9 Obscure Amiga Euro Platformers That DON'T Suck | Kim Justice

[@mashakos1]

An Amiga retrospective video that isn't depressing for an old Amiga fan to watch, what is going on?? Excellent video Kim, please keep doing more!

[@gothakane]

I have very fond memories of watching my uncle (bless 'em) trying to make it through Traps n Treasures time and time again. Such an exercise in patience and perseverance, I don't think he ever did make it to the end either. I'm definitely gonna try out Odyssey and Lionheart, thanks for the great video as always :)

[@LastDeadMouse50]

In the early 90's, I remember going with my parents to the local computer store (when those used to be a thing) to get a new game for the Amiga. In the U.S., there was next to nothing coming out and we depended on the fact that Commodore was still going strong in Europe to get our fix for Amiga software. The clerk was strongly recommending Lionheart and I remember being really blown away by it when we fired it up at home. It was absolutely worth every penny! (I also remember there being a note inside the box imploring people to not pirate the game so that the company could make enough money to keep making great Amiga games. Even then, I had a bad feeling that that would probably be their last game together, considering that it had been necessary to actually print and include a note to users to please pay for their software. It was a sad thing to see especially contrasted with the fantastic game it came with. You could see so much potential from the developers yet to come.) I wish I had heard about more of the games on your list back then. They all sound like really solid games!

[@ryanyoder7573]

So did you copy the game?

[@LastDeadMouse50]

@@ryanyoder7573 No, we bought it. There was a computer shop near our house that had a decent Amiga section. To get PAL games to work on North American Amigas, though, required modding the Amiga 1000 so that instead of 512K of RAM and 512K of VRAM, the whole 1MB could be used as VRAM. (I have no idea how they did this; I was still a kid at the time.) The box for Lionheart doesn't give any indication of how good the game is, but the store clerk swore by it (and the people who worked there were pretty honest & reliable) so they modded the Amiga for us and we bought Lionheart and it was every bit as awesome as the clerk had promised. The note about not copying the game was inside each box.

[@keyspirits95]

@@LastDeadMouse50 We owe Lionheart's awesome graphics to the talented Henk Nieborg! He also worked in Lomax and my favorite game; Flink. Truly a prodige who has a few projects of his own... check him out

[@olemogensen5561]

Great video! Thanks for the mentioning of Lollypop... I worked on that back in the days. Fond memories indeed! :)

[@Phenylalanin1979]

Henk Nieborg is also doing a platformer called Tiny Thor which you can find on Steam. Chris Hülsbeck is doing some of the music for it and it looks like it will become a real treat.

[@rickyskegg]

That's like a match made in heaven. I'll check it out.

[@chutton988]

Great video! I'm very much a Japan-centric retro gamer and this was like a look into a different world. Loved it.

[@AmAtAm]

This is a brilliant video. I love the accurate description at the start of the problems with most games in the genre, especially the “too fast” bit - they seemed to think that was the only notable think about Sonic. Great to see Odyssey getting the credit it deserves. There’s an interesting story behind Arabian Knights and Soccer Kid, I think Krysalis set two development teams working on the same engine and was meant to choose between them, but decided to go with them both.

[@RichardTroupe]

I have a boxed copy of Odyssey, and have had it for years, but I still haven't played it due to a faulty floppy drive. I'll definitely rectify that now!

[@cupofcustard]

I'm surprised Ruff n Tumble was not on this list. A gorgeous shooting platformer that was one of the last great amiga games I played as a kid before my parents scrapped our amiga and got a PC.

[@GregDaniel78]

These titles remind me very much of the fun discoveries I made back in the day, which dragged me away from some of the better-known platformers. There IS of course a wide gulf between my personal favourites of Yo! Joe!, Benefactor, Bubble and Squeak and Ruff n Tumble etc, but I'm glad Kim gave a little spotlight to the lovely Lollypop and its gorgeous sound and graphics.

[@CommanderGrog]

There is a version of "UGH!" for DOS which can be played in DosBOX quite easily. (For everyone who's interested, and you should be, it's a lovely game!)

[@HighwayMule]

One thing that game is missing is a nice crash animation after you bump into something. It just restarts the level.

[@gklinger]

I agree wholeheartedly that every game on that list is brilliant -- just like Kim's videos. Much appreciated!

[@VVc0w]

Great video Kim, Lionheart was one of my favourite games as a kid, played it a lot but never finished it. Has some of the best music on the Amiga, brilliant intro too. Arabian Nights was another I remember liking a lot

[@Ezyasnos]

I remember in about 1995 a dos games magazine mentioning Lollypop as an Amiga original (it was in a dual review together with a port of Turrican 2)

[@PixelsLtd]

Fantastic picks Kim, thank you, I shall very much enjoy checking all these out! Though also, I have a softspot for Zool, SuperFrog and the like lol. That Sonic clone looks stunning, would have blown me away at the time, if I'd have known it existed.

[@JimHarrisonFilm]

Amazing, I've just started emulating the Amiga on RetroPie with WHDLoad, so this is the perfect kind of video for me right now.

[@slopesgameroom]

This is right up my street. Fair few here I have yet to tey

[@t7plus]

Yeah, I don't know how Kim does it sometimes. All new to me except for Naughty Ones. I always thought that it was like a game that developers had been trying to make on the Spectrum for years, but never quite could. Then new hardware comes along and everything has to be more impressive and the game style gets forgotten about, for a while at least. Definitely worthy of this list.

[@infesticon]

Pro tip for amiga emulation, Set a button to up for platform games and things like urgh. A better joypad can help to, I have an adaptor to use a sega saturn pad with my pc. Best joypad ever!

[@justinholmes5614]

Just loaded up the latest version of Mega AGS to find this video and one of your others under “Curated Content”. What a nice touch

[@adroharv9213]

spot on assessment of these games. Some of the games are not perfect maybe but very worth people's time if they can adapt to some quibbles. One thing I would add is the music for Lollipop is absolutely flippin gorgeous and sounds a little better in fact than the pc version which it was ported

[@TheCompletionist]

Another great video Kimble. All games mentioned are pretty much games I never have played before and to be perfectly honest - i had never heard of before all the same.

[@MisterSofty]

I got so hyped when I saw that TwinWorld footage during the intro. Oh, well...

[@georgequail4670]

There should always be more TwinWorld

[@ShroudedHand]

Kid Chaos was awesome, although I could never get very far in it. I also love Brian The Lion (it was a pack in with my amiga). Ugh was great fun too

[@ARCWuLF]

When I hear "Euro platformer," I immediately think of games where the screen doesn't scroll until you're more than halfway across it, robbing you of any ability to react to enemies in front of you. Also, lethal droplets of water, but you already covered that.

[@kiyoaki1985]

When you get hit, your character flashes for a split second but doesn't react otherwise No meaningful powerups, just items you collect for "points", probably in the form of fruit and food items Jumps have no gravity to them, they're just arcs of continuous movement with no momentum

[@CaptainRufus]

I'd love to see a lot of these get some sort of modern release.

[@Pickchore]

You briefly mentioned Flood. I loved that game. Something about the art, sound and overall atmosphere.

[@rossbayliss9723]

Odyssey and trapz'n'treasurez look amazing!! Only ones I played were àrabian Knights and lionheart. Thanks for the content Kim, The way you put your signature on your videos reminds me of early 90s video game review shows.... really unique in this day and age. Thanks for the reviews!

[@andersdenkend]

Odyssey I have yet to play! Thanks for reminding me. Great video, although I was missing "Brian The Lion". I really miss this game and would love to replay it. I never hear anyone talk about it. :/

[@vyking5000]

I've got both those games up in the loft! Brian the Lion was full of technical tricks that made it look amazing.

[@perihelion7445]

I'd played all of them back in the day except for Traps n' Treasures that I tried for the first time by coincidence about a week ago. It's definitely a great game but DAMN that first underwater level is bloody hard!

[@matthpotte]

I remember Oddesey on the front of one of the last Amiga Power magazines (issue 54, just found it in my office) , think the last one I bought before moving onto the PC, my lowly 1mb 500 at the time I think couldn’t run it.

[@thegreathadoken6808]

'Lowly 1MB 500 crowd' in the house. IBM PC, Atari ST, Apple Mac & Amiga 4000T owners not welcome here. Go away.

[@matthpotte]

The Great Hadoken lol it did amazing my old 500, 89 batman pack bought new by my folks, had 512kb expansion and a fatter Angus to run an A570 I got for xmas ‘93. Was a beast, only thing wrong was it had an irrational hatred of both Monkey Island games (multiple copies of each tried) where it would randomly do the old Guru screen of death... it must not have liked Guybrush’s humour!

[@andrejonas3308]

Great video! Would love to watch a video from you about some obscure Amiga Public Domain gems or about the Amiga PD scene in general :)

[@iliveinasquare1869]

Kim, when you mentioned Guru Larry and said well... I was hoping for a HELLO YOU!

[@duffman18]

I'm glad you mentioned Gunlord X. It's a great little game. I've got it on switch. It pretty much is just turrican, but a new turrican, and it looks amazing

[@rickyskegg]

Both Traps n'Treasures and Naughty Ones helped me get through the twilight Amiga years before I got my first PC. Both brilliant and slick games that shouldn't be forgotten.

[@Alianger]

Odyssey is a good pick and coincidentally one I recently played through; Closest thing you got to a metroidvania/platform adventure game on Amiga besides Exile.

[@danielshimoda9246]

Hello from japan! I always look forward to your videos and I hope you are staying safe and healthy .

[@MrDenzel20]

I'd add Sleepwalker to this list, though it's possibly more puzzler than platformer. Still, used to love that game, just a shame it had no music

[@rossknowles5608]

these picks look gorgeous!

[@Sinisteve]

Some lovely games there, picked up UGH earlier this year, very rare game...and I’ve been after Traps n Treasures for a while but I’m too tight to pay the £150 it seems to command

[@MixelsLab]

... £150 Really?!? I need to look into the value of some of my boxed games. 😧

[@Sinisteve]

Mixel's Lab give us a shout id probably buy them😂

[@jamesevans8661]

Epic video, absolutely my favourite KZbin channel without a doubt

[@tomkrawec]

You mention liking miniatures during Ugh!, and if it's not in this video (haven't finished it yet), I wonder if you would like Benefactor on the Amiga. As with many of the games in this video, it was reviewed in Amiga Power, and like a few of 'em it was also a coverdisk demo. Globdule is a particularly memorable AP coverdisk for me!

[@stimorolication9480]

Thank you for making this! I didn't know about most of these and they sure look fun.

[@adersid]

what game is the one at 1:23 ?

[@nonax3662]

That one caught my eye to, does anyone know this title?

[@nonax3662]

Found it, it is called Assassin developed by Psionic Systems and published by Team 17

[@cyberangel2787]

17:57 ...Is that a friggin' Buster Bunny with a gun?!

[@RoyStorey]

i was seriously gonna ask this exact same question lol

[@t7plus]

With a flame throwing revolver by the looks of it! You could get away with murder in those days. Imagine slipping that into a game now!

[@Bellocks1]

Great video Kim. I have very fond memories of the Amiga.

[@drunkensailor112]

Thank you so much for your amiga content. Going to try all of these on my cd32 with tf328. I only really knew lionheart and always liked it

[@jmp01a24]

Good old audiogenic. Started out on PET in the late 70s. Ended in 1995 as you said. Quite a good run for a UK publisher slash importer.

[@FredFuchs77]

Oh my god, the Orson Welles beginning? You are brilliant Kim 🙂

[@AmbersKnight]

Traps and Treasures is indeed a superb wee gem. Lots of good titles there, I will be checking out those I haven't already played.

[@michaellee8816]

Amazing work as always Kim

[@vyking5000]

Odyssey is brilliant and I still have my copy up in the loft somewhere. That's brought back some happy memories there.

[@pnvgordinho]

First time I see Lollipop. A Real hidden gem. Looks beautiful. I will try it for sure.

[@10minGameplay1]

Amiga's library can always use some more love! they seem a bit forgotten compared to the retro consoles.

[@BrunoFonsecaPT]

Wow... and here I was thinking I knew all the good platformers on the Amiga! Thanks

[@jonahstoyroom7516]

Have you ever played a little known platformer called the adventures of microman? If not is amazing

[@andrewcooke4251]

I've wanted to know the name of odessy for years!! I couldn't remember the name of it!!! Nice one Kim!

[@MagikGimp]

The world needs this. Not that it will pay much attention if they're not already a Kim fan, sadly.

[@wingleburt3146]

Brilliant vid. The sounds from oddessy are definitely from chuck rock

[@craigcharlesworth1538]

I was a big Amiga fan back in the day but somehow I never played Odyssey or Kid Chaos, I'll have to give them a go. Thanks!

[@kloakovalimonada]

Odyssey looks wow! I don't like the usual heavy shaded Amiga style but this would fit right onto 2013 ios app store.

[@espadav8]

Odyssey was a really good game, took me so long to complete when it came out. I actually wrote a letter to the developers asking for hints. Alas, their response was 'just keep on trying' :-( I was also hoping for Twinworld too. Another fantastic game, although I played that on an Acron A3000

[@19822andy]

I love Monday morning! Hi Kim!

[@ItsCrapContent]

Brilliant episode.... And deffo some hidden gems.. I didnt know about..so thanks kim ♥️ x

[@JugglerOfWords]

I remember playing UGH! at one of friends house in the early 90's..... for some reasons I remember tiny speech bubbles around impatient characters saying things like "evacuate me!" and "get rid of me!".... or maybe that was a different game....

[@whatamalike]

Deffo checking out odyssey after watching this! Looks gorgeous and all running on an OCS no less!

[@user-gw1tc1yf5d]

Monday nights with a Kim vid and a beer.... Cheers

[@skijumpnose]

Arabian Nights looks great, Thanks for this Kim

[@UltimatePerfection]

Played the DOS version of the Ugh, really fun game, but quite difficult. Might be worth playing in DOSbox if you don't have an Amiga and can't be bothered to set up the emulation.

[@Jutrzen]

What's the game at 00:47 with the green guy in a red shirt?

[@amigaoldskool]

Lollipop one I’ve not heard off cheers Kim

[@pnvgordinho]

Thanks for the nostalgia trip. You could have talked about Doodle Bug. Its not well known and its a beautiful platformer.

[@fcf8269]

Odyssey is basically Shantae :) Instead of having the dances to transform into other animals to progress in certain areas, you just change shape. Great game indeed

[@tmacmc2984]

Never heard of most of these Kim. Cheers.

[@justinholmes5614]

Lovely way to start my day :)

[@BeardedNerdSE]

And I thought I knew my Amiga platformers. I do have Lionheart and Arabian Nights somewhere, but the rest were new to me.

[@MaximilienNoal]

Damn those games are adorable. I was so sick of platformers on the Amiga... I was so wrong !

[@mr_beezlebub3985]

I'll have to try these games.

[@kaksikymmenta3]

Thanks for reminding me of UGH!

[@wimwiddershins]

Oddesey? Ooooh, an unplayed Amiga platformer! It's up there with discovering an episode of The Young Ones that I've not watched.

[@DarkturtleX]

Gotta say when it comes to 3D platformer then europe has been my favorite place to bring out some

[@loganjorgensen]

Well it's hard to deny the conventions, imagine EU designers having meetings "Playtests show people are having fun with the current build.", "Crap, quick add BS water damage and swarming bees, we must put a stop to that.", "Their eyes are still bleeding right...good, good.". ^_^ Still thanks a bunch for featuring everything that isn't Zool or Robocod because frankly that's where a lot of good stuff resides on Amiga even if the former is easier to collect in NA. :)

[@duffman18]

I really gotta get my amiga emulator working. These computers are so much more complicated just to set up and get it to play, compared to say NES or mega drive emulators. Getting rhe C64 one running took forever and mysteriously some games just won't load, I don't know if its because of a region issue, but then I try all the different regions in the settings like NTSC and PAL anyway and it just don't wanna work

[@razerow3391]

How dare you! Rolling Ronny was a favourite of mine as a five year old!

[@futurekillxbox972]

Didn’t have an Amiga , went from Atari st to SNES, ps1 Xbox been console since, still contemplating picking an a500 up at some point .

[@ClarenceFlanagan]

Globdule! For the longest time, I couldn't remember what this game was called. Indeed, I had forgotten all about it and assumed that I'd played Putty Squad instead.

[@buddah1978egypt]

Nice lemonamiga mention 😁

[@RetroRespawn]

Love this video. Really good recommends here, somewhat off the beaten track! Thanks. I have to ask - your title music is brilliant - who's the composer?

[@BlueLegend595]

It is from 1980's BBC videos like Monty Python's Flying Circus.

[@justinholmes5614]

Globdule was such a good game with some of the best music on the system.

[@GregDaniel78]

Oh, and while we're on the subject of Amiga Sonic clones, please do yourself a favour and check out the unfinished piece of sheer joy which is Blaze. Every Sonic graphical touch is present and correct, waiting for a little tidy up. You can even grab the adf and see it in action.

[@SoftNFuzzy]

If I am asked to think of a platfomer from Krisalis, my mind immediately goes to Mad Professor Mariarti, which I know from the Acorn Archimedes rather than Amiga.

[@napalmhardcore]

What is the intro music from? I remember it from VHS tapes growing up but I can't place it. Amiga is a funny system. So many of its games, including many of its high profile titles and ports from other platforms, have a sort of unofficial, homebrew vibe about them.

[@RetroUnlim]

I love globdule, the music is superb

[@urosmarjanovic663]

Nice list, but few of them are obscure, as I played most of them back in the day. How bout Chuck Rock, Baby Joe, Brian the Lion, Bubba'N'Stix??? Oh, and probably best and prettiest platform ever on Amiga - Ruff'N'Tumble...

[@GzegzolkaDA]

I am sure we could have bit more titles in Your video, for example Ruff and Tumble, Marvin Misadventures or Super Methane Bross.

[@lecturesalternatives8421]

Bubba'n'Stix is a 1994 awesome puzzle platformer that didn't age a bit.

[@buddah1978egypt]

What's the game at 1:41? I used to play that on our schools archemedies!

[@nonax3662]

TwinWorld

[@paularnold2289]

Odyssey looks lovely!

[@mamba114]

hello, thanks for your video very instructive ;) I was wondering what is the name of the game at 1:33 ?

[@BenzaieLive2]

Where Brian the lion ?

[@darkchild130]

What's the game at 1:23 ?