"Red Warrior Needs Food Badly!"

The history of Gauntlet goes back a long time. It was an arcade game, the first one to allow up to 4 people to play at the same time. It became a huge craze, and has spawned numerous titles, the most recent of which have taken a more familyesque theme. The new game coming out soon, Seven Sorrows has said it will be returning to the original roots of Gauntlet, which is this game. A dungeon crawl hack and slash the monsters. No fancy "kiddy" chars like the jesters, just the basics.

In this game, there are four chars, each with unique stats to set them apart from the others. You select by using the control pad, to the left is Thyra, the Valkyerie, who is the best armored of the 4. Up is Thor, the warrior, the one with the best attack of the 4. Right is Questor, the archer, who has the best move speed. Finally, down is Merlin, the wizard, who has the best "bomb" of them all. You'd think the archer would have an advantage, with his ranged weapons, but all the characters have a ranged attack, there is no melee in this game.

After you have chosen your character, and your partner has chosen one if you're playing the game's two player mode, you are taken to a dungeon. The game itself is an overhead view, side scroller. Your only objective is to reach the exit of each dungeon, and kill the monsters getting in your way. You have two ways to kill these monsters, pressing A will use your normal, unlimited attack (your weapon) which Thor excels at. This can only attack one enemy per hit. Your second choice, if you've picked up a "bomb" or a magic vial, you can hit B, and it will attack all the monsters on the screen. The stronger your "Magic" skill the more damage you do to them, this is where Merlin comes in handy. You can pick up gold, which when you've gotten enough, will raise your max health. Your health decreases by 1 every second, sort of doubling as a counter, and you also take damage from the monsters and if your health reaches 0, by monster or time, you will die. On some levels, there is "food" you can pick up, which will restore your health by 100, giving you 100 extra seconds, or an extra damage buffer. You also need to pick up keys, to unlock the doors in the dungeon. The higher leveled room you're in, the more keys you will need to find. In most levels, there is more then one way to reach the exit, so it's different every time you play.

There are 99 levels, and 6 seperate worlds for you to travel through and beat in Gauntlet. (This number does not include any secret levels you may encounter) It's extremely difficult to beat, especially since there is no save file.

The sound is somewhat lacking, but still better then most NES games, it has more then one sound track, and fairly appropriate sound effects.

Scoring Time:
GamePlay: 10
Sound: 6
Story: 8
Graphics: 8
Replay: 9
Overall: 8

Recommendation: This game is extremely fun, if you are looking for a NES game to play, I would recommend this one up there with Megaman, Super Mario brothers, etc. If you find it somewhere for cheap, like most NES games are these days, I recommend you buy it if you have a NES.

This review brought to you by DeathXI, Dave Nelson!

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 05/01/05