If fur loincloths and large axes are your thing, then the eighties was a hell of a time to be alive. It seemed like barbarians were everywhere. In movies, there was Conan the Barbarian, Red Sonja and Beastmaster; on TV we had He-man and the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon (Bobby was technically a barbarian!); and in videogames you could live out your wildest horn-helmed fantasies while playing the likes of Rygar, Barbarian 1 & 2, Legendary Axe and, of course, Rastan Saga…

Rastan Saga (just Rastan in the US) is a 1987 Taito coin-op in which you play Rastan, a mighty king who is reliving his past adventures as a lowly barbarian. The gameplay takes the form of side-scrolling hack and slash, in which you move left to right and dispatch an endless horde of soldiers, monsters and bosses. Along the way, you pick up various items that boost your stats temporarily and various weapon upgrades, the best of which is a fireball shooting sword.

It’s a fun game with some detailed and imaginitive graphics and atmospheric music. It’s also incredibly hard, with some parts being veritable coin-guzzlers (the fire pits at the end of level one, for example!) It also punishes any hint of methodical play by sending flocks of bats after you the moment you start to shilly-shally. Damned those bats!

Rastan Saga wasn’t widely ported, but it did arrive on the 8-bit micros and a couple of other platforms. But are any of the ports worth playing today?

The least impressive port is definitely on the Amstrad. On the positive side, it is very much an Amstrad port in its own right, rather than a lazy Spectrum port. It’s bright and colourful, with a chunky Rastan sprite. But it is sooo slow and the scrolling is jerky as all hell. It also has a weird quirk where the ropes you climb aren’t reachable with a normal jump and require a more coordinated super jump. This results in lots of lost lives, as you’re swamped by enemies while you try to hit the right pixel spot.

It doesn’t even attempt the music, settling for just a few sound effects.

I’d probably skip this one.

On the Spectrum, things are better, in gameplay at least. Looks-wise, it’s no stunner. Mostly monochrome, as expected, with garish, distracting backdrops that tend to swallow a lot of the action and make the fire pit jump especially difficult. But it moves really quickly and controls just like the arcade. Most of all, it feels like the arcade, at least as much as can be expected.

On the 128k models, there’s a passable rendition of the Rastan theme that plays during the game and some spot sound effects. So, not a bad effort.

Worth a look if you’re a Speccy purist.

Okay, now we’re talking. The C64 version of Rastan is really good! It’s a little drab, but the graphics are distinct and chunky, and the scrolling is butter smooth. It has all of the moves from the arcade, and the levels are faithful renderings of the originals. The music is predictably good, playing throughout gameplay.

But, man, is it hard. The firepit jumps on level one are especially punishing, as are the log jumps on level two (I never got further than this, even with cheats).

If you’re going to play one of the 8-bit micros, give this a look. It holds up surprisingly well!

The last of the arcade-faithful conversions was on MSDOS machines. It’s surprisingly good, with the Rastan sprite being a commendably chunky boy. The music is good, the sound effects are good and the graphics are like recoloured versions of the arcade. My only real complaint is that it feels zoomed-in, which leads to it feeling a bit claustrophobic. Like the other ports, it is incredibly hard.

As well as the western computer ports, a couple of conversions came out of Japan, with Taito undertaking the work themselves. For some reason, they chose to “reimagine” the game, keeping the structure and asthetic, but rearranging the levels. This kind of works, but also tends to lose something from the source. I’ll include them here for completeness.

The first of these ports was on the Sega Master System. It’s a good game, bright and smooth with very clear graphics. The main character is like a mini-Rastan, but it works to keep the speed up and avoid running into sprite limitations. In this version, you only get one life, but a more generous health bar. The levels are a also lot shorter and the bosses a lot easier. I found I had no trouble progresing quite far into this - no fire pit on level one helps!

The basic SMS soundchip produces a passable, chip tune version of the theme music. And if you were posh enough to have the FM chip, you get a much nicer, fuller rendition.

Overall, it’s a really good conversion. But is it really Rastan?

Finally, we get to the MSX2, a platform not normally seen around these parts. This port is similar to the SMS version. Same modified levels, same smaller sprite, same difficulty. The graphics are slightly more detailed in parts, though the enemies are monochrome. It has a good rendition of the theme music and nice sound effects.

But it seems a little easy. It’s sometimes better to just super-jump your way through the levels rather than stand and fight. That jump is very high and very floaty, which doesn’t feel very “barbarian” at all.

Worth a look for novelty value.

So, if you’re going to play one today, which should you check out? I think I’d go with the C64 version personally, but the SMS port is also worth a look if you don’t value accuracy too much.

Note: there’s also an Apple IIgs port, which looks pretty faithful on YouTube. Sadly, I don’t have access to a IIgs emulator or MiSTer core. Has anyone played it?