Sam’s Journey, Commodore 64, ViTNO Game Review

It’s hard to believe that Mayhem in Monsterland was released almost 25 years ago. It has been heralded as the definitive platformer for the Commodore 64 in terms of both gameplay and technical achievement that pushed the ‘old breadbin’ to do things it was not supposed to do. It was considered to be the great last hurrah for the C64, that is until Sam’s Journey recently appeared to relight the scene.

Sam’s Journey is a new generation retro scrolling platformer developed by Knights of Bytes and was released by Protovision in late December 2017. You play the role of Sam who unexpectedly finds himself on a journey in a strange new world and your role is to guide Sam through 30 levels across 3 world maps to help him find his way back home.

Sam waiting to drop a treasure chest on an unsuspecting hedgehog

Sam’s Journey is stunning in both the way it looks and moves. Thanks to its fast free-directional scrolling, the game rivals equivalent platformers on higher spec’d machines with ease. Each of the 14 different environment settings overwhelm the visual senses with spectacular colour and detail, accompanied with a bouncy soundtrack that varies based on the game setting location.

The levels are littered with enemies such as roamers, wasps, caterpillars, hedge hogs and angry frogs who are all set on stopping Sam from continuing his journey across the worlds. Generally, the enemy creatures are not too taxing and can be easily overcome with a little bit of persistence and a whole lot of patience. Moving Sam around the various levels is a real joy as he is able to run, jump, climb, swim and pick up large items to throw at enemies. It is pleasing that the game, for the best part, avoids the reliance of pixel perfect jumps that otherwise frustrate even the best of us gamers. This all lends itself to some real fluid game-play that compels you to continuously have ’one more try’.

Pirate Sam has the ability to cut enemies down with a cutlass

Gamers will need to utilise switches, trampolines, hidden passages, owls and collect keys to make progress. Figuring out how to use all of these items in the right place or right way provides the main challenge within the game.

Special costumes can be picked up throughout the worlds which not only change Sam’s appearance but also give him special capabilities while the costume is worn. For example, Pirate Sam can attack enemies with his cutlass, Ninja Sam can cling to walls, while Disco Sam can do a spinning twist that allows him to stay in the air longer during jumps. Sam can only wear one costume at a time, so choices need to be made as to whether you swap your existing costume whenever you come across another. Costumes are also useful in that the provide a one-hit protection from enemies, so that lives are not lost after just one hit.

Is it Armakuni? No, it’s Ninja Sam with the ability to cling to walls

In addition to trying to get Sam back to safety, the game also contains collectible diamonds, coins and trophies as an additional challenge to collect them all, compelling anyone who has completed the main objective of the game to return to it in an effort to obtain the elusive 100% completion goal.

The modern touch to Sam’s Journey comes in the form of checkpoints placed throughout all the levels. While true hard core retro gamers might frown about this inclusion, the rest of us will be thankful that we don’t have to totally restart a level every time Sam loses a life.

Boxed edition of Sam’s Journey

To refer to Sam’s Journey as a good game would be an understatement. The Knights of Bytes have displayed their high technical skills and passion to deliver the best C64 game in 25 years. The overall presentation is nothing short of wonderful and has set the benchmark for all future games developed for our favourite little machine. Fans of the classic Nintendo style of platform gaming will appreciate what Sam’s Journey has to offer and the way it goes about delivering quality gaming to fans of the genre. Highly Recommended.

[vsw id=”Y0daZoaDdUo” source=”youtube” width=”425″ height=”344″ autoplay=”no”]
Retro gaming journalist promoting NEW C64 and Amiga releases. Contributes to RetroGamerNation YouTube channel, Vintage is the New Old blog site, Reset 64 Magazine, K&A Plus Magazine and various other publications. Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/retrogamernation Website: http://retrogamernation.com Email: retrogamernation@gmail.com

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *