Sacred Armour of Antiriad - thoughts and opinions

MattLamb

Sacred Armour of Antiriad

Just being playing this on ZXDS. Loved it back in the day, but never got further really than activating the armour. Just watched a walk-through on Youtube, which I suppose you could say ruined it for me, but it was nice after 20+ years to finally see the armoured suit move!

I love the graphics, animations and nice touches. And despite me finding it a tough cookie, I still enjoy the game play.

Just noticed, does the start point vary, as I seem to start elsewhere compared to in the walk-through I watched. And, the WOS archive mentions it was released on the C64, but not the fact it was released on the Amstrad (similar to the Spectrum version with more detail, in particular to the main sprite). edit! My mistake. It does mention the Amstrad version!

Anyway, worthy of it's 8.48/10 rating?

Hairy

I used to like this game, haven't played it since back in the day.

cyborg

MattLamb wrote: »

Anyway, worthy of it's 8.48/10 rating?

I was never any good at it but it did have a sweet little comic explaining the backstory in the cassette inlay. It was goddamn hard. I'd probably be better at it now though. Also I did like the unsophisticated but functional musical theme in 48k beeper glory.

MattLamb

Long time no see, Cyborg!

I hoped I'd be better at it now. I'm not. Oddly, doesn't put me off it though.

Arjun

Looked gorgeous, but I found it stupidly difficult to get anywhere. Haven't seen the walkthrough yet...

fog

got a lot of time for this on 64.. one of the first games I recall having decent presentation :) . I remember playing it on speccy first at a friends who had bought hit pak

probably my fav music by the late Richard Joseph RIP

VanTammen

I think it's the sort of game you really want to like even if you aren't able to play the game at all (that was what happen to me).

it just looks so awsome, the naked guy with rocks, who finds a special "iron man" armour in the midle of the jungle... the entire thing looks so promising and cool.

but all this coolness and once you go to the gameplay, all you find is that it's a bit (if not completely) unforgiven (at least until you have the armour). back in the day i don't think I even managed to activate it.

it's a nice game, but i don't know it I would give it such a high note... (also for some reason this game always reminded me of Trantor)

fog

VanTammen wrote: »

(also for some reason this game always reminded me of Trantor)

probably because of the long hair / armour suit.. and odd game title :)

I get catch 23 / cosmic shock absorber mixed up the same

dm_boozefreek

Another one of those games everybody ranted on about how great it was, then when you played it it was actually not that good.

My cousin wouldn't bloody shut up about it, dunno why?

fog

dm_boozefreek wrote: »

Another one of those games everybody ranted on about how great it was, then when you played it it was actually not that good.
My cousin wouldn't bloody shut up about it, dunno why?

maybe because it was a bit different from other games ? presentation wise it was memorable , even the comic with it..or you got immersed in it..

2 of my friends used to bore the crap out of me with desert rats and tobruk.. couldn't see it myself.. same with 3d-iso games, each to their own :)

JuanF. Ramirez

Very good graphics. Cool to explore. Because of the 'hype' (including a comic, etc) I thought it was another overrated game, but it was not dissapointing.

I couldn't get the comic till I downloaded it form WoS... you know... It was a C'90 game!... :smile:

Vampyre

Bought and played it quite a lot on release. Can't remember how far I got but I'm pretty sure I got into the armour. Graphics were fab and I still really enjoy the title tune.

Patrik Rak

VanTammen wrote: »

I think it's the sort of game you really want to like even if you aren't able to play the game at all (that was what happen to me).

it just looks so awsome, the naked guy with rocks, who finds a special "iron man" armour in the midle of the jungle... the entire thing looks so promising and cool.

but all this coolness and once you go to the gameplay, all you find is that it's a bit (if not completely) unforgiven (at least until you have the armour). back in the day i don't think I even managed to activate it.

My thoughts exactly. I have always liked it because of this prehistory+hitech atmosphere, even if I never managed to activate the armor.

Patrik

Morkin

I remember playing this a lot, though I wasn't very good at it.

Agree with the comment about the difficulty though - starts off unbelievably tough - you're very vulnerable, have a handful of rocks (which are difficult to throw with any sort of accuracy) and it's tough to get places. Once you get the armour you're rock hard, but I can understand why a lot of people didn't even get that far.

fahrenheit1987

I'm fairly sure that I never got anywhere with this game when I first played it. I'll have got into the armour but I never got the armour moving.

So I just had a quick go on ZX Spin and within a minute or so I was irritated because pressing left and jump or right and jump doesn't work. Godammit!

About a minute later I found that left and fire or right and fire works. Hooray!

About a minute later I found that once I'd been in the armour I could get the boots and not long after I found the laser.

How did I find this game so difficult back in the eighties?

Maybe it was because I too was playing the C-90 version?

Also, it looks graphically very similar to Cauldron II which I also used to find quite irritating to play, but recently I spent a happy Halloween with.

Alessandro Grussu

My review of it on Gamesark.it (use your translator of choice if you don't know Italian).

Spectrum

I was really impressed when I got this game... but as many of you, I couldn't play it at all. I managed to enter the armour, but I never had any success in moving it. Reading this thread seems that many had my same problem. And seem that it's possible to move pressing the direction together with the FIRE button... right?
In any case, I think the graphic was really good. I loved the big sprite of the main character and also my friends who had a C64 were impressed by it.
Finally, the music: I loved it!

Mark R. Jones

I bought it back in the day. I marvelled at the nice animation but hadn't got a clue what to do. Still don't. Nice tune too!

Zagreb

There's an interesting article about it in this month's Retro Gamer where it's described as a proto-Metroid and the designers claim it can be finished in around 16 (I think) minutes but you have to know exactly what you're doing, the whole game being designed to make the player try and take different paths.

Personally, I think the fondness it's regarded with is a wee bit of the old nostalgia. It looks great and is very atmospheric but there's a lot wrong with the gameplay, not least the way the rocks can only be thrown in an arc when half the enemies you need to avoid are around knee-level.