Sam’s Journey is an interesting game that debuted on the Commodore 64 to great fanfare. If you have seen, or better yet played, the C64 version then you have a good idea why it received the praise it did. The question on most fans minds was, where is the Nintendo Entertainment System version? Well, it is coming but there are differences already apparent. Could these be fixed before release? Sure, but for now, they are there.

A bit of history

Sam’s Journey is a game by Knights of Bytes, an independent developer that has a few games under their belt. Metal Dust (C64/128 with CMD Super CPU add-on) was a scrolling shooter like the Gradius and Thunder Force series. Metal Dust featured tons of objects and animation on the screen as you played. Ice Guys (Commodore 64) was a single screen affair that has a heavy Snow Bros/Bubble Bobble/Parasol Stars feel to it.

Sam’s Journey is their first scrolling action adventure title, like Super Mario Bros from Nintendo. Much like that classic franchise, the charm is in the details. Sam’s Journey has tons of little things to watch for and enjoy. Backgrounds are not nearly as animated as they were in Metal Dust but the enemies and objects you interact with take the stage making you forget the background is sparsely animated, if at all.

Where things are different, so far

(and probably subject to change)

The biggest difference so far is the music in the preview that was just released. On the Commodore 64 the background music sounds fuller somehow. There just seems to be more going on in the music on that version. The Nintendo NES version’s audio sounds like it was muted somehow, the high-pitched effect is missing for one. Some may be happy as I could see how that could be a little grating on the ears after extended play.

The next big thing I noticed was graphically, the information bar at the bottom of the computer version is currently not implemented on the NES port. It seems in exchange for that change we get a much bigger view of the level around Sam.

Have you noticed any differences? Let us know in the comments.

Carl Williams

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