makes sense that they'd want to keep such a high profile game an exclusive to their hardware.
I thought the reason/s Gauntlet didn't end up on the Amiga was because the developer was busy developing other Amiga games or the developer thought Gauntlet wouldn't look & sound as good as it should on the Amiga computer
Jason Lee I doubt it. There are more crappy Amiga Ports of arcade games than good Ports. Quality wouldn't have been an issue for sure. Good to see an unofficial port was made. I never knew about that.
😏 ATARI had nothing to do with bringing Gauntlet to their home computers, that was publisher US GOLD, using Gremlin Graphics to handle the Atari 8-bit version. And 2 freelance coders, Graham Lillery and Teoman Irmark, to do the ST version.
HOLY HELL! WHAT THE F**K WENT WRONG WITH THE ATARI ST PORT? DAMN! I had gauntlet on The Amstrad CPC and it looks WAY BETTER than this!!! And that Music! OH MY EARS!!!! I will take the Amstrad CPC version over the Atari ST anyday of the week! And WAIT! Were you playing with Cheats on the C64 Version? Your health never fell!!! EDIT: The Amstrad CPC Version - I don't know if we got a slightly different version in the EU/UK... Obviously I don't have my original to fall back on - God rest my old CPC 464... I gave it hell when I was a child! - My first experience of the classic game was the Arcades, and I always thought a port could never achieve some of the graphical effects the Arcade had... But the CPC or at least the version I had here in the UK did have the Title Screen Colour Transitions... At least that what me memory tells me... Maybe its the Mandela Effect... I dunno... Either way, Your views on the CPC port are very fair! (It is possible that the UK got a slightly better port... I did notice a few games that when Ported to some systems came out later in the UK and had some small changes that made them a little better to previous releases... Never anything groundbreaking, but sometimes depending on where games first hit shelves... EU ports had a bit more time spent on them! Not always... But odd times!)
@@Phoenix2312 in many ways the 16-bit ST was a huge stepback from the Atari 400/800 hardware No hardware scrolling Awful AY soundchip, weaker than Pokey. STE was meant to be an Amiga killer, but weaker Blitter, only 16 colours on screen from 4096 I say this as a 520 STFM owner who went from the 800XL and Commodore 64. ST great for polygon 3D and decent workhorse, but not a great games machine for Arcade conversions.
Another disappointing facet of the C64 port is that it is outright BUGGY on an NTSC system. Even the floppy version by Mindscape (which was an NTSC release) was confirmed to be buggy. However, the glitches makes the game virtually impossible to die. :D
According to segaretro.org I quote 'Gauntlet is a 1985 arcade game developed by Atari Games. A port to the Sega Master System developed by Tiertex Design Studios and published by U.S. Gold was released in 1990 in Europe only'. I only knew this after a bit of research I did for my own Master System Gaunlet video. Keep up the good work, I enjoy your channel, cheers!
@@RetroCore in all versions bones and generators don't spawn enemies off screen, so the best method is to keep them off screen as much as possible. I regularly play still to lvl 100 on 2000 health without death.
