Moonstone: A Hard Days Knight

Moonstone: a hard days knight is one obscure gem ( personally, I've never heard of it until a few months ago), but man, it does feel astonishingly good A pixel glory quest where you'll be send searching for the mythical moonstones, to prove your worth to the gods of old. Gameplay wise, one to four player can play in a map ( just like some sort of party game) where you'll face terrible opponents ( although, after playing a few times, you'll be able to learn their pattern rather quickly) in a 2d environment The main focus of the game is swordplay ( with a little of knife throwing add to the mix) and, I must admit, the combat may be a little clunky, but otherwise, damn, it holds up really well, even to this day. Indeed, the fighting mechanics are well implemented and easy to learn without reading anything from the manual ( although you want to do it anyway, since it explains how shops, leveling up and other things work) It's rather simple: you go, kill, collect the loot and the keys, get stronger, defend yourself from other knights, KILL THE DRAGON ( if you do it, basically you have already won), face the final boss and return to the circle of druids in the right time to win the game What truly have attracted my attention is the care and passion that this game transpires: anything, from lore to visual style, will remind you of an epic adventure To clarify, the only reason I'm not giving a full 5 stars is for the clunkyness of the combat system, some later encounter that could have been done better and a lack of a righteous soundtrack in most of the game ( although sound is present, you'll hear music just in a few places. besides, the lack of music is truly a personal preference, not truly an objective criticism towards the game) So, do I advice 'tis piece of golden glory? YES, but for the most ''modern'' players, those who lack patient, may be a little boring. For all the retrò and nostalgia gamers, it's the saint grai.. I mean, the moonstone they were searching for!

This is one of my favourite games of all time, and I was very excited when I saw it on GOG. Unfortunately, my expectations were too high. - There is no music from the original game and the Amiga version, only noisy and annoying 16-bit sound effects. - The enemies still have the ability to "lock" your sprite among them. Other instantly kill you if you linger half a second more. So, the same old problems of gameplay that could have been easily corrected. - There is no modification at all in the game, no possibility to customize controls (I played with a keybord with directional arrows and Enter, really uncomfortable). They didn't even add a pause button, so you cannot pause the game. This port is exactly the same of the DosBox version. You decide if paying money to have a launcher.

Of all the games of my childhood the ones that still gets me to smile can be counted on one hand. This is one of them. Up there next to Pirates by Sid Meyers and Kings Quest it is a classic.

Nice game but I have issues setting the dosbox config to have proper aspect ratio in fullscreen mode. If I turn fullscreen off then I have prper ratio but cannot use the joystick because somehow it controls the mouse cursor too.

Probably one of the oldest examples of hack and slash, an action-RPG full of humor and, above all, a lot of fun to play. Decades after I still launched it to play with friends. Explore a map, similar to a board game, littered with colorful enemies (ratmen... Damn...) that you must eviscerate with your sword to steal their loot and perhaps get your hands on one of the four keys that, once collected, open the way to the final boss. 3 other knights are in the race and are fighting you to steal the hard-won keys. The game allows you to play alone (the other knights becoming NPCs) or up to 4 players (a rarity at the time!) in turn-based mode, but also, and this is where it gets interesting, simultaneously if you decide to face one of the other players. Another innovative idea (for a game from 1991 of course) : enemies become more numerous and resilient depending on your skill level and... depending on the moon phases! As much as gore usually bores me, here it's a joy! The RPG aspect allows the game to last, and even if the game is short (it can be completed in an hour), you only want one thing at the end: kill more trolls.