Accompany us each week as we plumb the depths of the ROM Dump for overlooked classics, obscure surprises, and other sundry retro oddities.
Arkista’s Ring was probably released too late in the life of the NES (1990) to qualify as a Legend of Zelda imitator–which it actually isn’t–but it was a bit ahead of its time in a different regard; namely, the many early incarnations of “modern” gameplay elements the game is built around.
With a green-clad, pointy-eared protagonist that could pass as a female doppelgänger of Link and a bevy monster-infested screens, the strong impulse to arch an eyebrow and sputter “Oh, it’s like Zelda, then” isn’t entirely misplaced. Yes, there are hearts that stand in for a life bar. Yes, Christine–said female–can shoot arrows like a true Hylian warrior. Those are merely misleading surface features.
Arkista doesn’t abide by the rules of any one game, or even genre. For example, the rapidity and consistency at which Christine releases arrows is almost reminiscent of just about any shoot-em-up; replace her sprite with that of the Vic Viper, and it wouldn’t change the gameplay all that much. The maze-like layout of the levels leans more towards the likes of Pac-Man (specifically Championship Edition and CE DX) than an open adventure game, and in turn necessitates a similar brand of strategic movement and avoidance when things get hairy (which they often will, albeit at a more methodical and less-flashy pace).
The game in a nutshell, though: defeating most or all of the enemies in the area will unlock a key to open access to the next stage. And so on, for 125 stages. Or until you realize that there are 125 stages. Even this grueling quantity serves as a precedent of sorts; think of it as a precursor to the slogs through Horde mode and Firefight we cherish today.
As stages progress, more and stronger enemies spawn around the often-claustrophobic maps, and survival boils down to a delicate science of balancing inventory items (life potions, weapon upgrades, area-clearing bombs, etc.) and keeping tabs on Christine’s surroundings and pathways. It’s there–about 35 or so stages deep, when the action-puzzle strategies and patterns have sunk in–where Arkista can be quite fun.
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The opening notes of the intro to Solstice: The Quest for the Staff of Demnos (whew) are deceptively plain, making it that much better when it rockets bracingly into a sound chip-breaking stratosphere of swirling arpeggios and thunderous bass, before settling gently into a kicking jig.
Not an easy act to improve upon, but, after some expository theatrics from Shadax the wizard and his fair princess, Eleanor, Solstice follows its orgasmic title tune with an equally interesting and unique gameplay style. It presents a number of interconnected rooms, and leaves the player to navigate, familiarize, and ultimately achieve certain tasks within the segmented dungeon, all of which is done in a non-linear fashion.
Despite his wizard title, Shadax is an extremely vulnerable individual. He has an array of potions to aid him, with a variety of effects: invincibility, destroying or freezing the enemies of a room, and making invisible objects visible each come into play throughout the dungeon crawl, though general evasion remains the most effective tactic.
The isometric view and focus on navigating Shadax in a quasi-3D space, combined with an emphasis on strategically grabbing, placing, and stacking specific dungeon objects qualifies Solstice as a little bit puzzler and a little bit platformer. Like Arkista, it contains a wealth of rooms (250+) to mess about in, locating needed items and solving the dozens of unique conundrums presented in each. You might not finish Solstice, but its still appreciable through following that formula.
