Moonstone

STORY / GAMEPLAY
Time: Somewhere in the Medieval Era. You play the role of a brave knight who must search the surrounding lands for the lost, powerful Moonstones and bring them back to the Druids. In return, the Druids will grant you with eternal power...! But be warned! You are not alone in this quest, as 3 other knights are also looking for the stones and will surely set to kill you! You must be the first to find each clue that leads to the location of the Moonstones and find magic artifacts that will help you in your adventure. As you explore the mystical lands you will discover several places of interest, such as towns (where you can buy healing potions, weapon upgrades or you can even participate in gamble spots for gold...and more), wizard towers (that may contain either rewards or penalties!) and monster lairs! The lairs are very important in order to grab a few coins and be able to spend them for weapon upgrades or magic skills. But, to get those coins you must defeat all monsters met in each lair and this is tough, believe me. Many of the monsters have a distinctive fighting style so, learning the techniques to defeat them is essential! A fair range of necessary fighting moves is at your disposal. Some monsters are stronger than others and some creatures' strengths depend on the phases of Moon!!! Any attack unleashed is always gory and blood will spray all over your screen! Every time you end up victorious, your knight's abilities and points will be updated. If they kill you, you will lose a life. Apart from the monsters and your three main rival Knights, there are a few more dangers to cope with. Black Knights roam the areas, aiming to ambush you; powerful warriors lurk at key locations to hack you in pieces! Also, a Dragon is flying across the whole land and if it spots you then...you're history! So, beware! To move around the land, you use a map that depicts all available areas. Note that your movement on the map is limited to just a few pixels-a-time so you cannot reach directly an area of interest. This means that probably another knight might reach it first! One of the best assets of the game is the four-players mode with each player choosing a knight and follow the same story. This way the game can turn into a one-on-one brawl at any time! The Knight that finds first the Moonstones, is the great winner!

GRAPHICS / SOUND
The game's graphics are among its greatest assets. Each area is nicely designed without the need of fancy animated backdrops but the aesthetic brilliance of the sprite animations makes you want to play the game again and again! Moonstone offers some cool and gory animations each time your blood pumps out of your head when a foe decapitates you, a Balok bites you off and a ton more bloody goodies! The game's sound is as gory as its graphics, but the MS-DOS version sports lower quality compared to the Amiga version. The MS-DOS version supports AdLib sound cards and, although there are a few sampled SFX, they are in low quality while most of the original SFX (the Amiga's) are missing from this version. More on that, the amazing introductory music score found on the Amiga is a total...mess on the PC version…! But nevertheless, this game is an addictive stunner and everyone should give it a try!