"It has it's charm"

Gauntlet is an Action game developed and released by Tengen. This game is considered to be an Arcade classic and has been ported to many consoles. I must be honest with you, I just can't enjoy this game, but I will try to give it an unbiased review.

Story: N/A

A bunch of warriors against a powerful wizard or something must find an item hidden in a large labyrinth, or something like that I don't really remember what the manual was saying…

Graphics: 4/10

Even for the NES this game looks bad. Yes I know that we have a limited palette, I know we are talking about a low-resolution system, but I also know that you can make something look good, even with a small amount of colors, if you design it right, like Super Mario 2-3. Everything is extremely simple and dull, also two much dark colors are used something that I consider bad for NES games even though these colors fit to a dangerous dungeon. All sprites are very simple too, but at least they are distinguishable. All stages are simple mazes that look the same and have little differences between them, like that ground color for example and no additional details that could make you feel like you are in a dungeon.

Sound: 5.5/10

The best thing of the game in the sound section is probably the classic theme song, which has that medieval feel to it. Sound effects on the other hand are very simple. Characters have 2 voice sounds, (I think), that are, or at least look like real voices recorded and converted to a format playable by the NES. Of course they are very distorted and strange but they are ok for such an old game I guess.

Gameplay: 5.8/10

This game is a simple Action\Shooter. You select one of the 4 available heroes and start roaming through the labyrinth of the Gauntlet. Each character has 4 attributes, offensive power, defensive power, magic that affects how many bombs you can carry and speed that affects your movement. The purpose of the game is to reach each level's exit. There are 3 things that make that more challenging. First of all spawning nests that endlessly create enemies and you must destroy them in order to stop them. Secondly your health meter is constantly decreasing, so you must be, (like Iron Maiden say), quick or be dead! Finally apart from the fact that all levels are mazes, (simple ones thought), you'll have to find keys in order to open doors and keep on moving, but you must be careful which one to open in order to reach your goal faster.

Generally the whole game revolves around your health points. You can kill an enemy by touching him but then you'll loose more points but there are times where you'll have to sacrifice yourself because you might loose more time and energy by trying to kill the nest along with a great amount of enemies that defend it. Enemies just move towards you and by that I mean that if you are behind a wall and the enemy is on the other side, he won't try to go around, instead he will constantly move towards as if the wall can fall down, something that you must take advantage of in order to make monsters go where you want them to go. Along your quest there are some items that help you restore your health and bombs that destroy all enemies at once.

Gauntlet is a very repetitive game, but then again which arcade game isn't. It is quite addicting, but only for a while because all levels are pretty much the same and you'll soon meet all kinds of enemies, the only thing that gets more difficult is the level design. Like all arcade games it's quite challenging and after completing it you can try again with a different hero. The 2 player mode is much more entertaining though and can keep you excited a bit more.

Positives:
-Somewhat more fun when playing a 2-player game
-4 characters with differences in power, magic and speed

Negatives:
-Average, if not bad, graphics
-Repetitive

Also Play:
Gauntlet 2 (NES)
Super Smash TV (SNES)

Overall: 5.1/10

Gauntlet is a classic game no doubt about it, but there are games that remain good year after their first release and other that age badly and are good for those who found them enjoying back then when they where new. I believe that Gauntlet falls into the second category and believe me I spent lots and lots of hours in order to find what's so great about it and a I have spent a minute or two for it when I was much younger but I just can't find something good about it. Well… I guess it has some kind of an old school charm…

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 12/03/07

Game Release: Gauntlet (US, 1987)