by Javier Cano Fuente, Emilio Martinez, Jose Manuel Munoz Perez
To me Tres Luces De Glaurung a.k.a. Conquestador is one of the great Spanish games, underrated and surely better than other more hyped releases like Sir Fred. Gameplay-wise it was nothing innovative, and maybe a little late, with his Ultimate-like Underwurldesque approach: explore the castle and the dungeons, find three pieces of the item X and then find the exit and leave. But the implementation is good enough, and with enough personality and nice touches, to make it remarkable, in my opinion. Playability, for instance, is far superior to stuff like Underwurlde, and you have complete control of your character, which doesn't bounce around the rooms madly like a flipper ball - moreover, you can even practice the "flying walk" a limited but very useful and pleasant walk over the floor, which can be used to pass over voids and reach platforms, or to accelerate your motion. An original feature, just like the technique you have to use to defeat the several enemies crowding the castle, from waddling green vikings possibily shooting arrows at you, to black knights, to unidentified spear-wielding ancient soldiers [Greek, Etruscan, whatever, who knows], and the best spiders since Wiggler, spitting fireballs when in bad mood. Jump on them to defeat them and they'll vanish in a poof [not in the sense that they become homosexual], but they need just a touch to kill you, and they like to jump too, so you have to be attentive and choose the timing of your move. The movements are very smooth, and the graphics very nice and detailed, with no or almost no colour clash.
Other nice touches are the big viking mouths that you can enter, which - after a brief and very cute interlude in the dark - will bring you to a different part of the castle, functioning as shortcuts. What else? Chests. There are chests littered around the place, and their content may be good or bad, and may be even one of the items you need to be able to leave the castle.
Or it can contain a curse that turns you to a hilarious and grotesque being, a sort of bipedal swine. The same happens when you linger too much in a room: you turn into the funny thing, while a disquieting, dark and lethal creature appears and slowly flies towards you, while a menacing buzz resounds. The English version loading screen is great [less so the original Spanish one], and you're welcomed in the option screen by a fantastic baroque/medieval two channel tune. Maybe it's because I played it a lot at the time, and it was one of the few that my sister liked, her favourite one to be precise, but I still think it is greatly appreciable, particularly for mapping enthusiasts.
4,5/5
Old February 4 2009 review:
Las Tres Luces De Glaurung is a nice spanish game, retitled "Conquestador" and published by Melbourne House in Britain, during 1986.
It can be described as a mix between Ultimate's Atic Atac and Underwurlde: it possesses the playability of the first, its fast pace (in part) and the kind of maze and view, colorful and well drawn, of the latter.
The goal is to find three amulets and then reach one of the exits of the castle, killing or avoiding knights, vikings and spiders shooting fireballs, jumping from platform to platform, or "walking in the air" to reach them - which is a peculiar feature of this game (but after some paces you'll start to fall) - and opening the chests that you'll find on the way, which will give you an useful object (arrows, for example), turn you into a strange, clumsy creature for a while, a sort of rampant pig, or free a hidden enemy.
Conquestador was received in a strange way by the english magazines: Sinclair User considered it trash, Crash wrote that it was average, Your Sinclair appointed it Megagame.
I agree with the latter.
An exploration platform game set inside a medieval castle where you have to find three magic stones. Hmmm, haven't I heard that before? Originality is not Glaurung's highest point, and neither are the graphics - colorful but not very detailed -, sound and gameplay. Good for those who like this kind of game, but as a full-price title it looks and plays definitely average and not in the same league of contemporary or earlier games like, say, Dynamite Dan.
