Crystal Castles

The Good
Crystal Castles is a 1-2 player isometric game that features a lovable character called Bentley Bear. He is trapped inside several castles that are home of Berthilda the Witch. Each castle is full of gems, and if Bentley wants to get out of all of them, he needs to collect all the gems. Collecting all the gems means that Bentley will move on to the next castle.

There is one problem though. You see, certain types of enemies, including monster balls, trees, and tornadoes, are placed in the castles by Berthilda to make sure that Bentley doesn't escape. Bentley either jump on them or say bye-bye and lose a life.

Collecting each gem will award you points. Instead of just Bentley, his enemies are also capable of collecting all the gems. He must get the last gem in the castle, but if Bentley fails to do this, then he will receive no bonus at the end of the level. Another way to score points is to get a pot of honey which will award Bentley 1000 points. Bentley can also wear a magic hat that will allow him to become invincible ... but not for long.

Most of the castles are multi-floored, and require Bentley to get to them using elevators that go up and down constantly. Multi-floored structures were very rare at the time Crystal Castles was released. The game gets more difficult as you progress from one castle to another, with enemies becoming faster and following you every step of the way, which causes you to jump all over the place.

I reviewed the Commodore 64 version of the game. In this version, I found the graphics to be good, but they are the same standard as the Apple ][ version. The enemies are drawn quite nicely with the tornado colored brown and the monster balls blue, and each gem is colored black. And the sound is OK. When you collect gems, the sound is played at the same tone. When you are collecting gems while going uphill, this sound changes pitch to reflect this, going from a low note to a high note, and going downhill causes the sound to start from a high note to a low note.

The Bad
The trees that scatter around some castles could have had more detail.

The Bottom Line
If you like games like Boulder Dash, which require you to collect gems before you move on to the next level, then this game may be for you.

Rating: ***