Gauntlet III: Final Quest (Amiga Longplay)

Publisher: US Gold Developer: Software Creations Coder: Mike Delves Graphics: Chris Collins, Haydn Dalton Music: Tim Follin Year: 1991 Price: Not commercially released? The land of Capra witnessed many wars amongst its kingdoms. One day a wizard named Magnus came and restored peace. To ensure no further wars he created a door to the dark dimensions from which evil came. Then King Capricorn came to these kingdoms along with his army known as the Velcrons. They served the evil behind the door, and held Magnus as their captive. Terror once again besieged the land. Unlike its predecessors, Gauntlet III is an isometric arcade adventure. Choose from 8 characters each with different attributes based on armour, shot power, shot speed, hand-to-hand combat, and magic. You must navigate through 8 realms, each containing 4 or 5 areas. Once the final item from each realm has been collected you must locate the exit. Doing so quickly awards a points bonus. The game is nicely designed with different enemies throughout. However most enemies attack the same way. None of them hurl objects or shoot fireballs, and none of the potions contain poison despite the manual suggesting otherwise. The most difficult enemy, Death, only appears 3 or 4 times whereas the manual suggests many appearances, especially in the final realm. Movement can be awkward thanks to the slow scrolling, and the isometric perspective can cause difficulties getting stuck beside objects and lining up with enemies. It was fairly easy to complete after deciding the best strategy was to ignore enemies where possible and make a beeline to the generators. I was too cautious at the beginning. Towards the end my energy nearly exceeded 9999 which would have looped it to zero! The score also loops when reaching 1,000,000. The game feels incomplete and no cover inlay appears to exist. Perhaps it was never commercially released and only alpha versions were reviewed by magazines. For example, in the final realm it's possible to enter the castle if you haven't collected all the coins. Inside the castle there's an area where it appears you should stand to complete the game. Instead the game ends once all coins have been collected and simply walking to the castle, rather than entering. This doesn't feel right. Given that enemies attack the same way, no poisonous potions, no sound effects, and inaccurate manual I don't believe it was released. With fine tuning it could have been more enjoyable. A special word for Tom Follin who composed the soundtrack. The title score is phenomenal with drums, organs, pipes, and goodness knows what else. Probably my single favourite piece on the Amiga. The in-game tracks are fantastic too. The full soundtrack contains 5 tunes (title, 3 x in-game, and 1 unused). I changed this around so the 3 in-game tracks and 1 unused are each played twice within the 8 realms (unused track is played on realms 3 and 7). Tim's soundtrack was my main inspiration for this longplay. 00:00:00 Loading Screen 00:00:04 Title Screen 00:03:27 Character Selection 00:03:57 Realm 1 (Tree Kingdom) 00:23:27 Realm 2 (Mountain Kingdom) 00:44:03 Realm 3 (Swamp Kingdom) 00:59:33 Realm 4 (Volcanic Kingdom) 01:18:42 Realm 5 (Sea Kingdom) 01:26:49 Realm 6 (Lost City) 01:40:08 Realm 7 (Ice Kingdom) 02:03:10 Realm 8 (Magic Kingdom) 02:18:36 Ending 02:18:48 Hi-Score Entry