Designed and programmed for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC by Mike Richardson.
Original graphics by Mike Richardson, with title screen by Jane Richardson.
Music for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum and Amstrad versions by Julian Breeze.
Converted for the Commodore 64 by Rod Barrington, with music by Rob Hubbard.
All versions published by Durell Software in 1986.
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INTRODUCTION & GAME STATUS
While the majority of my time is still taken by work, and will likely do so for the near future, I have at least settled down enough to start writing some proper comparisons again, but just to ease myself back into the action, I decided to dig up another Durell classic that hadn't been compared on the blog yet. In the case of Thanatos, I was introduced to it through the Commodore 64 version, which I have to admit, didn't hold my interest for very long, mostly due a lack of understanding since my copy didn't have instructions with it - what a shock, eh? Anyway, some 20+ years later on, I bought the original Spectrum version into my collection, and finally started to understand the game's reputation a little bit better.
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DESCRIPTION & REVIEW
According to MobyGames, at least, Thanatos has the peculiar distinction of being the first video/computer game in history to have a dragon as the game's protagonist, namely, Thanatos the Destroyer. This just beats Namco's Dragon Spirit in that regard, by one year.
In the simplest terms, Thanatos is a side-scrolling dragon flying action game, but there's quite a bit of more to it than just flying around and blowing fire on all the peasants that try to run a stake through you, among other hostile creatures. Your mission is to rescue a sorceress, Eros, from imprisonment, then find her spellbook from somewhere along the way towards the ultimate destination, which is a cauldron in the last castle somewhere in the distance. The purpose of all this is to complete a spell to bring enlightenment to the land, so despite the dragon's destructive nature, there is a positive goal to be reached.
You can fly both left and right, but to get to your destination, you must travel right. Thanatos is also able to land and walk on the ground, which is sometimes necessary, because flying too fast too long can make your heart burst, and enduring enough of attacks from enemies can do that as well. It is possible for you to get near the ground and grab enemies with your claws and drop them, but your primary method of attack is breathing fire. This can be used not just to destroy various annoyances, such as knights, soldiers and all sorts of large hostile animals, but also rocks, castle gates and bigger sea monsters. You do have a finite amount of fire in your gut, so in order to replenish it, you must eat some witches tied between two stakes by walking slowly up to them, although it has to be said, these tied witches do not appear until you have run out of fire.
Thanatos was an immensely impressive game in its day, having an astoundingly large and well animated player character to control, and having the ground level graphics appear from the camera's perspective in a more three-dimensional manner, rather than as they normally would in a 2D side-scroller. Without proper instructions, though, it's an impossible game to make any real progress in, which can easily make it an off-putting game for some, particularly as Thanatos is really not one of the most naturally controllable game characters of all time. If you manage to put some time and effort into it, though, you're in for a real treat.
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LOADING
The all-important tape loading times comparison section looks interesting enough to examine, since all three platforms have at least two versions released on tape. Disk versions are available for all three, as well, but that's not something this blog is all that interested in any longer.
AMSTRAD, v1: 6 minutes 50 seconds
AMSTRAD, v2: 8 minutes 24 seconds
COMMODORE 64, original: 4 minutes 1 second
COMMODORE 64, Encore: 5 minutes 1 second
COMMODORE 64, Erbe: 4 minutes 35 seconds
SPECTRUM, original 48k: 5 minutes 10 seconds
SPECTRUM, original 128k: 5 minutes 31 seconds
SPECTRUM, Encore: 5 minutes 26 seconds
SPECTRUM, Erbe: 5 minutes 11 seconds
It will likely come as no shock to anyone, that the AMSTRAD loading times are the longest, once again. Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, the original Durell release on the C64 beat the even more original Durell SPECTRUM release by over a minute, but the 128k version still isn't quite as bad as either of the AMSTRAD loaders. The C64 version's speed can be attributed to the original - and the Erbe re-release - using Cyberload (which includes the game's theme tune as loading music), while the longer Encore re-release uses a more boring version of Novaload. The two AMSTRAD versions look the same between each other, which is basically a darker version of the SPECTRUM loading screen, only without any side raster bars. In the Erbe SPECTRUM re-release, you get the usual extra loading screen that Erbe released on the platform tend to have, which adds surprisingly little to the full loading time.
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| Loading screens, left to right: Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64. |
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PLAYABILITY
As was usual for Durell games, the game would start with a piracy-related nag screen or two, before you got to the main title/menu screen. To get past these piracy screens, you would have to press any key to proceed. Some of the AMSTRAD and SPECTRUM releases had the piracy screens taken off, but the C64 version never had one in the first place. Some might consider these Durell piracy screens classic Durell features, and some might not think too highly of them, so it is not for me to say, whether they have any real importance to this comparison, since they only appear for that one time after loading the game has finished.
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| Piracy notification screens from the ZX Spectrum (left) and Amstrad CPC (right) versions. |
Even after the piracy screens, there's still the credits screen you must press a key on, in order to get to the options menu. The menu features four items: Alter skill, Alter playing keys, View score table, and Play. Alter skill allows you to choose a skill level from a range of 1 to 8, 1 being the easiest and 8 the hardest. Alter playing keys allows you to change the playing keys, which by default are A and Z for ascending and descending, as well as aiming higher or lower, M and N for adjusting speed towards left or right, and Space for breathing fire or dropping an item from your claws when you happen to be carrying something. Also, pressing Space and either M or N changes your direction, depending on which direction you were flying in the first place, and kind of similarly, holding the designated fire button down and then holding A or Z simultaneously gives you control of the aim of your fire breath. In the SPECTRUM and AMSTRAD versions, the menu is only operated with numbers on the keyboard, while the C64 version allows you to also use joystick to move the highlighted menu item.
Once you decide start the game, you are taken to a dark, scarcely decorated and unoccupied area. Thanatos is suspended in air, ready to fly towards his fate, whatever it may be. You need to start going towards right, and preferably at a good pace, because it's easier to dodge falling rocks and flying stakes at a higher speed. Of course, eventually, you will notice that going too fast for too long will make your heart beat at a faster rate, so you will need to land to take a breather. Finding a balance between speedy escapes and leisurely glidy flights is the first key to a potentially successful run.
While I can wholeheartedly agree, that a huge part of Thanatos' charm is breathing fire to kill pedestrians and other pests, as well as picking up things with your claws and then dropping them to hopefully kill two things in one fell swoop, it's not how the game wants to be played. The second key to success is learning to recognize important events and to taking a few hits in order to shield the sorceress, who you are supposed to carry all the way to the end of the game from the first castle. If you take a direct enough hit while carrying the sorceress, she will drop down and might die from the fall, but mostly she will just get up and wait until you land to pick her up again.
Because I'm not particularly good at playing Thanatos, I decided to take the coward's way, and do the comparison at the lowest possible difficulty level. That already should give us some clues as to the differences in gameplay between the three versions.
Starting the game is easy enough, as you are given time to get used to how the dragon controls. The most notable difference in the beginning is, that the C64 version starts with some speed, while the SPECTRUM and AMSTRAD versions start from a non-moving floating position. Also, the C64 version starts from an area above water, and the other two start above land.
The first hazard you will come across in the SPECTRUM and AMSTRAD versions is a bunch of falling rocks in a cave, which is easily cleared by flying full speed at a low height, which is then followed by a small army of rock- and spear-throwing men. The first hazard in the C64 version is the small army of men, followed by a second long stretch of water, after which you get a throng of birds, and only then you enter your first cave. The first cave has a bunch of large spiders for you to blowtorch, before you are met with a ridiculous amount of speedily falling rocks from the ceiling. This is what will very likely kill you on your first attempt, if you can even manage to get that far. The way to pass through the falling rocks in the C64 version is to take breaks after a while, because when you're on the ground and not moving, the rocks will cease to fall for that duration, so you can catch breath. In a way, I think it's a bit hilarious, that what acts as an easy beginning obstacle in the SPECTRUM and AMSTRAD versions, is one of the most lethal bits in the C64 version. Mind you, this is only just the beginning of the game.
Soon enough into the game, it becomes clear, that the SPECTRUM and AMSTRAD versions are more or less built the same, with the only notable difference being a small speed inequality favouring the SPECTRUM version. The C64 version has the fastest scrolling, but in contrast to the game's surrounding action, Thanatos himself feels more sluggish than he does in the other two versions. Additionally, in the C64 version, Thanatos can only breathe fire forwards and diagonally below him, while the SPECTRUM and AMSTRAD versions allow for a higher diagonal, as well. Speaking of which, the C64 version is more effective with the fire breath attack, with a significantly higher percentage of kills from that attack. In the other two versions, I keep having a hard time hitting anything with the flames, so I usually resort to picking up things and dropping them. Oddly, though, in spite of the more effective primary attack, the C64 version has some particularly unfair moments in enemy design, which makes it the least playable of the three.
That is not to say, that the C64 version is completely unplayable - it's just ridiculous in its system of dealing and handling damage, and you need to resort to weird tricks to get anywhere in the game. The SPECTRUM and AMSTRAD versions are much more fine tuned, and they even give some incentive to play the game on a higher difficulty level. So, with the somewhat slower scrolling and more notable slowdown during the more actiony bits in the AMSTRAD version compared to the SPECTRUM version, we have a clear order here, and we didn't even need to get past the first castle.
1. SINCLAIR ZX SPECTRUM
2. AMSTRAD CPC
3. COMMODORE 64
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GRAPHICS
Thanatos is one of those SPECTRUM-originated games, where you can easily see, whether the graphics are going to be almost exactly like the original on the other platforms or not. Obviously, the AMSTRAD version follows this tradition of approximating the SPECTRUM graphics, with some slight colour differences, and the C64 version does its own thing in certain bits, while trying to retain the overall feel of the original. So, this graphics comparison is going to be rather quick this time.
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| Credits and title menu screens, left to right: Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC. |
The in-game graphics are somewhat hard to describe, because they're so particular for this game. I have to admit, it took me a while to appreciate the style of this game, because initially, it felt too dark and unclear to me, what was I supposed to focus on, and how was I supposed to figure out, which background elements are important and which are not. Turns out, the importance of the backgrounds are not in the detail, but in their depiction of all the different areas in a more general manner. I'm not
entirely certain of how many different areas there are in Thanatos, but I have divided this into four areas: land, water, caves and castles.
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| Screenshots of various open land area enemy encounters, top to bottom: Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC. |
The screen size is similar in the SPECTRUM and AMSTRAD versions, and as usual, the C64 screen is wider, which makes the info panel have wider slots at both ends. For the most part, the background graphics only appear just above the info panel, taking approximately another 1/3 of the screen's height, and are mostly dark blue, with some details having different colours and shades. The game happens during night time, so you will only see a black night sky with a full moon at the top right corner, which is cyan in the SPECTRUM and AMSTRAD version, and green in the C64 version. Thanatos himself is large enough to occupy one half of the screen's width, but he is so well drawn and animated, that it's easy to forget what an achievement it was back in the day to create something as majestic as this massive dragon as the player character. Of course, in the C64, he is a multi-colour lower-resolution entity, which makes him look a bit blockier than the monochrome hi-res versions in the SPECTRUM and AMSTRAD versions, but in action, it's still very effective.
In land-based areas, you will come across various species of enemies, but mostly human enemies, which throw spears and rocks (or perhaps bombs?) at you. This is common for all three versions. In the C64 and AMSTRAD versions, I met with huge flocks of birds before reaching the first castle, and even afterwards, but the SPECTRUM version has no birds, at least in the easiest level. Instead, the SPECTRUM version bombards you with giant wasps before and after the first castle, and then some dragons after the second castle. The C64 version takes more time before introducing enemy dragons, but you also get giant wasps there, which don't seem to appear in the AMSTRAD version at all.
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| Screenshots of cave hazards: falling rocks and spiders, left to right: Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC. |
Ever so often, you will need to fly through caves of varied lengths, which will often feature at least falling rocks, but sometimes also large spiders hanging on the walls and crawling on the floor. The caves have clear entrances and exits, but they mostly feature random wall textures and a solid floor. In the AMSTRAD and SPECTRUM versions, all the background graphics are dark blue, the falling rocks are green, and the wall spiders are cyan and spectacularly detailed. The floor spiders are white in the SPECTRUM version, cyan in the AMSTRAD version, and mostly absent in the C64 version, but from my memory, I would say the floor spiders are as grey as the wall spiders, which are a less threatening sight in size and detail.
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| Screenshots of the castle gate and from within castle walls, left to right: Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC. |
All three versions have the castle walls look different, mostly due to their colouring. The SPECTRUM version has bright red walls, the C64 version goes with some greys and brown for the gate, and the AMSTRAD version has a different shade of blue from the rest of the world, and the gates have some green in them. In the SPECTRUM and AMSTRAD versions, the perspective effect when going through the gates works very well, but in the C64 version, there is an oddly phasing curvature appearing in the walls, when approaching and passing through the gates, which makes it look like something went a bit wrong when coding these bits.
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| Screenshots of the sea monster, left to right: Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC. |
There are just about as many bits where you fly above stretches of water, as there are those you fly through caves or land bits. The reason why I chose to have only screenshots of an area with a snake-like sea monster is, because most of the water stuff looks otherwise very similar. There's a varying amount of boats sailing, and a reflection of the moon at the bottom right corner, and that's about it. The sea monster merely offers an added aspect of the design choices made for each version, and besides, this is the first area after the first castle, so you can also see the sorceress riding Thanatos with less focus on other things. Interestingly, the sorceress is of a different colour in all three versions.
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| Screenshots of Thanatos' death, left to right: Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC. |
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| Game Over and name entrance screens, left to right: Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC. |
There are good and bad things in each version, so determining a winner here isn't as easy as it might appear. For the most part, the SPECTRUM version looks the best, considering its use of colour and animations, but the C64 version runs the fastest and smoothest - although not by a large margin. In the C64 version, you do get some nice background graphics, but the castle areas are a bit wonky, and the death animation is pure cheapness. The AMSTRAD version has some of the advantages of the SPECTRUM version, but it runs slower, has fewer colours, and the dark bits are darker, and thus harder to see. Therefore, this is my order:
1. SINCLAIR ZX SPECTRUM
2. COMMODORE 64
3. AMSTRAD CPC
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SOUNDS
Whenever a game is designed for a platform that has relatively little to offer in terms of sounds, the sound design is often rather barebones, or perhaps something of an afterthought. However, the one unforgettable thing about Thanatos has always been the sad and contemplative theme tune by Julian Breeze, even in the beepy 48k SPECTRUM version, where the single channel output is put to play a double melodic line through quickly alternating staccato notes. Even in this form, you can hear exactly what was going on in the composer's head when writing this tune, and it is a staggeringly beautiful piece of classic computer music, and is naturally made even better in the 128k mode, with an added third melody to complete the harmony, as well as some tasty sliding motions, volume control and vibratos in some of the voices, which I don't hear that often used on these systems that have an AY-chip.
During play, you have the dragon's heartbeat as your constant companion, which is a great indicator for when you should be taking a break. In the 48k mode, most of the other sound effects are just different forms of thuds and blips in differently organizes sequences. In the 128k mode, you get to hear more types of sound effects, with the dragon's wings flapping about, and the fire breath's swooshing sound complimenting the more booming heartbeat playing through the AY-chip. The rest of the sound effects are as they appear in the 48k mode.
The AMSTRAD version sounds very close to the 128k SPECTRUM version, with the only notable exception being all the damage noises being played through the sound chip, rather than a beeper. The overall tone quality in the music and sound effects is, perhaps, a bit darker and deeper than in the SPECTRUM version, but these differences are so small as to make them practically unnoticable to the untrained ear, and thus make very little difference.
As usual, the C64 version takes the use of a sound chip a little bit further, at least in the case of the title tune, which was translated to the SID chip by Rob Hubbard. With this rendition, you get even more filter wizardry that makes the tune sound like there were actually some different kinds of instruments used in the making of it. The in-game sound effects being what they are, you get no particularly different results from what you get in the AMSTRAD version.
Although I do enjoy Hubbard's version of the title tune slightly more, I have to admit Breeze's 128k SPECTRUM version is so good already, that coupled with the smart use of 48k and 128k sound effects during play, the 128k SPECTRUM offers a more effective experience. It's not something I can say very often, but Thanatos is one of those rare occasions.
1. SINCLAIR ZX SPECTRUM 128k
2. COMMODORE 64
3. AMSTRAD CPC
4. SINCLAIR ZX SPECTRUM 48k
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OVERALL + VIDEO
For anyone who paid attention in the beginning of this comparison, and anyone who knows their Durell games, it will come as no great shock, that the SPECTRUM version is where the game works the closest to what it is supposed to - the 128k version in particular. It's the uneven qualities of the AMSTRAD and C64 versions that caught me slightly off-guard, which resulted in these scores:
1. SINCLAIR ZX SPECTRUM 128k: Playability 3, Graphics 3, Sounds 4 = TOTAL 10
2. SINCLAIR ZX SPECTRUM 48k: Playability 3, Graphics 3, Sounds 1 = TOTAL 7
3. COMMODORE 64: Playability 1, Graphics 2, Sounds 3 = TOTAL 6
4. AMSTRAD CPC: Playability 2, Graphics 1, Sounds 2 = TOTAL 5
In short, even at its worst, the SPECTRUM version beats the other two, but then the victory really comes through the most important aspect. If you require some further proof to back these results, you can always try to play the game by yourself, but for a less troublesome option, here's my self-compiled video of gameplay footage from all four versions.
That's it for now, I should imagine that balanced things back for the Spectrum audience again, so I hope at least that demographic enjoyed this one. Thanks for reading, see you next time with something completely different!
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