Wowy by Tomchi

Chiptune Saturday!

I've listened to an amazing tune called Wowy, by Tomchi (played using JAM), and had to record it. Absolutely superb!!! So, kick off your weekend in style and download this chiptune for your Atari STe!! 🎧

Mystical

The French have their own unique style of humour!

Infogrames has once again delivered something truly unique and special. In Mystical, players embark on a magical adventure, battling bizarre creatures. As a novice magician under the tutelage of the Grand Wizard, he's eager to learn but quick to make silly mistakes like losing precious scrolls and phials. Now, he must travel to parallel worlds to retrieve them. Prepare for the most unexpected journey of your life!

Our quest will take us into strange places to battle against wacky characters: Buzzards, shepherds, faithless Monks, reptiles, sea creatures, farmers, little girls, Vikings, walking trees, and more. Most will throw something at you or chase you. Sounds mad, right? It certainly is, and I'm sure everyone will love its silliness.

I cannot continue without showing screenshots of just how unique this game is...

I must say, the palettes used are pastel-perfect, and with lovely artistic tones too.

The characters you meet are... different! What a weird game this is.

Magically weird

The big man has granted permission to use his magic. This means the ability to cast spells that provide unique ways to dispose of our foes. For example, the ring of fire scorches anyone who dares to get too close, whereas the blue ring deflects enemy attacks. Another will open up the ground to swallow our victims, which is superb. Possibly the best of all is shouting "Boo" to shoo off anything nasty. Seriously!!

As you collect them, a spell activates immediately, but if you are quick, slap that Spacebar to stockpile it for later use - in combination with the Return key. Yes, it's a cumbersome design, but it works well if ever you're struggling. Each level ends when you reach the pentagram for a battle with an end-of-level boss - the first throws babies at you! Once defeated, a large sphere appears and whisks you off to the next level.

I'm sure you're thinking this is weird. And you're right, it is!! But it's brilliantly weird...

Collect the funky power-ups and use all magic spells to the best of your ability!

I'm tripping out here, but three blue dudes appear and cause me trouble.

Aesthetics!

The visuals are gorgeous with smooth scrolling across beautiful landscapes. All use an impressive and pleasing palette, I might add. However, it's the tremendous quantity and quality of the characters that steal the limelight. Never have I seen such gorgeous sprites with humour and detailed animation.

I must take off my hat and commend Olivier Roge and Jocelyn Valais for such amazing work. Take a look at these screenshots and tell me you're not impressed by the sprites and even the artwork as a whole? Possibly one of the best examples of 16-bit pixel art I've seen in a game.

The audio is a mixed bag. The sound effects are ace, using samples for each character and other things like the spells. All great, and I adore the "Bla Bla Bla", which reminded me of the speech in Donkey Island. Sadly, the title music is awful, and I can’t understand why they used low-quality samples over a chiptune.

Fancy another screenshot? What about silly faces to start off...

Hey, what's that? I've got a doppelganger to help me out.

Who are those people in the cages? Enemies, so don't help them!!

The CryptO'pinion?

Mystical is a generic shoot 'em up, albeit with cool power-ups and humour. (I never knew the French had a sense of humour? heh). Unfortunately, it’s repetitive, and the end-of-level bosses are frustrating. Regardless, it’s clear that a lot of time and effort went into Mystical’s production. I thoroughly enjoyed playing it, and I’m sure most gamers will appreciate its distinctive style and personality. A rather silly game you're gonna love!

Grab a magic wand and help our magician out?

Download for floppy or a hard drive.

Hard 'n' Heavy

Looks familiar...

Hard 'n' Heavy follows on from Giana Sisters in true fashion with more Mario-esque levels to run and jump through. The official commercial release was poor with awful flip-screen scrolling that ultimately ruined what might have been a great conversion. Sure, flip might work well with some platformers, for example, Jet Set Willy, which would have been horrendous with scrolling. Just imagine... but Hard 'n' Heavy needs scrolling!!

That's where the bad lesson ends and the good news begins as Peter Putnik has developed a version that features smooth-as-silk scrolling thanks to the use of the Blitter lurking inside every Atari STe. And also most other earlier models (incl. later STFM models which had a Blitter or at least a hungry socket).

Hard 'n' Heavy obviously looks and feels similar to Giana Sisters, so if you didn't like that game, then you may as well start looking elsewhere right now. Interestingly, the physics exaggerate the Giana experience to feel more like we're floating, and this took me a few goes to master. It's pretty surreal. Okay, there are 25 levels of shooting the baddies, destroying blocks to find all the bonuses, and even access to hidden levels - if you can. Also available is an incredible two-player feature, with various game types.

This is superb, and I'm sure a Giana Sisters fan will love what is more of the same with a few extra bells and whistles. Peter has done well to transform that pathetic commercial game into something it should have been all along. Make sure you play it on a real computer to experience the silky-smooth movement.

I prefer Giana Sisters, but this Hard & Heavy upgrade is downright marvellous. Highly recommended!!

- Download Hard 'n' Heavy -