Rastan
Arcade
Nostalgia Factor:
When I was a kid my family used to frequent a restaurant called Shakey’s Pizza at least once or twice a month. In the back of this restaurant was a room that contained a small handful of arcade units. The only one that ever really got my attention was Final Fight. Every time we went, I would plug all my quarters into this game. Can you blame me? Final Fight was awesome!
One day our family showed up and sat down to eat. I ran to the back room while we waited for our food to come out only to discover that Final Fight was out of order. What? Out of order? How could this be? I visited the other units and decided to settle on a game called Rastan. I had seen this game before, but I had never thought to play it because I loved Final Fight so much. I plopped my quarters into the unit and began to play. Immediately, I was blown away by Rastan. The Conan-like character, the fantasy world, the bright graphics. It was a ton of fun too. How could I have never played it before? I was instantly hooked. The only problem was that I had a limited amount of quarters. I didn’t even make it past the first level of the game.
My brother and my stepbrothers came into the back room and tried their luck with Rastan as well. I remember watching them with bated breath, rooting for them to make it farther than I had so I could see what else the game had in store. I couldn’t get over how awesome it was. You could just tell by the game’s characters and its setting that this was a game with a story to tell. It was infinitely cooler than anything I’d played on the NES at home. My siblings didn’t have any more luck with the game than I did, but to me it didn’t matter. Rastan had grabbed my attention. I couldn’t stop thinking about it for days afterward.
Plot twist: our family ended up moving to a new side of town shortly thereafter and we never visited Shakey’s again. Rastan slipped out of my memory for a LONG time. If we’re estimating that this happened around 1990 or 1991, that means about 30 years have passed. 30 years where I didn’t even think about Rastan once the entire time.
That changed earlier this year (2021). I’m part of a retro gaming group on Facebook and I noticed a post about this old arcade game called Rastan. I swiped through the screenshots one by one thinking “why does this look so familiar?” when HOLY SHIT it all came back to me. This was the game that for one week back in the early 90s had completely dominated my entire train of thought. I made up my mind right then and there that I was going to find a way to play this game again. I needed closure on that part of my life, as silly as that sounds. The only question was how on Earth was I going to be able to find an arcade that still had this game? It would be like finding a needle in a haystack.
I made up my mind. I was going to go against my moral code and use an emulator. I had always told myself I would never emulate anything until I had made it through my entire backlog of retro games and it became a necessity. Instead, I did the complete opposite and fell down the rabbit hole that is video game emulation. Expect to see lots of reviews of older, classic games that I never had the chance to play or revisit on the horizon. But I’m getting ahead of myself. First, we need to talk about Rastan.
Story:
There’s not much to this game’s story. Everything is set up by the one screenshot above, and that’s all you get before you start playing.
You fight through 6 grueling stages and the game’s story is never brought up again. When you slay the final boss (a dragon), old Rastan reappears and says that this was just one of his adventures that paved the way on his road to becoming king. Sit tight, as he still had several more stories to tell.
The end.
Again, not much story to go on. But it did get me excited for the possibility of playing this game’s sequels. I didn’t even know it had sequels! I guess I have playing those to look forward to in the coming weeks and months.
Gameplay:
I wouldn’t be surprised if the phrase “hack and slash” started with Rastan. You do your fair share of both hacking and slashing many many times as you make your way through the game. Basic gameplay consists of controlling your character as he makes his way from the start of the stage on the left side of the screen all the way to the end of the stage, located on the far right side of the playing area. Your main weapon is a sword, which you use to kill your enemies in (usually) one or two hits. You jump over obstacles. You climb up and down ropes. You swing from vines. You collect power-ups. You dodge the barrage of enemy attacks that are constantly coming your way.
You have to be very careful because it doesn’t take much to kill you. Enemies occasionally drop power-ups which restore your health, but these can’t be counted on as they appear very randomly. You can collect weapon power-ups, which help a lot. Mainly these weapon power-ups are just longer or stronger versions of your sword, but there is a flame sword that allows you to shoot projectiles at your enemies. This is the only projectile weapon in the entire game, so when you snag one make sure to guard it with your life!
That is easier said than done, however. Everything is out to kill you. Respawning enemies, tumbling rocks, flying bats and birds, flames jumping out of pools of lava. Enemies even start firing projectiles at you the deeper you make it into the game. As if all this stuff wasn’t tough enough to avoid, there are several dangerous platforming sections where one wrong jump will kill you. Some of these sections can be extremely difficult, most notably when you are sliding down a hill or trying to swing from rope to rope. This game must have been a major quarter eater back in the day. No wonder why as a kid I couldn’t make it through the first stage of the game!
Rastan’s stages follows a very predictable formula. The game is broken up into six levels, each one comprised of three stages. The first stage is always an “outside” stage as you make your way to either a cavern or castle at the end of the stage. The second stage consists of said cavern or castle. The third stage is a boss fight. Make your way through all six levels, defeat the final boss, and you have beaten the game.
Graphics:
This looks amazing for something that came out in 1987. Seriously – I was five years old when this was released. That is so hard for me to believe. Bright colors, beautiful backdrops, detailed scenery, distinctive looking enemies and characters. It is like a cartoon version of Conan the Barbarian come to life. At the time I played this game, which I estimated to be 1990 or 1991 – this game had already been out for three or four years. And I thought it looked better than anything I had played or seen in recent memory. That should tell you how ahead of its time this game’s visuals are.
Sound:
There’s only a small handful of songs in this game, so expect to hear them over and over again. They’re okay. I guess my favorite game track would be the music that plays during the “outside” levels. The sound department isn’t really this game’s forte, however. The sound effects are just average and to be honest there is nothing memorable or iconic as far as sound goes that I am going to take away from this game and remember forever.
Overall:
Eight year-old Dan would be so happy I finally got the chance to come back and finish this game. I wish I could go back and tell him that anything is possible when you believe in your dreams.
I kid, I kid. While it is nice I got some closure on the Rastan chapter of my life, I can’t say I had TOO great of a time with this game. I enjoyed it. I had fun. It was a good walk down memory lane. It gave me a stiff challenge too, which was a refreshing change of pace. Games never challenge me anymore. And when this game got too hard, hey guess what? I was playing on an emulator and could manipulate save states to make sure I was getting through each stage with minimal damage taken.
That said, the game itself is perfectly average. Outside of the creative look and feel of the game’s graphics and level design, at heart Rastan's gameplay is simply "all right". You start on the left side of the screen and you make your way to the right, which is typical of games of this era. You move slowly. Very slowly. Apparently Rastan is in no hurry to get anywhere, it seems. You hit enemies with your sword. You jump over obstacles. You die a lot. And that’s really all there is to this game.
The graphics and presentation of this game, along with all the fun memories I have of it are enough to keep it out of the C range, even though I did just say the gameplay is perfectly average. This came out in 1987, and it was FAR ahead of its time when it was released. I would have given this an A+ if I had reviewed it at the time. Should its score suffer just because I so happened to have gotten around to playing it super late in life?
I guess that is going to happen regardless, but the bottom line is that this game is still, 34 years after its initial release date, fun to play. Can you believe when my son is 16, this game will be 50 years old? I bet it will still be fun to play then, too.
Final Score:
B-
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