Gauntlet (1985 video game): Difference between revisions

Introduced in 1985, [[Atari]]'s '''''Gauntlet''''' was based on the earlier ''Dandy'', written for the [[Atari 8 Bit Computers]]. Up to four heroes — a warrior, a valkyrie, a wizard and an elf — went through a series of [[Dungeon Crawl|Dungeon Crawls]]s, viewed from above in a scrolling window, collecting treasure and defeating monsters. Each player had a joystick and two buttons, labeled "Fire" and "Magic"; the latter button activated a potion which [[Smart Bomb|weakened or destroyed all enemies on the screen]]. Each hero had a specialty: the warrior [[Glass Cannon|did extra damage]], the valkyrie had [[Stone Wall|the best defense]], the wizard [[Squishy Wizard|did more extra damage when using potions]], and the elf [[Fragile Speedster|trumped everyone in movespeed]].

To [[Crack is Cheaper|keep you feeding coins]], Atari invented the "[[Wizard Needs Food Badly]]" trope: while [[Hyperactive Metabolism|food provides healing]], your character loses one [[Hit Point]] every second under any and all circumstances, basically guaranteeing a [[Game Over]] at some point. (For obvious reasons, this tends to be averted for the console releases.) [[Mook Maker|Mook Makers]]s are another signature trope of the series; they need to be destroyed if you don't want to be swamped. [[Interchangeable Antimatter Keys]] need to be collected to get where you're going. You can shoot food and magic-potion pickups, which is rarely as beneficial as picking them up, so it pays to be careful with your attacks. Finally, it was one of the first games to support four players at once, and this emphasis on social multiplayer was probably the biggest part of its success.

* '''Gauntlet Legends''' hit arcades in 1998, and home consoles in '99. It had an air of the [[ReContinuity BootReboot]] about it; the [[Hack and Slash]] nature was left unchanged, and there were still four players, but the levels were quite different, and had Weak, Strong and Turbo attacks available, the latter being a [[Limit Break]] that charged every time you used one of the other two attacks. It also added persistent characters: when you started (or joined) a game, you could enter your initials, and it would then load up the characters that that particular machine had stored for those initials. Therefore, you could play for a while, have your character level up a bit, but if you had to leave, you could then come back later and have your character the same level as it was before. (The console releases just used save cards.)

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