If Bentley picks up the last gem in a castle, the opening fanfare from Tchaikovsky’s March from The Nutcracker would play. The value of the gems he collected also went up as he snagged more of them, adding to his score, along with doing things like taking out gem eaters while they were busy munching.Įnemies, like the tree and evil bowling balls, could also snag rubies as they walked over them. There was also a magic hat that Bentley could pick up and give him temporary invincibility and it was the only thing that would allow him to kill Berthilda the Witch for bonus points when he ran over her like a fur covered bulldozer. If you took too long in gathering up gems, a swarm of bees would come down in a certain section of the map to make things more difficult. Showered fame and fortune on this rarest of bears!Īs players guided Bentley about collecting gems, the game would toss enemies in his path such as gem eaters and evil bowling ball-like baddies. While roaming the lands of Crystal Castles,īentley gathered his jewels with the greatest of care.Ī snatch here and there by a swift paw or two Only ruby gemstones could content this clever bear. Picnic baskets and such were not his bill of fare. Who wandered o’er the land in search of fortune plenty. Once upon a time there lived a bear named Bentley The story, on the back of another flyer variant, went something like this: Instead, you, as Bentley Bear, had to collect gems and survive long enough to snatch as many as possible while dodging monsters and finding your way through Escher-like, isometric pathways. Use of a trackball wasn’t unusual - Atari did it in 1978 with Atari Football and a few other times since then such as with 1980’s Centipede and Missile Command.īut this time, it was used in a sort of arcade adventure game instead of a shooter or a sports game and the goal wasn’t to save the world or destroy enemies (although that was part of it, too). Instead of a joystick, players were given a trackball instead and the one/two player start buttons doubled as jump buttons. Immediately it was obvious that this was no ordinary video game.

But they still trudged on in their roles as bastions of creativity on the bleeding edge featuring custom built hallucinations of digital ether and printed circuit boards challenging the reflexes and imaginations of all that dared to test themselves against the latest scores of the day.Ītari’s Crystal Castles landed in the arcade from Atari that year. In 1983, the year the video game console industry began heading south, arcades would also feel a bit of the crunch. The other variants had illustrations which would show up elsewhere such as the packaging for the Atari 2600’s port. This early flyer (courtesy of the Arcade Flyer Archive) featured a plastic castle and a stuffed bear with a magic hat instead of an illustrated panel.

This was only one of several variants that Atari’s marketing had come up with for Crystal Castles.

Crystal castles game review