Knightmare II: Maze of Galious (MSX, 1987)
Graphics-8 Sound-8 Control-7 Challenge-7.5 Story-6
Level Design-7 Frustration-8.5 Fun-7 Originality-7
Overall Score-7
+
Switch between two different characters on the fly (one boy and one girl - boy jumps higher and destroys rocks quicker but can only shoot/put 2 sub weapons at once (without the earrings and bracelet) and dies quickly from being underwater, girl can shoot/put 3 sub weapons at once and swim+stay longer underwater but needs 15 hits to destroy a rock (without the ring) and can't destroy weak walls (without the pendant) nor pass the rotating doors (without bread & water)+has a set jump height, )
Action adventure/ARPG gameplay (shops, some NPCs with clues, basic character building (beat bosses to upgrade your health bar), item inventory (keys and arrows), partially non-linear structure)
Good enemy variation
Some good enemy AI (blue knights, shooting ghosts, yellow enemies in world 8)
Sub weapons and various tools/items (large arsenal)
Sshields (three levels, auto-block)
Fairy rooms (Zelda; for healing)
One consumables grinding friendly room (bottom left of the castle)
Large world (9 sub areas+1 hub area)
Some interesting items/tools (mines, rolling fire (fireball moving around a platform similar to in SMB2 - it won't go up a wall though), oar - walk on water, magnifying glass - examine gravestones, vase - boosts exp gain, carpet - turns the lava in world 8 to stone and removes fireballs, bible - freezes all enemies in a room (can be used 15 times), halo - lets you teleport from any world/sub area back to the beginning/hub area (last password room - F1 then Enter), feather - teleports you to an opened world portal/door (press the corresponding number key), bell rings when nearing a world/sub area - penguin adventure & dragon quest?, speed upgrade item (boots - Monster World/WBiML?)
Minor puzzles (breakable walls - usually obvious where to strike, read gravestones to find the spell/word to open the seal to the boss in a world/sub area - kinda like Zillion, kill all enemies in certain rooms to make an item appear)
Sub area maps (need to find them, no hub area map?)
Can revive the other character at death's shrine (room L11, fairly expensive, reload to be able to do it again)
Pretty large bosses
Optional handicap items that help with the boss fight in each world
Some good bosses (world 7)
+/-
Can't attack up/down (can supposedly hit rocks from above if you time the sword strike right but I wasn't able to do it)
can't jump into the room above the one you're in except when there's a platform moving between the rooms
password save (long)
consumables (key, coins, arrows) respawn when loading a password save
enemies respawn when moving 1-2 screens away (some rooms have constantly respawning enemies)
stairways (ladders?) that disappear after climbing them do reappear if you move 4 screens away, many gear pieces have very specific effects and some just counter the added weakness of a character, the two playable chars are lovers, the manual basically guides you through the first part of the game (up until clearing world/sub area 1), the dagger is a bit OP (kills all bats in a room and gives you exp if you type "umbrella") but pretty much a must in some rooms with moving platforms, need to do the worlds/sub areas (including the bosses) in a set order, filling the exp bar only refills your health bar - it only increases from large keys and these can only level up one character at a time, can't see enemy or boss HP, can't trigger mines with rolling fire, the girl can't do a low jump, most of the game is more challenging in the beginning,
-
Steep difficulty curve
Need to re-unlock a locked door each time you go through it
Ssome control/interface issues (can only buy one key at a time, pretty long knockback, jump and climb set to up arrow key, very slow movement underwater, kinda slow ladder climbing, can't jump onto nor off of ladders, some delay before you can turn around in mid-air or start moving after jumping straight up, fall straight down when moving off of a ledge, fall all the way down to the ground if hit while on a ladder)
Can't use nor even see ladders ending at the bottom of a room (making them one-way from below)
Trial & error (world 10 entrance location - "somewhere in the castle" is the only clue, finding the carpet shop in world 8, getting to the world 6 boss - need to kill all enemies in two rooms in other parts of the world and there aren't any clues, the stones on the water puzzle in world 5 - just need to wait for 1 min+ to make the first one appear (no shrine in this world), no clues for how to get certain items? (doll in world 2 - the shrine god (which you also have to find by killing one of the teleporting ghosts to make a ladder appear)
tells you to hit "the wall" but not in which room, vase, dagger, golden cross, sabre), moving wall traps - sometimes can't even destroy them in time to escape, no item descriptions in-game and they're sometimes confusing or overly vague in the manual, some unkillable enemies such as the squid, fairy locations, some cheap enemy placements, points of no return - some which appear quickly as you're moving past a certain point in a room, some empty rocks behind hazards or enemies)
No health drops?
Enemies taking multiple hits aren't stunned when hit
Item containers (rocks) take several hits to destroy for no reason? (12+ hits as the girl)
Some dead ends
Some backtracking and grinding to restore health (before getting the vase)
Some tedious elements (some rather deep pits you can fall into and have to climb back out of, waiting for moving platforms with long routes, moth enemies)
Need to have the silver shield before you can buy the gold shield
Several easy bosses (second and fifth world, ninth world's boss is easy if you're lucky with the cloud spawning, final boss is very easy if you take out his projectiles with mines)
Hub area clues:
-Take a mine with you when you go to world 4
-See a fairy to restore your vitality (middle shrine)
Comment:
As I said elsewhere, it's a guide game. For example, the only clue for the location of the entrance to the last dungeon, which appears after beating the previous one, is "it's somewhere in the castle" (=156 screens to search without an in-game map, and though there's an item you can find which makes a noise when you're a few screen away from one that's still quite a lot).
That said, I enjoyed it and would rank it slightly above a few other games of its time like Faxanadu and Metroid. The enemy and item variety is quite impressive, the world is large without feeling empty, boss fights are above average and the controls are solid.
Level Design-7 Frustration-8.5 Fun-7 Originality-7
Overall Score-7
+
Switch between two different characters on the fly (one boy and one girl - boy jumps higher and destroys rocks quicker but can only shoot/put 2 sub weapons at once (without the earrings and bracelet) and dies quickly from being underwater, girl can shoot/put 3 sub weapons at once and swim+stay longer underwater but needs 15 hits to destroy a rock (without the ring) and can't destroy weak walls (without the pendant) nor pass the rotating doors (without bread & water)+has a set jump height, )
Action adventure/ARPG gameplay (shops, some NPCs with clues, basic character building (beat bosses to upgrade your health bar), item inventory (keys and arrows), partially non-linear structure)
Good enemy variation
Some good enemy AI (blue knights, shooting ghosts, yellow enemies in world 8)
Sub weapons and various tools/items (large arsenal)
Sshields (three levels, auto-block)
Fairy rooms (Zelda; for healing)
One consumables grinding friendly room (bottom left of the castle)
Large world (9 sub areas+1 hub area)
Some interesting items/tools (mines, rolling fire (fireball moving around a platform similar to in SMB2 - it won't go up a wall though), oar - walk on water, magnifying glass - examine gravestones, vase - boosts exp gain, carpet - turns the lava in world 8 to stone and removes fireballs, bible - freezes all enemies in a room (can be used 15 times), halo - lets you teleport from any world/sub area back to the beginning/hub area (last password room - F1 then Enter), feather - teleports you to an opened world portal/door (press the corresponding number key), bell rings when nearing a world/sub area - penguin adventure & dragon quest?, speed upgrade item (boots - Monster World/WBiML?)
Minor puzzles (breakable walls - usually obvious where to strike, read gravestones to find the spell/word to open the seal to the boss in a world/sub area - kinda like Zillion, kill all enemies in certain rooms to make an item appear)
Sub area maps (need to find them, no hub area map?)
Can revive the other character at death's shrine (room L11, fairly expensive, reload to be able to do it again)
Pretty large bosses
Optional handicap items that help with the boss fight in each world
Some good bosses (world 7)
+/-
Can't attack up/down (can supposedly hit rocks from above if you time the sword strike right but I wasn't able to do it)
can't jump into the room above the one you're in except when there's a platform moving between the rooms
password save (long)
consumables (key, coins, arrows) respawn when loading a password save
enemies respawn when moving 1-2 screens away (some rooms have constantly respawning enemies)
stairways (ladders?) that disappear after climbing them do reappear if you move 4 screens away, many gear pieces have very specific effects and some just counter the added weakness of a character, the two playable chars are lovers, the manual basically guides you through the first part of the game (up until clearing world/sub area 1), the dagger is a bit OP (kills all bats in a room and gives you exp if you type "umbrella") but pretty much a must in some rooms with moving platforms, need to do the worlds/sub areas (including the bosses) in a set order, filling the exp bar only refills your health bar - it only increases from large keys and these can only level up one character at a time, can't see enemy or boss HP, can't trigger mines with rolling fire, the girl can't do a low jump, most of the game is more challenging in the beginning,
-
Steep difficulty curve
Need to re-unlock a locked door each time you go through it
Ssome control/interface issues (can only buy one key at a time, pretty long knockback, jump and climb set to up arrow key, very slow movement underwater, kinda slow ladder climbing, can't jump onto nor off of ladders, some delay before you can turn around in mid-air or start moving after jumping straight up, fall straight down when moving off of a ledge, fall all the way down to the ground if hit while on a ladder)
Can't use nor even see ladders ending at the bottom of a room (making them one-way from below)
Trial & error (world 10 entrance location - "somewhere in the castle" is the only clue, finding the carpet shop in world 8, getting to the world 6 boss - need to kill all enemies in two rooms in other parts of the world and there aren't any clues, the stones on the water puzzle in world 5 - just need to wait for 1 min+ to make the first one appear (no shrine in this world), no clues for how to get certain items? (doll in world 2 - the shrine god (which you also have to find by killing one of the teleporting ghosts to make a ladder appear)
tells you to hit "the wall" but not in which room, vase, dagger, golden cross, sabre), moving wall traps - sometimes can't even destroy them in time to escape, no item descriptions in-game and they're sometimes confusing or overly vague in the manual, some unkillable enemies such as the squid, fairy locations, some cheap enemy placements, points of no return - some which appear quickly as you're moving past a certain point in a room, some empty rocks behind hazards or enemies)
No health drops?
Enemies taking multiple hits aren't stunned when hit
Item containers (rocks) take several hits to destroy for no reason? (12+ hits as the girl)
Some dead ends
Some backtracking and grinding to restore health (before getting the vase)
Some tedious elements (some rather deep pits you can fall into and have to climb back out of, waiting for moving platforms with long routes, moth enemies)
Need to have the silver shield before you can buy the gold shield
Several easy bosses (second and fifth world, ninth world's boss is easy if you're lucky with the cloud spawning, final boss is very easy if you take out his projectiles with mines)
Hub area clues:
-Take a mine with you when you go to world 4
-See a fairy to restore your vitality (middle shrine)
Comment:
As I said elsewhere, it's a guide game. For example, the only clue for the location of the entrance to the last dungeon, which appears after beating the previous one, is "it's somewhere in the castle" (=156 screens to search without an in-game map, and though there's an item you can find which makes a noise when you're a few screen away from one that's still quite a lot).
That said, I enjoyed it and would rank it slightly above a few other games of its time like Faxanadu and Metroid. The enemy and item variety is quite impressive, the world is large without feeling empty, boss fights are above average and the controls are solid.