Dungeons & Dragons Games Vol. 2: 1984-1987 - Britannia Gnomes and the Tower of Doom - Part 1

This week on Super Adventures, my tour of the first ten years of Dungeons & Dragons games has reached its third year: 1984. But I'd like to keep this moving at a decent pace, so I'm also going to write about every D&D game released in 1985, 1986 and 1987.

Though it occurs to me that I don't really have the context for these Golden Age CRPGs. I'm not old enough or American enough to have ever loaded one of them up on an Apple II, so I have no nostalgia and zero fond memories. I did play a few Amiga and DOS RPGs, but it usually only took me 10 minutes to realise that they were not meant for me. The 2000s are when I got into the genre, with games like Final Fantasy IX, Deus Ex, Dungeon Siege and Knights of the Old Republic. That's the era I'm nostalgic for.

So okay, what I'm going to do is research some of the other influential RPGs of the mid-'80s and I'm going to play them as well. I don't promise that I'm going to stick with them very long, I'm not the CRPG Addict, I'm just some millennial writing a retro blog, but I'm smart enough to know that I need a history lesson.

I'm going to play... 16 games I think. About 4 per year. That seems like a normal reasonable amount. I'll even put a number next to each title so it's like one of those 'top 20' internet lists.

Super Mario Bros. (NES)

Developer:

Nintendo

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Release Date:

1985 (Japan)

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Systems:

NES

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It's always nice to have another 'Super' game on Super Adventures, even though Nintendo had to go and confuse me by releasing it on the Famicom/NES instead of waiting five more years to put it on the Super Nintendo. Fortunately they'd learned to match the title with the system by the time Super Mario 64 came out; they didn't end up calling it Super Mario Cube or something.

Super Mario Bros. is the second game I'll be playing for my Mario Marathon Month. It's also the something like the eighth game to ever feature Mario, the seventh in which he's playable, the fourth to have his name in the title, and the first to be developed exclusively for home consoles... I think (and that's not even counting the Game and Watch games). He's a busy guy, and it's hard to keep track of all the places he turns up.

While I'm throwing out numbers, this was something like game #64 for the two year old Famicom, but when the NES reached the US this was out at launch, and you can bet that it wasn't Gyromite and Duck Hunt that made the system such a massive success in the West, resurrecting the American console market after the 1983 video game crash. Super Mario Bros. was the best selling single platform exclusive for three decades... though that seems a bit less impressive somehow when you know that Wii Sports was the game that finally beat it.

Anyway I'm going to play it for an hour or two, show some screenshots and shout out everything that enters my mind as I go.

Yie Ar Kung-Fu (Arcade)

Developer:

Konami

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Release Date:

1985

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Systems:

It's all over the place

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Today's 'Y' game on Super Adventures is arcade classic Yie Ar KUNG-FU!

In Chinese the title means 'One Two Kung-Fu'... or perhaps '12 Kung-Fu' I suppose. I wouldn't really know, as my understanding of Chinese is even worse than my knowledge of Japanese. Though one thing I do know is that this is likely one of the most influential games ever made, as it basically kicked off the 1 vs. 1 fighting game genre when it hit arcades way back in 1985. That's two years before Street Fighter 1!

Okay there were a quite a few other games that introduced important elements of the genre, like Sega's 1976 version of Heavyweight Champ, Data East's Karate Champ and Nintendo's Urban Champion, but Yie Ar Kung-Fu has the proper health bars, the varied cast, the freedom of movement, the punch and kick buttons... nearly all of the basics in one place. I suppose its greatest gift to the fighting game genre though, was to prove that you don't have to have 'Champ' in the title to be successful, because otherwise today we'd be talking about games like Ultimate Marvel vs. Champcom 3, Champgirls, Guilty Champ Xrd, Melty Champ: Champtress Again Current Champ, and Street Fighter II' Champion Edition.

Yie Ar Kung-Fu came out for a million different systems, but I'd hit my arbitrary word count limit just listing them all so I'll be sticking exclusively to the arcade version this time around. My plan is to give it an hour or so, fail a few (dozen) times, then finish off by blaming the game for all my mistakes.

Rescue on Fractalus! (Atari 8-bit)

Well there goes the once mighty LucasArts, shifted by Disney from 'internal development to a licensing model' a few months after their acquisition to no one's great surprise. Sure you could argue that not much has changed by this as they've basically just been licensing out Star Wars games for a good while now, though somehow I never lost hope that they could turn it around and recapture some of their former glory (and maybe even make us a damn Star Wars point and click adventure already.)

But nope, three decades after LucasArts' first appearance with Rescue on Fractalus! and Ballblazer for the Atari 5200, the last games with their name attached ended up being Angry Birds Star Wars and Kinect fucking Star Wars. If they'd been the developer for those titles I'd say it was practically a mercy killing, but they were actually busy making the awesome looking Star Wars 1313 when the axe fell. So tragic.

007 Games Part 1: James Bond, A View to a Kill, Goldfinger

Super AiG's Guide to Every (Old) James Bond Game Ever, Volume 1

This is what happens when I have Photoshop open when I'm bored.

It's another Super Adventures special event! Every day for the next week I'll be going through the first 10 years of the Bond game series, from James Bond 007 to The Duel, and hopefully everything in between. So if for whatever reason you don't like reading about James Bond, or looking at crap screenshots from ancient Atari and Commodore systems, I'll apologise now. Sorry about that.

Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar (MS-DOS) - Guest Post

RPG expert Ocean has already played Ultima V for the site, and now he's gone and found another one to play.

I'm not going to go and play EVERY Ultima ever, don't worry. I just happened to acquire Ultima IV from GOG.com for free so I figured I'd try it out. I think Ray FORCED me to play it for the blog. He doesn't even pay me. Please donate a pizza to me...

Citadel (BBC Micro)

Superman vs the castle of evil monks? This game was a request, so... don't blame me.

This is my first BBC Micro game, and apparently it was actually one of the better games on the system. It's even got speech on the title screen!

Nonterraqueous (C64) - Guest Post

"Nonterraqueous"! Say it, it's fun!

Alcazar: The Forgotten Fortress (ColecoVision)

Seems like this is another game made by only one person. It's got a bit of a Zelda look to it, but it apparently came out a year earlier.

BurgerTime (NES)

I gotta be honest, I'm not getting my hopes up for this one. And you shouldn't either.

The Portopia Serial Murder Case (NES) - Guest Post

Guest contributor GreatOldOne returns with another ancient NES game. This is easily the oldest game on the site so far in fact.

This is a REALLY old school adventure game where you try to solve a murder with the help of an assistant. Unfortunately, I was spoiled on the identity of the murderer before I started playing, but it should still be an interesting experience, right?