Gauntlet: The Third Encounter, review

[Atari5200]

I got another new game in the mail and figured I'd review it. This time it's Gauntlet. When I was waiting for this game to arrive in the mail, I read a bunch of different reviews and there were general mixed feelings for this game, I guess you either love it or you hate it. I even read reviews stating this game isn't even a real Gauntlet game, I beg to differ. Well, here are my opinions, and I've only got up to level 13 so far.

 

Story: 7 out of 10, I don't recall any previous Gauntlet having a story, but this one does. A crystal falls from the sky into a castle making all the monsters in the castle act crazy. Many have tried to recover the crystal, all have failed, and now it's your turn to try to recover the crystal.

 

Graphics: 7 out of 10, I was impressed with the graphics. The small detail looked pretty good for a Lynx game. The floors looked good, the walls looked good, the character graphics looked good, the enemies, etc. etc. Everything looked good, not spectacular, but good. Some of the color schemes made things a little difficult to see, but that is only on certain levels, and only for certain characters. Also wait for level 9 walk into the man eating flowers...cool effect.

 

Sound: 5 out of 10, Again, not paying to much attention, but I can tell you the sound is nothing to get excited about. There are no voices like "you shot a food". You have the generic sound effects for your shots, etc. To be honest, I've played this game more with the sound totally off than with it on, so I don't remember most of the sounds to give this any more than a 5.

 

Gameplay: 9 out of 10, Fantastic, who said this isn't Gauntlet? It absolutely is, it's not only Gauntlet, it's Gauntlet...better. The first thing I noticed is that the enemies don't spawn from a spawn point like in previous Gauntlets. This makes the game a little easier. There are still tons of enemies on screen and I don't recall ever running into any slowdown or anything with the Lynx. Also, the game plays vertically, but I didn't have any issues with this on my Lynx II.

 

Like other Gauntlet games, you choose a character, and there are many of them, run around and shoot your enemies. You pick up keys to unlock doors, you pick up treasure to purchase power up scrolls or food. You start out with 20,000 life which automatically dwindles down even if you do not get hit by enemies. I find this an adequate starting number as you really can breeze through the lower levels without much problem, depending on character. As you search each dungeon, you now have the option to use power up scrolls and potions. The play screen is separated so that you can see monsters coming up on you before they appear on screen, this is a great feature since the game is on a small screen. You also now have the ability to hold inventory. Food will not automatically be used, potions do different things, not all good,and scrolls are for magic, like increasing speed, shot power, revive(basically continue), heal, etc. This adds a totally different element to Gauntlet, and it works well...very well. You basically have one life but even if you die, you can still cast spells or eat food you have in inventory, so if you die and eat an apple you will revive with 500 life, just enough to get away, or whatever, using a Revive spell will put you back at 20,000 basically like a continue, so it always pays to have a revive or some extra food or heal scrolls just in case since they can be used to revive your character if you die. This game is a blast to play.

 

Characters: 10 out of 10, who wouldn't rate this category a 10 when you can pick a nerd to crawl through a dungeon. The selection is good and funny, which is why I gave it a 10, but there are definite drawbacks to certain characters. You have the Wizard, Warrior, Valkryie as usual, but now you can also play as a Nerd, Punk Rocker, Gun Slinger, Robot, and Samurai. I prefer the Samurai as he seems to have the best balance between speed and strength. Strength is needed to hold inventory, the more you have, the more stuff you can hold. The Wizard is slow, has low strength, but his shot is high so he kills most things in 1 or 2 shots(except rocks), over all though a very good and unique selection of characters.

 

Replay value: 2 out of 10, WHAT??? 2 out of 10 are you mad??? No. The one draw back of this game, and it is HUUUUGGGEEE, is the lack of any save or password system. I play this game often, but now it's starting to get to me, the repetative nature of a dungeon crawler. I've pretty much memorized all the levels from 1-10, I'm sure this game would be a blast multiplayer, but I don't have the option for that.

 

Overall: 6 out of 10, The game is seriously fun, but it can wear off quickly since you can't save or at least start over with a password. They took a great game added a great inventory system and totally ruined it by not putting in at least a password system. Still though, for as cheap as it is, I recommend buying it, it's still a worthy Lynx title.

Edited April 10, 2008 by Atari5200

[phuzzed]

I agree. I wish they would have incorporated a password save feature as well, like they did in Chips Challenge...

 

Good news is that there is a level select (up to level 20):

 

Choose your character.

Start the game, but DO NOT move your character.

Press the OPTION 1 button, this will take you to Level 5.

Repeat this to go to Levels 10, 15, and 20.

 

At least it will get you halfway through the game