"Oh, Dark Castle 3 is out....waitaminute WHAT?!?!"

Dark Castle and its sequel, Beyond Dark Castle, were two of the greatest games, and in the early life of the Mac, and its best action games for quite some time after. I had both when I was a kid, and many hours were spent by me and my brothers, fighting over the computer so we could get our turn. Before speedrunning became an almost sport, I would speedrun Dark Castle and Beyond Dark Castle.

Return to Dark Castle is the oft delayed sequel to those two games. In the relatively insular and hidden world of people who play games on Macs, it's our own little Duke Nukem Forever. As such, I wasn't watching for it, and discovered it completely accidentally about 10 days after the game was released, while reminiscing about old Mac games with my brother, and browsing the original's Wikipedia entry. After having played it nearly to completion (as I write this I'm just refining my technique on the last stage) it thankfully lives up to all my memories of the original game, while refining the formula and adding more features like all good sequels should.

For those of you reading this that may never have played either of the previous games in one of their various incarnations, an explanation of how the game works is in order, since there aren't many games that I've played that are exactly like it. At its core, the Dark Castle games are action-platformers, with a heavy puzzling component. You control brave peasant Bryant, son of Duncan (protagonist of the original two games) on his quest to defeat the evil Black Knight, in a sidescrolling fashion, similar to classic Nintendo platformers, but vertical movement is normally done by finding stairs, ladders, or ropes to climb. Jumping is important, but used in a more careful way than more popular platformers, since a badly timed or placed jump will more often than not lead to Bryant's painful death in one of many ways. Combat is carried out through two means. The classic method, and the weapon you'll be using most often, is the simple rock. The angle of Bryant's throwing arm is controlled with the mouse, and you throw with a mouse click (remember, this was developed originally for a platform with only one mouse button ever). The angle of Bryant's throwing arm is the only clue you get for what trajectory a thrown rock is going to take, and his arm won't visibly move with very small corrections, so that can be frustrating until you get the hang of it. Your supply of rocks isn't unlimited either, but there are bags of rocks scattered around the game with which you can re-arm and keep practicing your rock throwing. There are also upgrades to the basic rock, including the Fireball from the classic games, and another quite powerful one you're going to have to find for yourself. There is also a substantial melee combat element in Return to Dark Castle. In the first game, there was only one section where a hand weapon was used, as a kind of one shot puzzle solving gimmick. In Beyond Dark Castle it was expanded somewhat, with a couple different weapons added in certain areas which you needed to defeat a henchman, allowing you to get to an Orb, a switch, or the level exit. In Return, it has been expanded to the entire game. Bryant can now carry around one extra weapon other than his bag of rocks, and bring it out whenever he wants. This opens up some new avenues, and is quite a welcome addition to the classic game. There are also two new hand weapons in the game, both important to progression, but you'll need to hunt them down. Suffice it to say, that they'll be worth it when you discover how to get them. There are also more defensive upgrades. The Shield, which makes you insubstantial and immune to damage for a short period of time, returns from the older games along with several other new ones, which again, you're going to have to find out about on your own.

The goal of the game is to collect enough Orbs from throughout the Dark Castle and its environs to fill the pedestals in the main chamber, and open the way to the Black Knight's sanctum and defeat him. There are far more Orbs in the game than are required to open the gate, however, and you won't get close to 100% completion by doing the bare minimum needed to beat the game. Each level presents very different sorts of challenges. Some are very action oriented with little if any puzzling, and some are reminiscent of Zelda-style puzzles, where you need to find and pull or push the switches in the right order to open the door that leads to the next area. There are also a LOT of secrets. Well over a third of the game is locked away behind secret levers, or hidden entrances. There are hints scattered around the castle grounds that are suitably vague but most of the time they provide enough of a hint to get you through, though which area a hint refers to is intentionally left vague, so it will take plenty of brain work, exploration, and trial and error to open all the doors. Unfortunately, a few of the hints aren't helpful at all, and the secret switches so well hidden that you'll end up running around entire levels pressing the action button after every step looking for a switch. For those, it ends up being quite frustrating and hurts enjoyment of the game, but thankfully that frustration doesn't last too long after the secret has been found.

For fans of the original games who have either lost their old discs, don't have a Mac that will run the game anymore, or both, the inclusion of all of the original levels from the first two games is a very welcome thing. In most cases, I wasn't able to determine any real difference between my memory of the game and what I was playing (apart of course, from the better graphics), however the Black Knight fights have been changed significantly from the original, in that the Black Knight isn't there (which makes sense), and something has had to be put there to replace the threat he posed. I'd of course prefer to have those levels exactly the same as they were, but the changes made don't damage the difficulty too much. Other than that, however, a perfect translation. Too perfect, you could argue, since the difference in difficulty between the older levels and the new ones is pretty stark. I found myself breezing through the original Dark Castle levels before I even realized I had done it.

The graphics are a bit of a throwback to the original, as they are native at the 640x480 resolution of the original games. However, there is a scaling option (enabled by default), which though it makes everything a bit fuzzy on my Macbook Pro, it still looks great. The work done re-making the old backgrounds with a full color palette was obviously painstaking, and should be commended. Far better than the colorized Color Dark Castle released 10 years ago.

Sound is a treat, especially for fans of the originals. All the original sounds are here in the same places, with only a few alterations that only seem to show up in the newer levels. I started the game up with my father in the room, and he recognized the sounds immediately, and he had never played it. (I guess that shows how much I used to play it...) The addition of music is a nice touch, and the tracks are good, though I turned them off pretty quickly, since it just didn't sound right. That, however, is just burned in memory talking, not a comment on the quality by any means.

There is a replay recording feature built into the game, but unfortunately, as of this writing, it's very buggy. When this gets working right (promised for the next patch) this will be a great addition for my own personal speedrunning milestones. A level editor has also apparently been promised, but is still not released as of this writing. If it's as powerful as promised, it'll mean constant new levels for as long as the game runs, and will be a major bonus. The lack of it now can only be called disappointing, though mitigated by the sheer amount of new stuff there is to master. The system requirements are also so low, that this will run on the vast majority of Macs still functioning. When the replays are fixed, and the editor released, if you own a Mac and play any kind of games other than Solitaire, there is no other game out there that will be more worth your money and time. If you were a big fan of the original games, run, do not walk to your wallet and get it. You'll thank me (or curse me for causing your life to be drained away) for it.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 04/03/08

Game Release: Return To Dark Castle (US, 2008)