Knight Tyme

Copyright : Mastertronic | Reviewed by : betpet

Poor old Magic Knight eh? He does all that hard work to free Gimbal the wizard at the end of Spellbound and does he get returned home? Nope, a mistake with the spell sends Magic Knight hurtling into the future an on board the U.S.S. Pisces all the way in the 25th century. Maybe he should have called in on Buck Rogers for some help. I guess he didn\'t know how to get hold of him so he has to find his own way back. How? Ask the Tyme Guardians to send him back. The problem is that he doesn\'t know where they are or how he\'s going to get there.

Magic Knight\'s first problem is that everyone seems to be ignoring him (well, except Derby IV but his programmers foresaw Magic Knight\'s appearance and took action)

The graphics are ported from the Spectrum but are quite effective and clear. Mode 1 is used and there\'s enough colour to keep the visuals interesting without going over the top.

The sound effects are limited to whizzes and zaps where appropriate but aren\'t silly or overused. There is background music which is tuneful and quite catchy. You can turn it off when it gets annoying.

The game itself has a wonderful learning curve that allows you to work out the next piece of the puzzle in a reasonable time but doesn\'t stop you in your tracks and force you to walk away in disgust (Spellbound anyone?) The first main puzzle is to work out how to get people to take notice of you. I\'m not giving it away but in 30 minutes to an hour and you\'ll be bossing the crew about with ease.

There are a few puzzles that seem to require a little random guessing (unless I missed the clues) regarding locations to take the star ship and teleport co-ordinates. The Magic Knight quartet are a set of games that everyone fondly remembers. Knight Tyme is probably the best of the four games and used David Jones\' \'Windimation\' system. This allowed you to follow a simple set of menus to do whatever task is required. It was a little confusing at first to a 9 year old in the mid 1980s but was quickly and easily picked up. Modern windows users will not even think about it.

The game is big, it\'s very playable and there\'s always something to do or work out. A great game!