Number:209
Year:1984
Publisher:Datasoft
Developer:SE Software
Genre:Side-Scroller
Difficulty:5/5
Time:2 hours
Won:Yes (85W/67L)
Conan the Barbarian is a character who needs no introduction. Despite having a pop culture presence that mostly just apes a fourty-year-old movie, Conan is well-regarded as the archetypical barbarian character, strong, fearless and violent. This is in contrast to his book character, who is both smart and strong, only barbaric because he is foreign.
It was only natural that games would be made involving the character. Especially since, due to a weird quirk of US copyright law, he was technically in the public domain long before he actually should have. Once upon a time, you had to renew things so they remained in copyright, and Conan's original stories weren't. (Lovecraft has the same issue) Trademark is a different issue, but considering the fast and loose nature of early games, who knows? Unlicensed Star Trek games were common up until the '90s. I'd guess it was official, that logo is from the movie, at that point you're playing with fire.
Hall of Volta was originally released on Apple II, and was ported to Atari 8-bit and Commodore 64, along with various Japanese PC ports. I'll be playing the Atari 8-bit port, the C64 one is apparently quite poor.
The first screen is a nice introduction. Moving around, especially climbing up ladders. The sole enemy is this bat...possibly eagle, flyer. It goes in a set pattern, and it dies with one sword. The bigger question here is this big jump. I keep falling down just before the ledge. Eventually I assume I'm doing something wrong and check a video LP. Wait, he just jumped past it. Oh, I get it, I'm hitting the little jutting bit, I have to give it a bigger wind-up.
Second screen. This is simpler than the first. Clouds roll by, but they seem to do nothing. A creature flies, but he doesn't get in my path. Conan doesn't get hurt by fall damage. Nice. It was basically a straight shot for me, get the key on the right, then some careful jumps. When's the other shoe going to drop?
Third screen. Damn it, I hate when I'm right. So this one, this one is tricky. Conan can't hurt the scorpions assuming he can aim at them. He also can't jump over the lava. Examining the area, I can spot a gateway briefly appearing a couple of times in the upper area, then a couple of times in the lower area. A gem (key, basically) is up there. Figuring it out is the easy part, because this is a tricky bit of movement. You can't just go up there, because between the two portals there are two scorpions and a bird constantly stays up there. You'll die if you reach there while the two are up there. So you have to get lucky while they're downstairs.
Fourth screen. This changes the game away from its previous find out the trick bit. Because you can just jump through the waterfall to the key area, but without some gems, you can't get the key and can't get out. This one has some animation to it. A platform falls quickly, and a platform rises on that geyser. Land on it without the platform there, and Conan dies. This is all about getting any items that randomly spawn here, while dodging what appear to be mushroom men. More swords drop, helpful, but more importantly, gems.
This proves to be a bit more difficult than I was imagining. Its easy to end up in a loop of just avoiding the mushroom men. If too many end up on-screen, the game starts slowing down. Personally, I would have thought that you'd design a game so that didn't happen, but meh. I'm also not really sure what the randomization process is here, but sometimes it takes a long time for a gem, others it doesn't. If I had to guess you need a certain number of swords.
Fifth screen. There's a massive pile of gems one floor below, but no easy way to reach it. You need one to get out of here. Oh, why didn't I grab a spare in the last room? Its shifted entirely into a matter of luck in getting past here. Fire pops up and goes in random directions on the bottom floor, and now jumping and shooting is sticking in bad ways. Dragons continually spawn in, which makes it all worse. They shoot fire, and while you can shoot it down, its a losing fight.
Eventually, I take them all out, they don't spawn indefinitely, only five. Swords respawn and you can get a second gem at least if you need it. But the top floor provides a difficult puzzle, because I have no idea how to get past the lightning going between the two orbs there...and it turns out the first "door" isn't actually door. Not a good move. This is more generous than I thought, but if I weren't using save states this would be incredibly frustrating.
Sixth screen, a boss fight of sorts. An annoying bossfight. Its tricky, but there is something to it. Two kinds of enemies spawn, with the central orb there being invincible. Shadowy cloud creatures, these are invulnerable too, and an eye. Kill some eyes, and a ladder appears to the very top, where you can shoot the rope holding the chandelier, destroying the orb. Swords respawn at the bottom until you take out the orb.
Seventh screen, unfortunately I didn't take a screenshot. Gems fall into the upper left area, something turns them into birds. The birds then go in through the hole on the right, where you come in, and follow a path in the bottom area. Not just any birds, because some are invincible, the ones that turn red/pink. Do this a couple of times and a neat little animation plays of the bird up there getting freed, dropping that guy off in the lava, and then carrying Conan to the exit.
Weapons:
A simple, boomeranging weapon. 1/10
Enemies:
Rather simple, often functioning as an extension of the level itself. 2/10
Non-Enemies:
None.
Levels:
The game gets a lot out of seven levels, each requiring you to do something clever to advance. Nevertheless, this is very much a game you need an emulator for, without save states some of these levels are immensely frustrating with only a chance of figuring things out before going back to the start. 4/10
Player Agency:
When it works it works, when it doesn't it is frustrating. Jumps can stop for no apparent reason and while I understand the reasoning, this was not the game to give a standing jump zero momentum. I never got to the top of a ladder without jumping, so it has that going against it. 4/10
Interactivity:
Simple item placement. 1/10
Atmosphere:
Its not very Conan-esque, but it lives up to the ideals of the 8-bit era. A simple action game with a subtle character that just spending five minutes on would never reveal. In this regard this belongs with the greats of the era. 4/10
Graphics:
If you take Conan out of the equation, everything is nice, but simple. Well-animated. Eye-searing colors, sadly an Apple II staple even in a port like this. 2/10
Story:
None.
Sound/Music:
Your usual bleeps and bloops, with a background track. I should hate this, but for some reason I don't, but its still not very good. 2/10
That's 20. Respectable, but not amazing.
Most reviews I found were for the C64 version. Curiously, despite this one being inferior, it still mostly rated highly and everyone seemed to beat it. The issues are mostly the extreme variation between screen difficulty and the short length. Outside of flickering I didn't have to deal with. That's a fair observation, especially the former, in a time when you only had one game for months, but I think the less is more approach works better at a time when that's not really a problem anymore.
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