I pre ordered Gauntlet off Steam, a re boot of the series. It reminded me of playing Gauntlet as a kid both in arcades and on the NES (arcade cabinet was screwy, joystick and buttons were ‘reversed’ meaning buttons were on the left and joystick was on the right. Each character had to be played from a fixed spot. I think it was one of the first 4 player arcade cabinets).
Gauntlet was fun because each class had their own strengths/weaknesses. The problem was the Wizard. The Wizard’s strong point was reliant on a consumable, which kind of limited his usefulness. His ranged attack wasn’t bad, but he was made of glass which is kind of a problem in a game where you are getting swarmed by enemies.
Actually, to address this issue, I will say this. Most corridors are 2 characters wide. If you actually have 4 people playing it, you would have the Warrior and Valkyrie in the front row, and the Elf and Wizard in the back, where they might survive.
This is being very optimistic about your buddies. Realistically, the elf is going to rush forward, the warrior is always lagging behind, the Wizard gets boxed forward, and the Valkyre gives no fucks because she’s the best character. So then you get those one eyed monsters chomping your wizard while the warrior and valkyre are inevitably shooting him in the back
But like I said, problem with wizard is potions are consumable. Speed, durability, and attack are passive benefits. Gauntlet Legends/Dark Legacy was better, because there were more things you could do with bombs (and you could buy them in shops)
Gauntlet 2 was worse because while you can take multiple of each class, having 4 wizards meant you’re always sharing potions.
Holy crap, I just now realized a fun little game I bought yesterday (Warhammer 40k : Kill Team) was, in fact, Gauntlet with the serial numbers filed off.
It’s also got 4 classes, ranked by decreasing firepower and increased melee attack. And now I’m never going to be able to not think of the Devastator Veteran as “the Wizard”
In contrast to the Wizard, the Valkryre seemed a little overpowered- armor was great for survivability, and she didn’t have any glaring weakness in other categories. Sorta like having a Tank in WoW with decent DPS.
I dunno, I don’t think she was that great, because her ranged attack was garbage, which meant that Ghosts would fly right up to her and hit her, pretty much guaranteed (the elf at least had a chance of maybe kiting them, but no one else does.) Sure, she was great against stuff you could melee, but ghosts were arguably the most common enemy in the game. (Certainly, they’re the first enemy you meet.)
It’s been a while, but Ghosts might also have ignored armor, I don’t remember.
Ghosts didn’t ignore armour, but a 30% damage reduction was small consolation when they could hit you, disappear, and be replaced by the next one really, really fast. Your chances were better if you could shoot them before they got to you - better to take 0% damage rather than 70%. Unfortunately poor Thyra sucked at that.
Thor had nearly as good damage reduction and more power in both hand-to-hand and ranged. I once played a marathon as him, about five hours’ worth for one coin. Although his shot speed was low, he could mostly stop ghosts just out of arm’s reach, and that was good enough. It didn’t really matter that his magic was even worse than the Valkyrie’s - neither of them did well enough with it to make it a worthwhile second string. He was well able to live long enough to find the permanent potions of extra shot speed and extra shot power, and with those he kicked ass and took names.
ETA: I had the Amstrad CPC464 port of this back in the day. It was a work of genius to fit it into about 36k, and it preserved the flavour of the arcade game very well. I could get hours at a time out of Thor in that version, too.
Loved Gauntlet and Gauntlet 2. Not only was it an early four-player game as mentioned up thread, but it was the first game I saw with a proper vocabulary that seemed to talk to you throughout the game. “I’ve not seen such bravery” or “That was a heroic effort” etc not just “Space Cadet, Space Cadet” and the like. I have seen good players play solo with the Wizard and do very, very well, the feeling in the arcades I played in during the 80s was that he was the best character to play solo
He might be, though you can make a case for the elf; His shot speed and power are both very good, and if monsters can’t get to you, your bad melee skill and armor don’t matter. And when you need to use a potion, you can count on that potion doing what you need (Usually: Disposing of Death).
The main advantage of the elf is he has a much higher foot speed, which means you can kite critters better, and more easily avoid any that do get into melee with you. The downside is that his shots are weak, so you -have- to kite with him, and his magic isn’t quite as reliable.
