Crystal Castles Atari 8 Bit 400 800 XL XE Review The No Swear Gamer Ep 811

Today I review Crystal Castles by Atari for the Atari 8-bit line of computers.
NSG: Videos for anyone who enjoys video games & toys from the 70’s, 80’s & 90’s!
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Family friendly, informative and entertaining, Retro Reviews with The No Swear Gamer contains plenty of retro goodness. I’ve reviewed games for the Atari 2600, Atari 7800, Atari Jaguar, Atari Lynx, Intellivision, NES, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, GameBoy Advance, Nintendo GameCube, Nintendo Wii, Magnavox Odyssey 2, Sega Master System, Sega Genesis (Mega Drive), Sega CD, Sega 32x, Sega Saturn, Sony Playstation 1 as well as covering plug n play systems, retro toys and other cool retro stuff. Check it out and subscribe today!

[@adm712]

Ive had an XE for 39 years and somehow I never played this port until recently when I got the 400 mini. Your review was spot on. Outstanding arcade port with regard to graphics and sound,but the controls can be a bit challenging at times.

[@AdamConus]

I selected the Atari 2600 version of Crystal Castles as a platform for testing joysticks, diagonal movement specifically. It's also not a terrible version of the game, which is also important when using a game to test (because you have to play it so much!)

[@dave4shmups]

I’ve never played this version, but even though it’s hard to control, I still like the 2600 version. I’ve only played the arcade version on Atari compilations, but I’d love to play it on the actual arcade machine.

[@danestegman155]

Good video and review of this game! I remember this game for the Atari XL/XE system! Good fun challenging game! It does lack having being able to use a trackball with this game!

[@Zoyx]

I'm a big fan of the 2600 version. I was never very good at the arcade version. I'll have to give this one a try. I have a 400 Mini, so I'll give it a go on that.

[@richchinnici6182]

I absolutely loved the original arcade version of Crystal Castles, and still do today whenever I find one to play. I own an Arcade 1Up "lapcade" with a bunch of Atari arcade games, including Crystal Castles. It has the track ball and plays very close to the original.
The fact this Atari 8 bit port does not support the trackball controller I see as a big detriment. The trackball adds the ability to not only control direction, but speed too. That appears to be missing from this port.

[@Pikachu132]

Looking at the footage here, the gameplay as a whole seems sped down quite a bit, which is not necessarily a negative. The arcade game was extremely fast and hectic.

[@jorgehughes9685]

Huge fan of arcade and love playing outside of the arcade. Just struggle without the trackball. Doesn't stop me. it just frustrates me.

[@AmazinglyBadGamer]

i would probably get half as far as you do, if not less, lol.
great video nsg, i do enjoy some puzzle games here and there and i think youre right about the view.
i even have a hard time with games that are angled like that.
gg thanks for the video , NSG.
i enjoy when i can catch them

[@BBfanfun]

such a missed opportunity; Crystal Castles should have supported the Trak-Ball.
it could have been a huge hit on the 7800 , if it was ported (Arcade Quality) ...
it's a bit better than Marble Madness, because of the enemies.

[@mcorleonep]

I only played the arcade version. Also had it on my PC through Mame but sadly I could never get the controls to work right. This is one I’d only want to play with proper track ball controls.

[@forcedfeedbackclassicgamer5499]

Isometric games with vertical height variations almost always have bad controls (Solstice on the NES definitely comes to mind), and even just from the footage shown here, there are all kinds of perspective errors in the background art that definitely don't help a player's ability to read the environment, further compounding any bad implementation in the controls.
Crusader of Light on the Genesis also comes to mind, which kinda tells me that there are simply a lot of design problems inherent to isometric game design regardless of hardware platforms. Even Zaxxon falls into this category, now that I think about...

[@fentazen2677]

Crystal Castles is fun in small doses, but every home version is a pain to control.

[@jeremiahthomas8140]

I need this one, but it is hard to find. I do have a manual for it.

[@TMS5100]

A very good conversion of an arcade game that was kinda meh imo.

[@time4advancement244]

Why did it need 64k of memory to run?

[@thenosweargamer1449]

Not sure, but it was a late release and maybe they only cared if it ran on the XE. I think an early prototype required 32K.

[@midimusicforever]

I think you scored it too high.