Reviews

Obviously, the game which spawned twenty thousand imitations, and they rarely bettered the original. That said, there are flaws here: the gameplay is a bit too slow, and the puzzles are all a bit samey after a while. It's still a very good game, but it's just not as good as (say) Head Over Heels.

A true classic, yep theres a fair few moments when the action goes slow but this really is a classic game.

When i first saw this game in the 80's i was blown away, graphics were so much better than anything else at the time.

A true Speccy classic

Whilst the honour of being the very first isometric arcade adventure on the Spectrum goes to the earlier Ant Attack this game was arguably even more revolutionary with a 3D landscape where you could interact with some memorable puzzles involving objects that need to be positioned, moving platforms and the like.

Being a pioneer in the genre isn't all good though and Knight Lore suffers a little from lacking the sort of positional cues that later games such as Head Over Heels add to stop you misjudging the depth. There are also a few nasty moments where even knowing precisely what to do will not necessarily save you from an undeserved death. Mercifully though, neither issue is a game killer and an experienced player can easy restock lives lost from the copious bonus ones to be found.

The graphics are the usual top draw mixture of cuteness and artistry that you'd expect from an Ultimate game of this period, and the neat touches of animation add greatly to the atmosphere of the game.

Nearly all the Ultimate games up to this point are iconic to some extent, but this is one that still stands out as something beyond that. An indisputable classic.

Gameplay: Collect the objects requested by the cauldron in the center of the game world, and drop them in the cauldron when in human form (you periodically turn into a werewolf).


This is a game I never 'got' back in the 1980's and it is only through emulation decades later that I have discovered what an excellent game it is. When I tried to play this as a child I would make Sabreman walk around a bit and visit some rooms but did not have a clue what I was supposed to be doing.

I came back to it in 2007 and was determined to work out what you had to do in this game by looking it up on WOS and Wikipedia. By doing this I found much to my surprise that it wasn't a mind boggling difficult game at all, it was actually a fairly simple and compulsive game in a similar mold to Atic Atac, but with the 3d twist. Once I understood this I could not stop playing it until I eventually managed to complete it for the first time, using infinite lives poke. I am still playing it on-and-off now to try and do it without the poke.

Using an infinite lives poke does not ruin this game because you are up against the clock and so you need to lose as few lives as possible to get it all done in time. So, if you still don't 'get' this wonderful game I recommend you read up on some instructions, load it up in an emulator and enter the infinite lives poke to get you started.

Synonymously linked to the zx spectrum - knight lore - the jaw dropping classic from Ultimate play the game !

Sabreman has been cursed by a wicked magician , by night he becomes the dreaded werewolf , by day he returns to human form , the only way to stop the spell is to collect a seemingly random array of objects and drop them into the magicians cauldron which will eventually free the curse.

The gameplay (for anyone who doesn't know) is a 3d isometric arcade adventure , you can carry 3 objects to help you along the way , other objects such as chairs , blocks and tables can be used to ward off enemies or reach hard to get items.

It plays fairly simply now compared to some of the later isometric games (head over heels , get dexter , movie etc) but it still has a magical charm , the graphics are monochrome but very detailed , some of the puzzles are ingenious requiring you to be the werewolf (greater jump height) and overall its really well designed.

I'm sure knight lore will always remain a true classic to spectrum owners.

I was there in the computer shop on the day Knight Lore was first loaded into the demonstration Speccy. Within 30 seconds there was a crowd about seven deep, everyone clambering over each other to get a better look.

Without a shadow of doubt Knight Lore is one of the few truly jaw-dropping games that have been released over the last 30-odd years and still has the distinction of looking pretty good today.

I've always loved Knight Lore and I readily admit that I ignore it's shortcomings. There's a lot of slowdown on some screens, deaths are sometimes unfair and it is a very samey game.

Nonetheless, it will forever remain my favourite ever Speccy game.

Magazine Reviews: http://zxspectrumreviews.co.uk/search.aspx?wosid=0009366

When this game came out the graphics were state of the art. Knight Lore was undoubtedly a landmark game. But it was also an early example of graphics defeating gameplay and I never liked the rotational movement system. KL is an average game to play and palls in direct comparison to others in the Speccy back catalogue but I have rated it good simply for the pleasure it brought me when my humble Spectrum suddenly had a game I could proudly show off to my Mum and Dad. I never actually enjoyed KL and don't go back to it now wheras the best isometric Spectrum game Head Over Heels has withstood the sands of time very nicely indeed.

There are better games than Knight Lore. There are even better speccy games. But this game is, imho, on of the hugest steps forward in the computer game's history.

And the animation from Sabreman to the wolf is yet to be beaten by any game.

Probably the speccy game that deserves the most the adjective "classic".

Like the arcade game Pong, Knight Lore is one of those games that owes it's status to being a pioneer.

There is no doubt that on release, Knight Lore advanced the medium of videogames to a new level.

Unfortunately, (again like Pong) we are looking at a game that has aged really badly. I mean it's one thing acknowledging Pong or Knight Lores' place in history, it's another convincing anyone that here is a timeless classic that deserves repeated plays.

Starting with the positives, the graphics on Knight Lore were brilliant, especially considering there were no role models for this type of game at the time.

At this point there were no floor tiles to help the gamer gauge their position in the room, making the game a little difficult in places.

There was also the twist - a good play mechanic where you were turned into a werewolf - capable of jumping higher.

Unfortunately, what dates Knight Lore is the fatal combination of a truely terrible control scheme and the dreaded slowdown.

Added to that was the fact that when you overcome the games flaws you are essentially playing a very simple 'collect-em-up'. It's hardly the most inspiring gameplay and would feel slow even without the slowdown - which is quite bad in places.

But then - if you bought this game all those years ago, you probably got over it's flaws back then and can't imagine why I'm making such a big deal out of them!

the mother [or father (or both)] of the typical spectrum 3d isometric game.
one of the two games that inspired me to shake off my lazyness and draw a map.
not immune from the passing of time and surely not the most playable game, but still a classic.

Knight Lore was simply - from a technical point of view - astounding when it came out. It's just a pity they forgot to ship a game with this beautiful isometric engine...

Perhaps that's being a bit unfair - there was of course a game there. Arguably, a more complex game than, say, Manic Miner - but it seemed to sorely lack the "Just Rightness" that some of the later isometric games had. The controls seemed like an afterthought, and as often noted, there were few visual cues as to exactly where you were in the isometric world which made the gameplay suffer greatly.

Despite the technical brilliance of this pioneering work, it does feel a bit like a technical demonstrator with a game tacked on as an afterthought - despite some of the unique points of the gameplay. The controls and the slowdowns and the lack of positional cues cause the playability to suffer terribly, and as such, it doesn't have the "Just Rightness" that would make it a true great.

I don't like Knight Lore. Yes, it's very highly regarded by many people, yes it helped both to kick start and also define the isometric 3D arcade adventure genre. And yes, it's graphically very good, but I don't think it's much fun to play. And a game without fun is pointless.

Seeing Knight Lore for the first time was a revelation. As I've said before, I think that setting eyes on Knight Lore for the first time must have been like seeing King Kong on the screen back in the 1930s when the film was released. It (Knight Lore) was the single most staggering thing I've ever seen on a Spectrum. Of course it's been (far) bettered as a game since, and many other Spectrum games and especially demo programs are much more impressive now, but it was Knight Lore that staggered me more than any other game on any machine before or since. Nothing can take that away from Knight Lore.

But where's the game play? Alright, so it's not a terrible game, but it's not much good, and there are a huge number of more playable games on the Spectrum, so why should I want to play this one? It's an extremely impressive game graphically, and is devoid of bugs or glitches, which is all well and good, but it doesn't exactly grab me and scream to be played. Some of the screens are empty (how pointless is that), the puzzles are largely too simplistic to be fun, frequently you change form at the wrong time, which results in you getting killed as you are rooted to the spot when you change from a human to a werewolf and vice versa, and if you use the keyboard then it has that horrible rotate-and-move-forward control method, as opposed to the move-in-the-direction-of-the-key-that-you-pressed method which is far superior.

Alright, so I'm maybe in the minority here (I do seem to be, but I suspect that many people only rate the game so highly for nostalgia - how many of them do load it up and play if for fun?), but I don't see the fun in this game. When it was released it was OK due to being a newish game-type, but it was quickly overshadowed by vastly superior games like Fairlight and Head Over Heels. Just my opinion, but an honest one.

Groundbreaking when it came out, Ultimate's 'Knight Lore' is still a pretty good game, more than two decades later. Compared to later titles like 'Head over Heels' which built-on the genre the Stampers pioneered here this game's flaws are fairly obvious but its impressive that it still holds-up when it didn't even really have to *try* that hard in 1984 .

There's definitely an initial "barrier" to getting into this game properly. For 20 years or so, I guess just through my own lack of patience, I would occasionally fire up Knight Lore and die repeatedly, never getting too far in it. Eventually out of frustration, I would give up and play something else instead. I never knew of the game at all back when it was originally released, but owing to its status as one of the true classic games of the speccy, I felt there was always more to it than I had previously experienced.

However in 2012 I finally set aside a few hours when I would have a proper go at this game, allowing myself the luxury of snapshots to give me some reasonable chance of making some significant progress, given that I don't have infinite spare time available.

Well all I can say is when I finally started to play Knight Lore seriously, and gave it my 100% attention, I was really incredibly impressed by the game.

Finally I have now made it to the end and completed the game and for such a difficult title, believe me when I say that even using snapshots it still feels like something of an achievement. It certainly isn't an easy game, but I mean that in a good way. It can be succinctly described as an isometric collect 'em up, where you have to find and then add ingredients to a wizard's cauldron in order to cure Sabreman of his werewolf curse. But really the exploration and puzzling rooms in the game make it far more involving and challenging than it may at first seem.

The game really is charming throughout and it's interesting to see an 8-bit title featuring a player-character infected with functioning lycanthropy. I've enjoyed playing the werewolf in Morrowind/Bloodmoon, but it's great to see the same concept here on an isometric speccy title. Albeit simplified, but still effective and with a great transformation sequence and importantly, some in-game elements behave differently depending on whether the player is currently in werewolf form or not.

The randomness which I'd initially found puzzling (random start position, random objects in a given location) became somewhat understandable on repeated plays. The sequence at which the player has to add items to the cauldron is in fact always the same, although the initial point within the sequence is random. Likewise the objects are always found in the same places within the game. It's just that one set of objects is randomly swapped with another set and so on. The end result being that the randomness does not really make the game more difficult or easier on each play - rather just gives it a bit of welcome variation.

I've also learnt that some rooms in the game are much more difficult to get through than others. A wise player can eventually learn to avoid the most awkward areas altogether and go for the items which are in generally easier places to get to. For example, I have completed the game after only visiting 62% of the rooms. The sole criteria for winning is to put all 14 items in to the cauldron in the correct order.

The game map is alluring, with wooded areas as well as the more common indoor areas. Likewise the antagonists are many and varied. The graphics are generally superb, although necessarily monochrome. At least the colours vary from room to room, which sort of became standard for many isometric games on the speccy. Sound effects are good, I particularly like the satisfying special effects when a correct item is dropped in to the cauldron.

I was also glad to find out that the "Directional Control" method is available in the game. This took me a while to figure out as I generally like to play games in keyboard mode. The crucial thing to know about Knight Lore is that the directional control setting has absolutely no effect in keyboard mode. Keyboard mode only supports rotational mode. If like me you prefer directional controls, then you must select a joystick option (I used Kempston) and then ensure directional control is selected on the main menu and you will then get the directional mode controls. In joystick mode, fire is jump and I found that the 'Q' key can be used to pick/drop items. As it happens I still played the game on a keyboard, but just enabled the "keystick emulation" in the ZX-Spin emulator. Also, I've read that that Sabreman can jump further when he's in the werewolf state, although on playing the game I could not find any significant difference. I found I could make all needed jumps in either mode.

So despite the quirks, it's still very much a highly enjoyable game today. Whilst perhaps missing some of the features which made the later Head over Heels great, it makes up for that by having the excellent, magical setting and of course the lycanthropy angle and the wizard/cauldron room. The need to plan ahead with regards to collecting the correct objects is also a must, as it really is quite a race against the clock and time is very tight. This game really does have more depth that I ever thought it did. Add to that the fact it was such a groundbreaking release when it came out, i.e. to be able to manipulate various three-dimensional objects within the primitive physics engine, I can quite understand the amazement at the time, even though I was not a part of it.

For me, easily a 5 out of 5 game, definitely recommended. Not a game for a quick five-minute play though, you've got to seriously commit to a few solid hours, before you can start to enjoy it properly IMHO.

1984 Ultimate (UK)
by Tim Stamper and Chris Stamper

Knight Lore is one of those mandatory games to review.
Not only for its quality but also for being a landmark in the Speccy universe.
The idea is quite captivating, Ultimate always knew how to capture the players attention, and even being a bit repetitive at times the game is very inspiring and addictive. The graphic quality is superb, the transformation sequence is delicious and one of the most original ever, the games goal is rewarding and well thought out and the isometric look really inspired players. Knight Lore as that mystery edge that makes you came back for more. I myself became a bit fed up with isometric games after 'Alien 8', they all started to look like sequels and not original games. But this two and 'Ant Attack' rate as classics in the speccy universe, and I think to everyone who played them.

Every other game in the eighties seemed to be a dull monochrome isometric game where you wander from room to room waiting for something even remotely interesting to happen. And this is the reason why. The original dull monochrome isometric game where you wander from room to room waiting for something even remotely interesting to happen.
Yes, it was revolutionary, but I'd have preferred fun.

An iconic 8-bit game, a masterpiece by Ultimate that popularised the isometric view in a game (it was not the first, but the first great one) that they called it 'Filmation', used again in Alien 8 and improved later in Nightshade and Gunfright, technically good games but with much less popularity, starting the decline of the company in the Spectrum market.

Knight Lore is the third adventure of Sabreman, the intrepid explorer that survived the infested jungle in Sabre Wulf and the underground hell in Underwurlde. Now, in the Knight Lore castle, he's victim of the curse of lycanthropy and the only way to rid yourself of it is find 6 objects that the cauldron of Melkhior, the old dying wizard, will show you, one by one. You'll have to find each object and place in the cauldron. Once all the object has been in it, the remedy will be made and Sabreman recover from the curse of the werewolf.

The castle consists of tens of rooms and dungeons, and crossing each one is a challenge itself: traps, gargoyles, stairways, doorways, portcullis, monsters, ball chains, impalers, ...

An original feature of the game is that in a cyclical way, Sabreman will became wolf and human. In many rooms, when becaming wolf, he'll have to avoid a myst that will push him over a trap or expel from the room.

Brilliant game with, as usual in the Sabreman saga, nice intro music. Good graphics and excellent movement in a true atmospheric game, one of the great, unforgettable Spectrum classics.

Well, I think there´s much more to say about this title than simply revolution, technically special, or the likes.

A videogame remembered so fondly, remaked, attempted to be cloned...those speaks volumes

So many users, coders... were so impressed (I don´t count myself at that time, my experience was with Alien 8) and with a solid reason. Back then so many games were plain and dull, then came Ultimate and changed the scene forever.

... Of all-time Spectrum classics, probably the best

Without a doubt, the best when it came out, and still in the inmediately later era.

Precursor and previous to Alien 8, the latter was the only way to get better :)

All the ZX titles are either previous or later to Knight Lore. Yes, it's the true pivotal software to the legend Spectrum!!

Little more can be said about this immortal masterpiece! Except to analyze it in detail and do it justice, of course!
Of Ultimate's creations this is the most celebrated, and rightly so for its revolutionary character.
In short, a groundbreaking game and very well worked (and yes, one that helped us, future programmers, to get interested in game coding and overcoming new challenges)

Well, this in a nutshell deserves to be considered the best of all the historical best games in any platform that appeared to forge a new epoch and managed to establish a new standard.
In fact a standard (isometric view games I mean, not the arcade adventure) that is so alive today, ten years ago, or 20 or in another ten years time from now if you prefer... that is the overwhelming choice for so many genres from so many years in so many mobile platforms... or the strategy games in the 90 's if you prefer. All are in debt with this magnificent marvel. A marvel in all the senses in fact.
Because, apart from the amazing visualization techniques and the smoothness of the action (for so much complexity that this program has), here you have the best sound, the best music, inexplicably good graphics (without sub-pixel precision before antialiasing was possible thanks to the use of intermediate colors), and the usual touches of humor, originality and creativity of Ultimate.

A revolution that helped to shape digital entertainment. Funny and interesting, amazing and unforgettable.