Deathtrap Dungeon I Retro Reviews
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- Опубліковано 9 лип 2024
- A retrospective review of Asylum Studio's 1998 action-adventure for PC and Playstation. This was supposed to be a quick 20-25m review, but I thought it would be interesting to talk a bit about the game's development history, compare the PC and PSX versions, and talk about changes from the original gamebook. Timestamps below (I haven't included spoiler warnings as the game barely has a story). Next video will be Bungie Software's 1997 RTS Myth: The Fallen Lords.
00:00 Opening
01:39 Overview and History
12:57 Gameplay (20:42 for analysis)
31:43 Art and Sound
45:10 Story and Writing
55:50 Outro - Ігри
![ОРБАН приехал к ПУТИНУ и "отчитался" о поездке в Киев 😁 [Пародия]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/_0ukDovOWq8/mqdefault.jpg)
41:00
It is Paul Darrow. Who you may know as Zarok if you played the PlayStation 1 classic, Medievil
Other people said the same but I couldn't find it listed on his resume. I see it's listed on his imdb now though. Thanks!
Kerr Avon, no less
@@dogbadger What a show!
Was ....he died in 2019
I know this fantastic actor from Blake's 7 as the inimitable Kerr Avon. He upheld his sense of humour even when he was severely invalidated due to his progressive disease up until his untimely death in 2019.
a 1 hour video about a game I've never heard of? this is what I live for
You have never heared of deathtrap dungeon? ....somehow this surprises me and yet dosnt at the same time lol
What are you fkn 12?
@@TonySpike probably a youngster. I hope. As anyone else know about it
I randomly bought the game beacuase I like m rated ps1 games for some reason. If it's bloody it's better than others right? So I had to look this up because I know playing these games NOW is tough lol but now I may actually try this one.
@@handznet I played since the 80s I didn't hear of it either.
A more modern version of this needs to be made.
Not by any of the infested devs or pubs. It'd get wrecked.
I appreciate the perkiness of the heroine.
Played the heck out of this back in the late 90s. This game was one of the hardest games I've ever played.
The art is sick in this game
The variety and art design was what was nailed wonderfully. I love the game for that. Even if the detail didn't need to go that far yet it makes the game more interesting.
Art cannot be sick
@@Cenot4ph but you can be a hater
@@realamericannegro977 how is art that is somehow sick? Have to do with hate? Im quite lost on your use of language
@Cenot4ph "Sick" means it's cool, homie.
Wow what a blast from the past, I worked almost 3 years on this game 😬
Great video, amazing amount of research!
You were almost right on a few things, I never knew Livingston tried to throw the Dev team under the bus. Kind of weird as we all worked in the same building and he spoke with the team almost every week, the Domark teams moved to Eidos at the time of the merger. Most of the production issues came from clueless middle management.
We spent 3 months on the sequel design, City of Thieves I think it was, then they made us all redundant, thaaanks.
Cheers for the comment, great to see one of the old devs chime in!
Yeah I found it quite difficult researching "who" Asylum actually were, I sort of assumed you were mostly Domark staff folded into Eidos or something, but there wasn't a lot of info in the magazines I could find and the wayback machine didn't really go back that far on the Eidos/Domark sites. When I looked at Mobygames it seemed like a lot of the team seemed to vanish after Deathtrap Dungeon - it was kind of surprising because even after a studio shutdown normally it seems like people filter out into other studios. I found an old archived page for an Asylum Studios that worked on mobile/edutainment software but I don't know if there was any connection there.
So the city was going to be city of thieves in the end? Livingstone seemed to go back and forth on which book was going to be used in magazine interviews, I guess the idea was still being kicked around at that stage. Speaking of the Livingstone thing, I actually wasn't going to include that quote about the team/licence as I assumed he was misquoted/it came it wrong, but he repeated something similar in two or three different interviews so I thought "eh, not my problem now" :D To play Devil's Advocate, I think he was usually making those comments in the context of the game having a tough development and mixed reception, so he was probably trying to half-apologize to fans and half-explain the behind-the-scenes problems and it came out harsher than he meant. He still has his branded Deathtrap Dungeon PSX and mentioned it a couple of times on twitter regarding a remake or whatnot.
I don't envy Asylum working on a 3d action game in that era - the video I'm working on now (Descent to Undermountain) started development at roughly the same time as DD and it seems like it ran into very similar roadblocks with the technology being a challenge, getting stuck in development for too long, being leapfrogged by more advanced 3d titles like Quake et al and then getting savaged at release. Mid 90s were pretty exciting for gamers but it seems like keeping up with technological trends was a nightmare for devs!
Hope you and the rest of the team are doing well! Sorry to hear about the passing of one or two of them.
Oh and by the way, you should've stayed with the metal bikini haha
@@MrEdders123
I was a huge undertaking at the time to build a 3D engine from scratch, there was some discussion if we buy one in at the start. Basically the PC version and engine were about two years of development. It was Ian Livingstons project (he licensed the book back to the company), he'd come in every month or so with his latest idea - tells us he wants killer clowns for example so off we would go to add a level in with them, it was quite random at times but it added more unplanned work.
Then the company management had the bright idea we had to release a PC and PlayStation version at the same time, this wasn't planned at all, as they had totally different specs, we had 8 or 16mb of RAM for the PC specs as I remember but the PlayStation had 2mb of RAM to fit the game in. We had to completely remake everything to fit and port the engine which took another year! There was a whole traps and triggers custom tool we had that didn't port over. This meant we missed the window to come out before Tomb Raider because of bad planning. This also explains why some of the graphics are different between the two. From what I remember being told it sold around 40k to 50k units so not terrible but nothing compared to the units Tomb Raider sold.
Still it was fun to work on and you couldn't beat 64 people playing the internal quake server at lunchtime :D
I'd done synopsis covers for the City of Thieves and we'd done concept art as well, maybe they decided they didn't want to make it and that's why they closed their internal dev teams, no idea.
@@ronskiuk Cheers for sharing that info, always interesting to find out why stuff in the final product turned out this way or that. I suppose in retrospect it seems like licencing another engine would've solved a lot of problems, but Descent to Undermountain did that with the Descent engine and still ran into the same issues (especially once 3d acceleration became the norm, which the Descent 1 engine didn't use). A lot of pitfalls with evolving technologies I guess.
I was amazed at how good the PSX version looked considering its limitations. Seems like the flipside of having to redesign stuff resulted in a fresh vision for some of the environments.
Shame the sequel was never given a chance, I don't think there was anything fundamentally wrong with the basic gameplay formula, as later fantasy action adventures illustrated.
I don't suppose you still have any of those old concept sketches? I dunno if you'd actually be allowed to share them.
@@MrEdders123
Why not pin this comment by a developer?
I had this game on PlayStation back in the day and always had fond memories of it, but I've never heard anybody talk about it. Glad I found this video. Just a few more saves in the right places would have really cut down on the frustration, but that was common back then.
Yeah, it's an interesting missing link between old-school console save systems and modern Souls-like bonfires.
I rented this game many times as a youth and never ever got past the first 2 or so hours of the game! I almost forgot it existed, thanks for the nostalgia kick!
usually I'm bored listening to the overview & history part of videos but due to the scripting in this one somehow I was actually enjoying it
I am a pretty boring person desu
I'm doing my own "remake" of this game. Of course, since I'm doing all by myself, I'm doing just the first scenario. My ideia it is to recreate the whole first scenario using our graphics from nowadays. I hope finish as soon as possible to release for free to all the old fans from this awesome game.
Good Luck!
Eagerly waiting for it!
That sounds really cool. Are you still working on it? I'd be very interested in following the progress, maybe even helping a bit if I can.
This is the best video I have ever seen on the game itself.
Well done!
It was a very entertaining review to listen to while cleaning my room, especially the deep dive into the development process of the game, great channel!
Been consuming as much deathtrap dungeon content as I can of late! Thank you for an hour treat 👍
This is a really well-done review. This game kinda reminds me of RUNE, in terms of its art direction, and combat.
Thanks! I was thinking of doing RUNE but it's already (relatively) well-known. I'll probably cover something like Die by the Sword or Dark Vengeance before thinking of Rune or Enclave. Otoh I might do Blade of Darkness due to the updated GoG release.
@@MrEdders123 yes.. Die by the Sword us what the visuals remind me the most of..
@@MrEdders123 id love a Severance video - what a great and silly game
@@nmonk8280 Definitely on the list :)
I totally forgot about this game. This unlocked a forgotten memory for sure.
God I wish UA-cam would actually inform me of uploads from channels I click the bell on. That would be so damn neat...
Anyway - great review/post-mortem! As usual, you manage to find the sort of thing I've actually never heard about and make it interesting. Big fan of your channel.
You got some real quality content here man thank you so very much!
Fantastic review - we need more like this!
Thanks!
@@MrEdders123 You're welcome!
Cant wait to see where this channel goes. And I haven't even started into your nearly five hour [for real?!] video on the BGII saga.
This is a great video! I'd love more hour long ps1 game reviews!
I have the a faint memory of this game and having limp bizkit - chocolate starfish and the hotdog flavored water, playing in the background.
Oh wow. I had this game back in the day but I had completely forgotten it existed. Until now.
One of my favourite games on PC and PlayStation 1, Thanks for doing such a in-depth review of this amazing and often over looked game.
You're welcome :)
she'd be welcome in my dungeon alright..
kinda gay. also yurafag
Another great video about these vintage video games !
Thanks :D
Loved this game, back when I played it on my PS1. Great fun.
Just found your channel, great stuff! Subbed!
So I recently played Blade of Darkness on my Switch, and since then I've been obsessed with games made in the past with a similar style.
Nightmare Creatures is another game I've never heard of along with Blade of Darkness. So great finding these older titles that inspired so many modern masterpieces. Also love the experimentation in these older games, you can tell the devs wanted to make something amazing and often were hit or miss on certain aspects.
They certianly put more effort into many more games back then! Newly subscribed! Onto the Dune video next.
Battle of the trenches was when you felt confident in your character and just Ready for combat
This game is absolutely amazing ! The "smart" camera is the single one problem. The lack of story naration and dialogue or voice acting is not a big deal. That was a norm for many games at that time. The game is absolutely fantastic ! Great game !
The mention of Die By The Sword made me nostalgic. It was so good. I'd love to see a new take on it, as the modern dual stick controls are a lot better fit for it than any of the options available at the time. It's insanely satisfying pulling off a well-aimed decapitation knowing it was you who guided the blade, not some combo animation.
It's a divisive title for sure. A lot of reviews gave it points for ambition but still gave it bad score because they hated the actual controls.
@@MrEdders123 Yeah, this is one of those cases when the reviewers got the control complaints right (unlike Alien: Resurrection). When the best way to play a fantasy action game is one hand on the keyboard and the other on a flight stick, you know you have a weird one on your hands. 😅
New to the channel. Long form coverage of fairly obscure retro games is the kind of thing I love to see on UA-cam. Subbed. As for the topic at hand...
I know it's not technically a "good" game, but I unironically love Deathtrap Dungeon. Something about the art and atmosphere just instantly pulls me in. I still have my boxed copy on PS1, and I also have the PC version through GOG. Reviews were not particularly kind when it came out, and it has some issues, but for some reason the problems don't really phase me and I return to it often.
This channel is sorely underrated and under-subbed.
Damn.. another obscure game but very well reviewed. Never heard of it. Thanks for digging it up.
Cheers
The detail on how they rendered Red Lotus' butt is funny. They did it justice
Reminds me of 2B. Didn't her cheeks have more polygons than Ocarina of Time?
This is a great review. Subscribed. I had this game back in the day on PS1. I found it frustrating but I enjoyed the atmosphere and always intended on going back to it. Probably will now.
Great review.
I remember playing this game as a kid and probably ruining my dad's save files! Thanks for taking the time to play and research this one.
That's nothing, I deleted my brother's endgame save on the original XCOM.🙃
Just such a perfect video, squeezing everything out of this game and the few materials available
Honestly thought ps1 level design way ahead of PC, my fav game of all time!
I loved the over the top violence and the brutal difficulty. The ending was such a slap in the face for all your hard work of beating the game. It's a shame there was no sequel.
5-finger-bookmark - that's how I rolled :)
A finger from each hand inside the book. One for where I was, one from where I am about to go. One more for where I am now.
I would get defeated when they designed all routes to have all branches be several layers to inevitable doom.
The nipple game is strong with this cover art.
i remember seeing this box art when i was a kid but had no idea what it was, it is interesting to see it again here and to finally learn what this weird game is.
I love your channel so so much
Thanks dawg
Loved this time in gaming. The birth of 3d. Good times
Too true! We were all making it up as we went along. No one knew how to solve problems and there was little to no art reference or information on the internet as there is today.
I remember coming back from the pub one night to work on the 3d special effects system. By 9am it was done 😂
This brings back memories. I loved this evil game. I used to kick back at a friend's place playing it on the PS2. I was the most persistent if not the best gamer in our group of friends, so although we started off taking turns when we got to near the end of the game it was basically handed over to me to beat it. I never quite made it. I got to the final fight with that damn dragon, but that fight was just ridiculous. I fought it over and over and each time would take like half an hour. It actually got worse the better you got at it since it meant it took even longer before your inevitable failure. This was back before internet play-throughs and guides, so I was likely fighting the cursed thing without all the top gear.
My personal opinion of the game is that it was brutal, at times unfair, but ultimately fun and conquerable except for the final boss which was just straight-up broken. It was ridiculous the way it almost never landed and how much damage it did. This game is much like the original Tomb Raider in that it was a product of its era and does not hold up if played by a modern audience. It was however not a bad game for its time. It certainly didn't deserve one-star reviews simply because it kicked the crap out of the average game reviewer. I honestly think I had more fun playing this game than I did Tomb Raider. There was just so much more variety and fun to it.
It may have gotten a bit of stigma for being in development for so long, though being compared to Tomb Raider 2 didn't help.
Amazing video!
Thanks a lot :D
I rented and played Deathtrap Dungeon once on PS1 from my local video rental shop. It was such a hard game to play. 10:14 Kelly Brook. 41:07 The narrator is the late Paul Darrow aka Kerr Avon from Blake's 7. Rogue from X-Men at 38:21.
Great video. Would never have heard of this game otherwise
ty Mr. Swago
The voice actor in the intro sounds like Paul Darrow, who voiced Zarok in Medievil. I still haven't played this game but it's in my backlog.
Hmm, you could be right. I checked the end credits, the manual credits, and the strategy guide but couldn't find them listed.
In-game Red Lotus, with the impish upturned nose, is so much better than the babyfaced-cutie from the ads. The marketing department failed to ruin something, for once :) The perfect ending for the game would be thus: upon slaying the dragon, the hero finds a secret passage leading to Sukumvit's castle, throws the tyrant upon the pitchforks and torches of Fang's citizens, then turns away... and marches right into his throneroom, to become lord of the Deathtrap games.
I used to love playing the original Fighting Fantasy book this was based on, it's kind of a shame it doesn't get closer to the book
There are a couple of more book-faithful adaptations on Steam, maybe on GoG too though I'm not sure about the latter.
@@MrEdders123 yeah I've played a few over the years.
I remember in the PC zone magazine there was a preview and interview with Ian Livingstone about this game. In the Alpha version, the female fighter was wearing a bikini before changing to a Leotard. In the interview it has an interesting bit where Ian mention how he and Steve wrote the Adventure books, it was mostly done during their free time after their work in Game Workshop
They should've left the chainmail bikini in the game as a unlockable outfit for beating it within a time limit or something :D
@@MrEdders123 haha yeah not to mention in this day and age of videogame climate. I doubt even female fighter even allowed to wear a g string leotard and probably would given her a full plate armor
@@hanchiman Chaindog would certainly be allowed - nay, encouraged - to though.
Bloody neoMaoists.
Remembered this game, played it on pc long long time ago
I remember the ad in magazines back in the 90s
The BDSM one?
@MrEdders123 yes.
This and O.D.T. are two games of this era that I feel never really got the recognition they deserved. Yeah, the combat is simplistic, but the level design and atmosphere of the two rank them incredibly high for me as far as PSX (and PC) 90's action/dungeon-crawlers go. I also came across another game recently that I had never heard of but came out a few years after Deathtrap which gives me vibes similar to it as well as games like Enclave, Blade of Darkness, ect., though the actual gameplay isn't quite the same with the character control being more similar to something like Dungeon Siege. The game I'm talking about is called Borderzone. I saw it available on GOG during their Winter sale and bought it on a whim, though I haven't played it yet. Do you know anything about it? The screenshots made me instantly nostalgic for a game I'd never played.
I don't recall Borderzone but I'll have a look. I really like the late 90s/early 2000s hack and slash games and intend to cover lots of them in the future :D
Them 2 games need to be remarster and make a comeback
Oh, great algorithm: I beseech you to promote this video so that more such content may be created. Blessed be your bits.
lol
I had read the book and I was really excited for this game, and then it was critically panned and I forgot it even existed.
DD outshine in term of consistency and artwork even modern titles. Perfect evidence that art don't age. Thank you for focusing on those parts aswell.
Great video. You should definitely consider reviewing Severance Blade of Darkness, one of my favourites.
Will eventually, but would like to cover either Drakan or Excalibur 2555 before that. Coincidentally it will actually be mentioned in my next video about Soulbringer, as Gremlin Interactive were publishing Blade of Darkness before they got bought by Infogrames.
Great video
When I heard the name of the Evil baron I was like, that is a Thai name.... Glad you clarified I am not crazy later in the video haha
Dude I had this game as a kid, first game I ever played 🥰
I have such good memories of it despite its obvious limitations.
A true puzzle game with fantasy, spells.
That being said I had the PS1 version but I have also played the PC version.
That creature at 3:04 is a boss creature in Conan Exiles in the dungeon called The Dregs. It's exactly the same and is even in a pool of acid. Interesting. Seems to be an ohmage.
I THINK the Bloodbeast was actually based on an older fantasy piece (possibly a pulp of 70s/80s fantasy cover), though I can't find anything on that now, so maybe I'm misremembering. I know Ian McCaig was the original artist.
Man i remember playing this game as a kid on playstation 1. Hard as hell , at least for me
On 8:17 "Blade" from Rebel act will eventually became "Blade of darkness", it was published three years later by Codemasters.
Edit: and you did speak about it, hah :)
I picked this up back in the day cause my smooth little brain saw the EIDOS INTERACTIVE name and assumed I would get something like Tomb Raider. Played the hell out of this, but boy was it hard
Good Video!
Hehehe, me and my friend would try to play that on his computer (we would play GTA1, MortalKombat4, DukeNukeem, Shadow Warrior and he would also play JediKnight, Dungeon Keeper and Descent), when we were 14 or so. Game only ran in slowmotion and I think we only tried the first Level. Seeing a playthrough recently I would have never guessed how extensive and brutally hard this game would have been :D :D
I just spent hours trying to figure out what this game was since the only thing i remembered from it was the torture room themed settings menu. Felling very nostalgic tonight.
Haha that was what taught me how to change the clip speed in DaVinci - I really wanted to show off the menu animations like the save screen decapitation :D
@@MrEdders123 Playing this game as a wee child definitely had an impact on me. They did not hold back on the brutality in this game haha!
I'm so old, the first time I read the words Deathtrap Dungeon they were printed on the cover of the Fighting Fantasy book!
Thanks for the review! I just got this on gog :)
I hope you didn't pay more than 5 dollars lol
@@MrEdders123 Got it on sale! I liked the descriptions in the manual (they could make an interesting remake out of this!)
Funny how the reason why so many players gave up on this game, is also the reason why a certain series of games is being held in such a high regard this days.
Well I guess the players of Deathtrap Dungeon just needed to 'git gud' ;)
I don't like the Souls games at all (I played through Souls to give it a fair shot and never want to do that again lol), but I think they're a lot "fairer" than Deathtrap Dungeon. DD is much more likely to kill you before you can react or recover, it's just that it usually punts you 5-10 minutes back rather than 30 (although later levels are much worse). DD is kind of like an old-school platformer in that sense.
@@MrEdders123 I'm not a fan myself, but I shall stop here, least the rabid Souls fanbois sniff this out lol
Souls fan here. Grew up with this DD game. To me Souls is the logical conclusion of the formula a game like DD set out to create. No hate. Love both games. Kind of think DD could be made more difficult by tinkering with the game somehow.. (because enemies die too fast and there are too many save points!), guess Souls made DD seem easy after all the years.. but i love it a lot all the same.
Comfy time.
Been meaning to play this for a long while since my PS1 disc didn't work all too good. also I know you made this a year ago but you wouldn't happen to recall the specific magazines that mentioned Deathtrap Dungeon and the Blade article at 8:15?
PC Zone September 1997
I remember looking at games in 1999 in my local shop and being torn between this and Drakan: Order of the Flame. After watching this video I'm overall really happy I picked Drakan, still have fond memories of that game... do not think this game would have endeared itself to me in the same way.
I'd like to cover Drakan one day :D
@@MrEdders123 That would be awesome, definitely an underreprested game here on youtube!
Is that intro by Paul Darrow ?he played Avon in Blake's seven from the late seventies .
Someone else suggested that...it's not listed on his imdb though. He did do VA for the much more important Gender Wars :)
My addiction of deathtrap dungeon is over, beat the pc version yesterday for the 2nd time, I may go to the ps1 version, the game is a decent 5/10 in terms of difficulty for me, I think the difficulty is way blown out of proportion, the ai is incredibly stupid, 85% of the game you can simply use you’re default sword, i stocked up on potions, wardens shields, strength potions, antidotes, charm of icy cools which you use like once in the great shaft level, speed you use once at the very end of inversion 1, grenade launcher is super helpful in shooting gallery but thats about it, most awkward moments when enemies rush you, you can just block and razor spell them, annoyingly rat orges and rock monsters are the only enemies that can attack through your block asides projectile based attacks, the camera during platforming is a pain but first person mode helps a ton, honestly I thing the biggest issues are the rendering glitches in both the ps1 and pc version, seemingly falling through solid object is very annoying, you technically aren’t but it just looks like it also the game gets tight giving items at the midway mark, giving mostly spells in secret area which I maxed my stock of and never used, Heath potions become rare, if you do not conserve you’re items the game gives you plenty of at the beginning you are in for a really rough time, bosses are ridiculously easy with strength potions and their weakness weapon, they die within 5 hit and usually get stun locked in the process, pit fiend silver sword and strength potion with war pigs, king rock man lol set the trap so he falls to his death, giant rats and king rat ogre silver sword and strength potion, Medusa’s venom sword, you can use anti magic charm but I never did, as for the dragons, bloodbeast strength potion and venom sword, three headed dragon *who is a joke* run down and dodge the high priestesses magic and just run up to him, if you are at his face he cannot attack you, use a venom does and he’s dead, purple dragon once the annoying idiot lands black spirit sword and strength potion, he has no change, red dragon, his “obstacle course” is easy just the first block that’s annoying, I figured out if
You pick the rocket up between the two falling blocks, when the texts appears stop and you’ll be fine, , I figured out the pattern to the switch’s in the next room on my 2nd try, there is a ton of Arch of vitalities in this level I mean seriously atleast 600hp points worth, 3 in red dragons area alone with 2 red swords and a strength potion, 3 charms of icy cool and two anti-magic charms, after 5 hours of flying like a bumblebee bouncing off the walls he’s dead in 6 hits with strength and red sword, honestly I don’t see where this “one of the hardest games of all time” comes in, the game honestly can be fair..ish the traps lmao well thats where the game cheats you, from what I noticed traps are extremely obvious at the beginning, you can clearly see the turrets in the walls and that rendering glitch what I complained about has a great use of exposing false walls and floors but half way through the traps kinda disappear, you get comfortable that a secret area is well safe and they are, that have decent loot too… then inversion.. the is by far the hardest part where you are ambushed by rat man and ogres, everyone has guns and grenade launches, explosives barrels everywhere too, this is the hardest part of the game and the traps return in the most bullshit and honestly most genus way, they don’t hurt you, they instakill you, they are effectively invisible and the rendering glitch doesn’t work either, this part of the game makes you feel really REALLY on edge, however I will say everyone of the impossible to see traps happens when you are close to a save point atleast but hey what’s the name of the game and look at the cover, it’s not going to be super mario galaxy is it? The game was made for the sole purpose to be very hard and cruel and the bastards in my opinion succeeded lol I had a ton of fun revisiting it honestly, now back to euro truck sim 2 xD as for that ending… what a massive slap in the face, imagine the crap they’d get nowadays for that, thats truly the awful part of the game, worst ending ever, I will defend the game for many things but that ending is disgraceful,
@MrEdders123 Random question but do you still have the image at 1:40 saved anywhere? its really hard to find high res images of the art from this game. Thanks.
I had a look at my youtube folder, and as far as I can tell it's from one of the images here: mega.nz/folder/PgMDlLQZ#hUma2AxtsJn0qFuDb5UWVQ
Unfortunately they all seem to be magazine scans, so not perfect quality. If you're looking for a better quality version you could try looking through uploaded magazines of whatever date the ad campaign started (maybe 4 months before release) and see if there's a higher quality scan. The best source would be an Eidos press kit or possibly a wallpaper or something, I didn't find anything like that in my files though. :(
Hey man thanks a lot @@MrEdders123
I remember as a child watching my brother rent and play this game from Blockbuster on our at the time new PS1 in 1998 when it came out, I remember being afraid of it due to its dark and gruesome atmosphere so much at the time that while I forgot the name I never forgot the gruesome atmosphere of it the few nights I watched my brother playing it back then. I only just finally remembered the name of it over 20 years later in 2019 scouring UA-cam looking for more PS1 games after finally finding another working original model and finally bought both the PC and PS1 versions online so I'll never forget it again. Being in my early 30s now I don't have as much time to play through older games like I used to hopefully someday in retirement ill have all the time I ever wanted to play through the older more obscure games I remember like this.
Yeah I wish I'd played it as a kid, it would've been pretty terrifying!
@@MrEdders123 it is an unusual coincidence if you think about it because despite remembering it for years, because we rented it from blockbuster for a few nights never actually owned it until a year or so ago. While not a horror game, its a similar case for me with Ehrgeiz on ps1 remembering renting it a few nights loving it but oddly never actually owned it until a year or so ago. It's hard to imagine that ever happening now but back then was just how console gaming was at the time, renting a game for a few nights or the weekend was much more common than actually buying a game except when you knew you enjoyed playing it and couldn't get enough of it.
I should add that there's also ''Deathtrap Dungeon Trilogy'' from Nomad Games, released in 2018.
Is that not the same as the one in the video (the Fighting Fantasy classics DLC)?
@@MrEdders123 Nope, it's a different game. It has Deathtrap Dungeon, Trial of Champions and Armies of Death together.
@@artursartemjevs6097 Oops
24:15 I know this is a bit late, but I noticed a slight error here, you mentioned the T Rex and the Pit Fiend as the same thing; presumably you saw the magazine article with a picture of the T Rex, and the textbox adjacent to it mentioning a creature called the Pit Fiend but after carefully reading it, it mentioned talking about the multi-eyed blob on the cover of the original fighting fantasy books, and not the big dinosaur. I guess a lot of people were confused by which was named ehat, it seems.
The pit fiend is actually the t-rex, you can check it in the manual/bestiary. I had exactly the same thought as you when I was making the video (bloodbeast makes more sense as a "pit fiend"), but actually the t-rex = pit fiend in the game. :P
Man, if this could be reimagined more in line with something of the type of sprawling experience that Ultima Underworld 1/2 were and the ambitions of the NPC interactivity of Descent to Undermountain... With the way things are going, I bet the middle market would be ripe for such a product. Also, you'd think that with the onset of the "Battle Royale" young adult literature trend that emerged in the past 15 years that there'd be girth of people familiar with the tropes involved in such storytelling feats, though maybe that window was before Zombie ARMA gave rise to the extraction shooters.
52:58 Yes. Thank you. It's the small things in life. A seal of quality that doesn't get fed enough fish. Can't wait until some future 'retrohead' argues that that scene is how Bioware intended it and therefore you SHOULD play it with models like that. Ah, the allure of 'authenticity'.
I was 25 back then.... this was the first console PS1 since i got a SPECTRUM 128K+2 , this playstation thing was another planet for me...3D???.....was only done for PC with "MAGICAL" vodoo CARDS...
Nice
Melkor being dragon is very strange,
those familiar with Discord of Melkor (during Song of Aru) might know. i supose there were some fans of Tölkien's work everywhere .)
goood.
wait at 20.30 was that a non mechanical scorpion? that existed in pc version?
Yeah, I can't recall if they appear anywhere else.
I gonna watch your review in the near future, but do you comment about the multiplayer on PC? DO we have a multiplayer on Playstation version? I would love to make the multiplayer work
I only briefly tried hosting a multiplayer game, to no avail. Possibly relies on gamespy servers or something, I don't recall to be honest, sorry. I don't believe Playstation had multiplayer or split screen functionality, though my memory is pretty bad.
@@MrEdders123 I really would like to try to make it work on MP just to check how it is the maps and the experience. This game is so underground that there is barely any information about it or even a footage of a MP match. Thanks for the answer :) btw, if anyone knows how to make multiplayer work, please tell us!
@@MrEdders123 Very, VERY few games utilised the PS1's LAN capabilities. Most of them didn't add extra players over splitscreen either.
Cool Boarders 2 for example had a 2P splitscreen mode, and a 2P LAN mode, but no 4P splitscreen LAN mode. Probably why nobody bought the cable.
I never understood what the red bar under the skull in the top left corner of the screen meant.
I legitimately can't remember now lol. Stamina?
Still have my PS1 copy AND the strategy guide! /grins
A 1hr look at kalistos nightmare creatures would be phenomenal bro
Hope it isn't too late to ask for the source of that "Chaos Army" image at 32:46? I am kind of scouring about looking for art of Warhammer stuff from back in it's earliest history.
I think it's from the "Battle Masters" boardgame by Games Workshop and Milton Bardley, which depicted Chaos archers like that. A more famous example is the chaos ogre that you see on the cover of one of the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay editions, but there are lots of other examples from the older 70s/80s era of Warhammer designs.
@@MrEdders123 much obliged, thank you.
@@hanzlim7198 Really the best resource would be flipping through the older Warhammer Fantasy editions (i.e. 1-3), White Dwarf from the late 70s/early 80s, and similar publications that definitely are NOT floating around the internet or archived in huge torrent files.
One of my most favorite games of all times; I rate it much higher than the TR series.
This gets a bad wrap but I'm still getting this
Really great review! Can you do 'Grim Fandango', 'Men in Black' and 'Nightmare Creatures' for Ps1? Would love to know the history of those
Grim Fandango is pretty well covered by other channels (or likely to be covered in the future), so I'm not sure I'll ever get to that. Nightmare Creatures I may well cover one day, I like those late 90s third-person hack and slash titles.
Discworld Noir would be a good one too.
@@FoxyFoxlyn I will probably cover a Discworld title at some point...or Simon the Sorcerer :D
@@MrEdders123 Oooo another classic!
Blade for PS1 please! Love that game! And this one, grew up with the FF book my parents had.. this game was a big part of my childhood.. and led me into cultures like extreme metal and occult art 🔥
I'm sure this will be remade
I played some of this game as a child, but never got far. I played Severance as well. Got further in that, but also never beat it. It was also really hard.
The monster designs in Deathtrap Dungeon really impress me. You don’t see that kind of variety of enemies in many games today. A shame the story is so lacking. I replayed the classic Tomb Raider games lately, and I felt some of them could have had more story to them, but for this to have even less, including an ending, is rather disappointing. I’d love to see it remade.
Severance is much more worthwhile imo thanks to its excellent combat, though some people find the lockon system frustrating. It also lacks the more acrobatic parts of Deathtrap Dungeon. I'm looking forward to trying out Excalibur 2555 one day 😁
@@MrEdders123 Yeah, the lock on was pretty fucked. I played it because I heard it was like the Souls games, but they had much tighter combat systems, despite not giving you nearly as many combos.
The game is like Dungenkeeper meets Dino Crysis