Lost Classics: Dark Adventure(Arcade)

1985 saw the release of one of the most influential arcade games of the past few decades. It was quite popular for its time. Matter of fact, you might have even heard about it, or if you’re old enough, you may have even played it. In the game, you (and a few friends) teamed up to smash a never-ending (well, at least until you destroyed the generators) stream of orcs, goblins, and other monsters in a fantasy setting. Your character’s health constantly ticked down, so grabbing food was a must. Also, there were several items spread around that could enhance your player. Players could either choose to cooperate with each other, or could work against each other to get the food and the high scores. This game was made by Atari and was known as Gauntlet. Though it’s simple by today’s standards, Gauntlet’s influence helped shape many other action RPG games, from Square’s Secret of Mana to Blizzard’s Diablo. However, a year after the release of Gauntlet, Konami released this game, Dark Adventure. While it had many similarities to Gauntlet, its high quality graphics, large sprites, and quirkiness made this game even better than Atari’s classic. Sadly, it wasn’t nearly as popular as it should have been.

Taking control of one of three adventurers, you (and up to two of your friends) are transported to an alternate fantasy world right before the eyes of a shocked crowd of onlookers. From there, you make your way through the levels, destroying monsters and collecting items. Each of the three has their own weapon, and you can even collect additional weapons such as a laser gun (how and why this would be present in a fantasy world makes no sense to me). Enemies respawned from generators that could be destroyed, and you have to make your way to the exit in each section. So while it was cut from the same cloth as Gauntlet, it played and looked much better. A sequel, or at least a home version would have done wonders for this game’s popularity. For now, there is a small hope that Konami will throw this game on Xbox Live Arcade, Virtual Console, or some arcade compilation pack. Dark Adventure is one of Konami’s more obscure titles, but one that deserves to be mentioned amongst other Konami hits such as Castlevania and Contra.