I bought one of these when they they were selling them all off, along with every game that was released (on cassette). The whole shebang was under $75 IIRC. It was eons ago. Anyway, I had great fun with the system, especially DragonStomper and Escape From The Mindmaster. Although the cartridge has 6K, the game itself loads into the bottom 4K or so, leaving available RAM of 2K, which is still 16 times as much as the stock system. The biggest advantage was not the extra RAM but the ability to multi-load additional levels. It greatly expanded the "size" of games.
Damn, learned something new about the origins of consoles rpgs today. Played stuff like Adventure on the 2600 back in the days but never considered the game as a real rpg. Even the Intellivision DnD game wasn't quite the real thing yet... but you Sir made my day with this nice discovery. Awesome video haha, thanks. :D
I had a couple lines I meant to record mentioning Adventure, but while I did so, they slipped past me. I saw some think the SwordQuest games were the spiritual successor to Adventure, and it may be that way from a certain storyline PoV, but in terms of at least gameplay, Dragonstomper is the real spiritual successor as far as I'm concerned.
When I went to Columbus OH in an attempt at higher education in the mid 1980s, Video Express was an Atari dealer selling complete sets of the Supercharger & all the games. I bought mine there (& sent away for the mail order games!). Years later, there was a fan produced Stella Gets a New Brain CD remaster of the Supercharger games. 1st pressing includes Vectrex content on the CD ROM part.
My first console RPG was Odyssey 2's - Quest for the Rings - came with a fold out map, some pieces, and a dungeon master book. It's a really good game if you can find all the stuff intact.
Well you mentioned 3 of my favorite games I grew up on in the first minute, so insta sub! Im a huge fan of Dragonstomper, and you are right it deserves a lot of credit for what it accomplished. Also worth mentioning is Crypts of Chaos for Atari2600, while not a deep RPG it did try to give you a dungeon delving experience.
I never managed to kill the dragon. Then again, I struggled with the fist part. You start with 23 points of health and it seemed like every creature I encountered did about 10 points of damage. Ok, maybe not that much, but I ended up losing health on EVERY fight, then having to spend my gold to get it back.
Never heard of it either. Really suprised by this honestly. Might even give it a shot on an emulator soon. Looks very interesting for a the 44 years old nerd that I am. :)
It might not be much, and I certainly have my limits, but I do try to make do with what I've got. Wild to think I was only trying for 500 Subs this year.
Our family had 6 or so of these Supercharger games (purchased during the great liquidation that happened with the crash). They were all at least good, and several were really great. The interesting thing about this game was that the difficulty of a given playthrough was controlled by which items had the healing and other effects. It was always harder to find rings and staffs than potions and crosses. You did NOT want staffs to be the healing item, or you would probably be in big trouble. One really odd thing I recall was that some locked doors and chests could be opened by using an item handaxe instead of a key(it wasn't lost in the use). It didn't work on all locks, but there was no message indicating that the door or chest was any different. I know if you were at a locked church a handaxe would always open the door (but not at temples).
I own the actual cassette tape of dragon stomper. I have only ever played the game from it once. I used to play on an actual atari 2600 with a supercharger and cd player, but now I just use a harmony cartridge flash cart to play it. The only downside to using the flash cart is that you don't get the loading screen. Treasure of tarmin was probably the first console first-person dungeon crawler on console, and Tower of Doom was probably the first console rogue like. Yes, they weren't to first console rpgs, but they were probably the first console rpgs in their respective genres on console.
Thank you for sharing. I have fond memories of playing this and other Starpath games as a kid. I replayed this several times. Once even defeating the guard at the bridge.
Loved Dragon Stomper as a kid. It was so intriguing and was actually scary when you entered the lair the first time. It really captured my imagination!
The other reason for the miserable sales for the Starpath was the fact that it wasn't widely distributed. I never saw one in the wild despite living in the middle of 3 reasonably sized cities. I never knew anyone who owned one either. It got quite a bit of press on gaming magazines of the day but it just never seemed to make it to stores outside of big cities.
Yeah, that was a bit of an oversight, on my part. Reading this and thinking about it, only a few third parties managed to do distribution right, while others just managed to drop a copy or two in any place they could find that took it in. It's how games like Air Raid ended up being in the position they are.
I knew what the topic was going to be just from that helmet, that's how effective the marketing was on me. I never actually played the thing but I really wish I had...
Forget the title but this was ported to or from Atari 8 bit computer I played it a few weeks ago wish I knew what the title was. The other game is nearly identical avatar is a dude some monsters look better but it is the same otherwise. This happened all the time back then could be as many as 3 or more titles with the exact same game.
What makes this game too frustrating is no displayed stats. You DO level up in this game, but nothing to tell you what level you are on, how much to gain to the next, etc. It's too much of a crap shoot and never knowing where to go or what items you need to collect. There's no way to save. Even when you make it to the 2nd or 3rd "load" of this game, you still go BACK TO THE BEGINNING if you die! Because of the Atari 2600's limitations, there's no way to display a stat screen. That's why most people remember Dragon Quest/Warrior the "first RPG".
Comparing the 6Kb of RAM inside the Supercharger to the 2600's 128 bytes is not a fair comparison. The Supercharger's RAM must contain both the game state e.g. position of the player, hit points, etc. (that is the purpose of the 2600's 128 bytes) but also the whole game code and assets - which is stored in the ROM of a traditional cart. So the Supercharger had the upper hand when only 2K and 4K carts were available and/or when a game needed a complex state (although Atari did release a chess game with an AI which only worked with the standard 128 bytes of RAM). Once 8K carts became available the Supercharger doesn't look that great all of a sudden - and dealing with cassette tapes was a major pain in the neck.
It's incredible to think how quickly the sizes increased, especially with bank switching being a thing. One of the last official releases managed to go to 32KB (Fatal Run). Still, it's a shame the Supercharger didn't last long enough to see any more potential it had.
@@-Eclipse14- I don't know if the Supercharger had that much potential. Shortly after some 8K carts started showing up. If you do lose some space using bank switching (you sometimes need to duplicate some code/asset) there's something to be said for carts compared to cassette tapes which are slow and unreliable. There is also the issue of piracy. I saw a documentary of Imagic, and its CEO was worried about Supercharger and did mention the risk of kids copying each other cassette tapes.
Dragon Quest is notable for being the first *JRPG* and no, I don't consider games like Dragon Slayer or Xanadu to be JRPGs anymore than Dark Souls is a JRPG -- these games are generally considered to be *action* RPGs.
Even if we talk about Dragon Quest, it invented nothing new. Dragon Quest is just a simplified version of Ultima, to make it more mass appeal. If it wasn't for Ultima, there would be no jrpg at all. Ultima VII is still the best RPG in the universe, not beaten by anything up to this point. Even Skyrim is more simple, than Ultima VII in terms of gameplay
And ultima is basically just an advancement of games like mines of mordor. Everything is based on something, especially seeing as how anything "RPG" is based in some form on DnD. These games don't always bring innovation to the table, but it doesn't make them any less iconic.
Technically the beta version of Wizardry came first. Both games were also inspired by Dungeons & Dragons, which was inspired by Lord of the Rings and Conan... you can link anything back to something that inspired it. I don't think that makes Dragon Quest any less impressive for causing the entire JRPG genre to exist.
@@RunplaysinHD How so? I haven't played the Ultima games yet (but I want to someday), but I watched a video and the combat is nothing alike. Ultima battles take place on a grid with multiple enemies while Dragon Quest battles are static and in first person.
Nice Job! I loved this game when I bought in 1983. It was crazy good for the 2600.
I bought one of these when they they were selling them all off, along with every game that was released (on cassette). The whole shebang was under $75 IIRC. It was eons ago. Anyway, I had great fun with the system, especially DragonStomper and Escape From The Mindmaster. Although the cartridge has 6K, the game itself loads into the bottom 4K or so, leaving available RAM of 2K, which is still 16 times as much as the stock system. The biggest advantage was not the extra RAM but the ability to multi-load additional levels. It greatly expanded the "size" of games.
Damn, learned something new about the origins of consoles rpgs today. Played stuff like Adventure on the 2600 back in the days but never considered the game as a real rpg. Even the Intellivision DnD game wasn't quite the real thing yet... but you Sir made my day with this nice discovery. Awesome video haha, thanks. :D
I had a couple lines I meant to record mentioning Adventure, but while I did so, they slipped past me.
I saw some think the SwordQuest games were the spiritual successor to Adventure, and it may be that way from a certain storyline PoV, but in terms of at least gameplay, Dragonstomper is the real spiritual successor as far as I'm concerned.
When I went to Columbus OH in an attempt at higher education in the mid 1980s, Video Express was an Atari dealer selling complete sets of the Supercharger & all the games. I bought mine there (& sent away for the mail order games!). Years later, there was a fan produced Stella Gets a New Brain CD remaster of the Supercharger games. 1st pressing includes Vectrex content on the CD ROM part.
My first console RPG was Odyssey 2's - Quest for the Rings - came with a fold out map, some pieces, and a dungeon master book. It's a really good game if you can find all the stuff intact.
Well you mentioned 3 of my favorite games I grew up on in the first minute, so insta sub! Im a huge fan of Dragonstomper, and you are right it deserves a lot of credit for what it accomplished. Also worth mentioning is Crypts of Chaos for Atari2600, while not a deep RPG it did try to give you a dungeon delving experience.
I never managed to kill the dragon. Then again, I struggled with the fist part. You start with 23 points of health and it seemed like every creature I encountered did about 10 points of damage. Ok, maybe not that much, but I ended up losing health on EVERY fight, then having to spend my gold to get it back.
Honestly, the fact they even tried is commendable enough. We take so many things for granted, standing on the shoulders of giants and all that
The first one I'd think of is Quest for the Rings for the Odyssey 2 in 1981, but some will call it an action/adventure because of the game board
A fair answer, there. It is kinda hard to classify some Odyssey² games, however.
Great video! I love your use of Phantasy Star 4 music!!
Thank you, I knew I recognized it but I couldn't place it.
Great job! I've never heard of this game before! I just may have to give this one a try. Who would have thought the Atari 2600 had it's own RPG?
Never heard of it either. Really suprised by this honestly. Might even give it a shot on an emulator soon. Looks very interesting for a the 44 years old nerd that I am. :)
My dad and I played that all the time inbetween sessions of Communist Mutants from Outer Space. Beat it a few times.
If the rest of your content is as good as this video, you will probably have a ton of subscribers one day. I just subbed.
It might not be much, and I certainly have my limits, but I do try to make do with what I've got. Wild to think I was only trying for 500 Subs this year.
Our family had 6 or so of these Supercharger games (purchased during the great liquidation that happened with the crash). They were all at least good, and several were really great.
The interesting thing about this game was that the difficulty of a given playthrough was controlled by which items had the healing and other effects. It was always harder to find rings and staffs than potions and crosses. You did NOT want staffs to be the healing item, or you would probably be in big trouble.
One really odd thing I recall was that some locked doors and chests could be opened by using an item handaxe instead of a key(it wasn't lost in the use). It didn't work on all locks, but there was no message indicating that the door or chest was any different. I know if you were at a locked church a handaxe would always open the door (but not at temples).
very cool video! i had never heard of this game before, your presentation of it is great
I own the actual cassette tape of dragon stomper. I have only ever played the game from it once. I used to play on an actual atari 2600 with a supercharger and cd player, but now I just use a harmony cartridge flash cart to play it. The only downside to using the flash cart is that you don't get the loading screen. Treasure of tarmin was probably the first console first-person dungeon crawler on console, and Tower of Doom was probably the first console rogue like. Yes, they weren't to first console rpgs, but they were probably the first console rpgs in their respective genres on console.
Thank you for this!
Subscribed!
Thank you for sharing. I have fond memories of playing this and other Starpath games as a kid. I replayed this several times. Once even defeating the guard at the bridge.
Loved Dragon Stomper as a kid. It was so intriguing and was actually scary when you entered the lair the first time. It really captured my imagination!
3:43 don’t think we don’t notice that Phantasy Star IV music!
Keep listening. There Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior music later on =)
That brings back memories. I remember this game being very hard. I think I only beat it once.
So also first rogue game with randomized items
Our family Had this game, my mother loved playing it. :)
The other reason for the miserable sales for the Starpath was the fact that it wasn't widely distributed. I never saw one in the wild despite living in the middle of 3 reasonably sized cities. I never knew anyone who owned one either. It got quite a bit of press on gaming magazines of the day but it just never seemed to make it to stores outside of big cities.
Yeah, that was a bit of an oversight, on my part. Reading this and thinking about it, only a few third parties managed to do distribution right, while others just managed to drop a copy or two in any place they could find that took it in. It's how games like Air Raid ended up being in the position they are.
Well today i learned about the existance of a console RPG that's older than the first Dragon Quest game.
Babe wake up eclipse posted
You have me convinced, ive subscribed.
Excellent pacing and presentation
loved the rule britannia rendition
I knew what the topic was going to be just from that helmet, that's how effective the marketing was on me. I never actually played the thing but I really wish I had...
My brother and I had this when we were really little.
Crypts of Chaos was my go to on the 2600
Forget the title but this was ported to or from Atari 8 bit computer I played it a few weeks ago wish I knew what the title was.
The other game is nearly identical avatar is a dude some monsters look better but it is the same otherwise.
This happened all the time back then could be as many as 3 or more titles with the exact same game.
impressive looking game.
What makes this game too frustrating is no displayed stats. You DO level up in this game, but nothing to tell you what level you are on, how much to gain to the next, etc. It's too much of a crap shoot and never knowing where to go or what items you need to collect. There's no way to save. Even when you make it to the 2nd or 3rd "load" of this game, you still go BACK TO THE BEGINNING if you die! Because of the Atari 2600's limitations, there's no way to display a stat screen. That's why most people remember Dragon Quest/Warrior the "first RPG".
I feel like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy are more notable for popularizing RPGs. Without them the genre likely wouldn't have gained much traction
And of course, there is always Adventure!
I could swear it was dragon quest... wth man... Now I need to play this anyway I can
If you have a PC, I have played it on Stella emulator.
Comparing the 6Kb of RAM inside the Supercharger to the 2600's 128 bytes is not a fair comparison. The Supercharger's RAM must contain both the game state e.g. position of the player, hit points, etc. (that is the purpose of the 2600's 128 bytes) but also the whole game code and assets - which is stored in the ROM of a traditional cart. So the Supercharger had the upper hand when only 2K and 4K carts were available and/or when a game needed a complex state (although Atari did release a chess game with an AI which only worked with the standard 128 bytes of RAM). Once 8K carts became available the Supercharger doesn't look that great all of a sudden - and dealing with cassette tapes was a major pain in the neck.
It's incredible to think how quickly the sizes increased, especially with bank switching being a thing. One of the last official releases managed to go to 32KB (Fatal Run). Still, it's a shame the Supercharger didn't last long enough to see any more potential it had.
@@-Eclipse14- I don't know if the Supercharger had that much potential. Shortly after some 8K carts started showing up. If you do lose some space using bank switching (you sometimes need to duplicate some code/asset) there's something to be said for carts compared to cassette tapes which are slow and unreliable. There is also the issue of piracy. I saw a documentary of Imagic, and its CEO was worried about Supercharger and did mention the risk of kids copying each other cassette tapes.
Dragon Quest is notable for being the first *JRPG* and no, I don't consider games like Dragon Slayer or Xanadu to be JRPGs anymore than Dark Souls is a JRPG -- these games are generally considered to be *action* RPGs.
Certainly beats “Adventure.”
Adventure on Atari is the original Zelda.
Even if we talk about Dragon Quest, it invented nothing new. Dragon Quest is just a simplified version of Ultima, to make it more mass appeal. If it wasn't for Ultima, there would be no jrpg at all. Ultima VII is still the best RPG in the universe, not beaten by anything up to this point. Even Skyrim is more simple, than Ultima VII in terms of gameplay
And ultima is basically just an advancement of games like mines of mordor.
Everything is based on something, especially seeing as how anything "RPG" is based in some form on DnD.
These games don't always bring innovation to the table, but it doesn't make them any less iconic.
PLATO anyone?
Technically the beta version of Wizardry came first. Both games were also inspired by Dungeons & Dragons, which was inspired by Lord of the Rings and Conan... you can link anything back to something that inspired it. I don't think that makes Dragon Quest any less impressive for causing the entire JRPG genre to exist.
@@Jordan3DS but Dragon Quest wasnt just inspired by Ultima, its basically a rip off.
@@RunplaysinHD How so? I haven't played the Ultima games yet (but I want to someday), but I watched a video and the combat is nothing alike. Ultima battles take place on a grid with multiple enemies while Dragon Quest battles are static and in first person.
roguelike rpg?
I think that's more the dungeons being randomly generated. The maps in this game are fixed; just the aforementioned items and Castle are randomly set.
Imagine if someone decided to make Dragonstomper remake with Unreal Engine 5.
*game is missing nearly all the elements of an rpg* "this is an rpg!"
How so. All hallmarks of an early rpg to me
This is a very early rpg. It's even referenced in the Wikipedia definition of RPG.
a ver
Lore of This Is The VERY FIRST Console RPG momentum 100