Random Game O' the Day: Gateway to Apshai

[digitalpress]

Mmmm... early home computer RPG's. There are so many things that I miss about them, and so many things that I DON'T miss about them, but Gateway to Apshai is one of those games that I can always go back to.

What do YOU think? Write your own mini-review here!

DP Guide sez:

Gateway to Apshai (Commodore 64, by Epyx) $5/R2 +
Developed by The Connelly Group. Original game designed by Marc Ferguson. SANTULLI SLANT: Modern day gamers who've played Zelda or Secret of Mana should try this game. It's almost the same exact game! Really! Killin' monsters, opening doors, finding magic items. I mean why do I need games like Zelda when you can play 99 levels of Apshai? Oh sure, it may not be as sophisticated (all of the levels look the same), but it's just as much fun! Alright, maybe it's not... but you gotta admire my spunk! Alright, maybe not. [Gr: 5, So: 7, Ga: 8, Ov: 7] c1983 Epyx. #617.

[Mayhem]

If you didn't have to constantly cycle through the actions you could perform then it would be pretty good. But I imagine quite a few people were left with ill performing function keys after buying this game

Apart from that, it's a solid little hack and slash game... quite unlike the other actual Apshai games that rely more on stats. And it never ends either... so you can play for hours

[IntvGene]

I was wondering if it ever ends!

Anyway, great game. I never liked the controls much, but once you got used to them, they weren't bad. I wished that your guy would change color or something to tell how hurt he was. I would be booting around, thinking I'm fine, and then I hit a trap and--dead. The graphics were pretty bad. Some of the monsters were damn ugly. But, a great game still. I also loved the Temple of Apshai Trilogy too.

Epyx... another great classic gaming company made this one, and it was strange because it went from Atari 8-bit to C64 to Colecovision.

Epyx Shrine reports a score rollover bug in the Colecovision. It rolls over at 100,000.

[Tempest]

I LOVE Gateway to Apshai! The only thing I could never figure out is how to use the Cross and Wand. They just disappear when I use them. My only problem with the game (at least on the 400/800 version) is that once you reach level 16 there are no more levels! Each dungeon's level 16 repeats. Of course this problem for most people.

Tempest

[RJ]

IntvGene wrote...

and then I hit a trap and--dead.

That's because the trap would KILL you!

This was my first taste of an RPG-type game on my 800XL. I hated cycling thru commands, inevitably passing the one I wanted! I couldn't figure out the cross & wand either, so I wrote to Epyx for help & got a single-sided page (dug it up yesterday!) that had some poor sentence structure & didn't help much:

"CROSS- ...used in defense of the "Undead" creatures. How this is done is by adding +3 to the player's defense. (Undead=Vampires, Ghouls, and Zombies).

WAND- ...changes the value of all previous owned magic items. The change being adding a +1."

PROTECT SPELL- added defense score (armor + luck).

In addition to several other needless explanations including Stun, Death, & Stone spells. (Duh!)

[tom]

Now there is a good game, played it on my XE for hours and hours (the trilogy), along with Ultima 3 Exodus and Wizards Crown. That brings back memories :-)

Later, I loved the Gold boxes on C-64, those were excellent games, had to finish those in a weekends sitting, up until 2 in the morning....

In my mind early USA RPG's are ALWAYS better than early Japanese RPG's, and even now I totally prefer USA RPG's instead of that Zelda stuff (can't dig it). Give me a good dose of Baldur's Gate on my PC anytime.

[Arqueologia_Digital]

mmmmm...i owned this game when i was a child, then i gave the C-64 to my cousin ... :/

[Keir]

I like Gateway, but I prefer the other Apshai games. They're less random and that book that tells which rooms smell like vanilla is just great.

[Raedon]

I wasn't very good at the game but I remember thinking that, "this is what Zork would look like without text"

[Aswald]

For the ColecoVision version:

CROSS: This doubles the damage you do to undead with sword (or dagger) attacks. You must "use" the Cross to do this.

PROTECT: No apparent value.

WAND: No apparent value.

STAFF: No apparent value.

The graphics are a bad joke. The sound is "functional." However, this game does have 8 Levels with 99 dungeons in each Level. This is 792 dungeons total; as opposed to the 16 dungeons in 8 levels (128 dungeons) in other versions. Contrary to what the instructions imply, there is no final goal in this game; you just keep playing either the same dungeon over and over or different ones once in Level 8. Overall, though, it's a fun game- one of those "the good outweighs the bad" games.


Lord of the Dungeon Update...at this point, I've explored much of Level 10, but have been unable to find anything deeper. However, I did encounter something called a "Hell Summoner," along with a treasure chest with a Magic Item. This implied, since I've only encountered it once, that there may be lower levels, but if there's a final opponent, like in Wizardry, well, no luck yet. It definitely is not the Dark Lords, as I had originally thought.

[RJ]

@IntvGene- NOW I recall your health was the sum of your 3(?) attributes & dropped as you got hit/hurt. If your health was too low & you stepped on a trap, you'd die- traps didn't ALWAYS kill you- my mistake. You're right- they should've had an onscreen health indicator- color change like you said, or at least the actual # displayed!

@Keir: I read & REREAD that manual! It added so much to the game as the graphics were poor. It helped me w/ room descriptions in my OWN text games! I also liked the story which began "Landfall at last!"

Anyone use the book "Adventures w/ the Atari" to make their own?