Gateway to Apshai: An Action RPG Precursor? Beyond The Scanlines

[@arturoaguilar6002]

Those sound effects are deeply engraved in my memory.

[@Megawatt]

If I’m not mistaken, finding treasure is how you earn attribute bonuses. In other words, it is a stand-in for experience points.

[@BaneMcDeath]

Yep. Kroah's deconstruction probably has more info but roughly based on points: 33% found random +1 to one of the 3 stats. 67% found random +1 to two of the 3 stats. 100% found +1 to each stat. Naturally every increase increases hp so you want that 100% found.

[@masonwilcox7055]

So much nostalgia for this game, my 5 yr old self played the absolute hell out of this game.

[@xotmatrix]

I really liked this back in the day. I think it's a few tweaks away from greatness. While the level layouts are consistent, they are procedurally generated from a fixed table of randomization seeds. Those seeds could be changed for a more roguelike experience. But care must be taken because not every seed works. For instance, the seed for level 7 of dungeon 8 causes the game to lock up because the generation routine runs out of space to place rooms. This bug is in both the Atari and Commodore versions. The ColecoVision version has a different generator which also allows it to have 99 eight-level dungeons instead of 16.

[@Megawatt]

Love the sound effects on this. The main appeal of the game is hunting new weapons and armour, and see what horrible new monsters you’ll be confronted with as you venture deeper.

[@anthonybeckett7569]

A wonderful review! Well done Rob!

[@BeyondTheScanlines]

Glad you dug it! Hopefully me feelings didn't sour things too much! :)

[@ShiceSquad]

You're the first person I've seen on KZbin who did a proper review of this old-school oddity. I played it a lot back in '87... when I was 8... and it already seemed a bit crude to me all the way back then. I imagine most of its failings had to do with the memory constraints they had to work around. They must have pushed it to the hilt to get what we ended up playing.

[@RWSCOTT]

thanks for the memories. spent many happy (& frustrating) hrs with this when I was a kid. the main appeal was comparing it to Venture, which it felt like a step up from in terms of having some rpg elements while not being a static turn based affair... but yeah, it's not a classic & hasn't aged well. cheers!

[@ThisIsPete]

Gateway to Apshai is one of my all time favourite Atari 8-bit games. I may be slightly biased, but I think I slightly prefer the look of that version with its larger Graphics 1 and 2 fonts. Handy tip that you might not have spotted: the "level ups" aren't completely random; instead they're determined by the proportion of point-scoring treasures you obtained on the level. As such, it's in your interest to explore each level thoroughly and pick up as much shiny loot as you can! I might have felt differently if Sword of Fargoal had come out on Atari 8-bit, but I sadly didn't learn about the joys of that one until the excellent (and sadly no longer available) iOS version.

[@BeyondTheScanlines]

Good News: Fargoal's mobile port lives! It's been made available through GameClub, and even on Android too (for those who prefer that path). Though one day I'll fire up the VIC and show that version off, and not only because there needs to be more VIC 20 love online ;) I really wished the manual had talked about the correlation between treasures and stat boosts, even in a vague way, to clue players in. The lack of feedback between how much you scavenge and how that results in boosts would have made for a solid end of game screen. In fact, it goes as far to recommend you spend less time grabbing treasures in the early stages, which feels incredibly counterproductive. But I guess needing to squeeze all this into a 16k cart meant that such a handy end screen was something which probably had to hit the cutting room floor.

[@eobet]

I also loved the Atari version and still have my original box and cart for it. But since I haven't played it in 30 some years, I can't remember having any issues with the controls... I only remember it controlling great, in contrast to Gemstone Warrior, where I do remember getting stuck in walls...

[@robertfrancois6064]

One of the greatest Atari games

[@BaneMcDeath]

I do not believe there is any procedural generation. Every items, trap, monster, treasure, item, and map is constructed. If there was any random then it was when maps were first created. I've played these maps over and over and over and EVERYTHING is in the same spots. Thus you can tactically figure your level 8 progress. Get your stats up to 99 each and mobs are nothing even with a dagger.