Legend of Galahad review - Sega Megadrive

The traditional eighteenth birthday party tends to involve a lot of noise, booze, and general debauchery. Princess Lucanna's birthday bash was faithfully following this formula until Thanatos, an evil dragon, arrived on the scene. Thanatos had been imprisoned a thousand years ago, and after his escape he vowed to take his revenge. So before you can say, "It's rare to come across such an original plot", Lucanna is whisked away to Thanatos' lair. The only hope for the princess is Galahad, a young guard in her service. The king has given him the duty of finding her and rescuing the Kingdom from eternal darkness.

Megadrive owners are in for quite a journey, as Galahad traverses three increasingly deadly worlds, each infested with assorted mutants, traps, and tricky puzzles. Galahad begins his journey carrying only his trusty sword for assistance. It soon becomes obvious, what with the ensuing bloodshed, that the brave knight needs special armour and weapons. Fortunately Galahad has the chance to rob coins from dead enemies and go on a spending spree in one of the many shops that cross his path.

On each level Galahad is given a task that involves finding an object, and on occasion defeating a boss in the process. Once our metal clad chum has managed this, he has to find the portal to make it through to the next level. So down the last of those party pints and unsheathe that chopper! Between the bother and the booze, Galahad's looking at a pretty heavy hang over!

What the Mean Machines staff thought

I haven't played the Amiga version of Galahad so I can't comment on whether or not it's a good conversion. What I can say is that it's the most absorbing arcade adventure I've played for quite a while. It sort of reminds me of Shadow of the Beast with its excellent graphics (yes, I do think they are quite smart, contrary to what Rob thinks), but the gameplay has been radically improved, with a greater choice of directions and more interesting puzzles. However, it does have its faults. There are some situations where you seem doomed to lose energy no matter what you do. Also, a lot of the backgrounds seem to do you harm even where you least expect it. For example, just touching the back of a snake loses you energy (and there was me thinking that only a serpents fangs could poison you!). Other than that though, Galahad is a large, addictive arcade adventure well worth taking a look at.

I didn't quite know what to make of this game when I first played it. I wasn't overly impressed with the graphics, which lack the detail of other EA games. The sprites' cardboard movements meant the animation failed to raise any eyebrows either. As far as platform games go this doesn't come close to Robocod. But then, Galahad isn't a standard platform game anyway. It makes up for lack of visuals with some very involved gameplay. Having to buy weapons and armour gave the game a challenge beyond the set task, and it meant I had to take educated risks concerning what to buy, and whether to go hunting for more sponduliks. Galahad actually plays quite well - the controls are responsive and it is easy to direct jumps and attacks. Now and then the collision detection causes a frown but not enough to really affect the gameplay. Galahad would make a pretty dull game, but it saves itself by replacing the unoriginality in the platform action with some diverting and involving challenges. Not an EA classic, but entertaining all the same.