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Arthur is a bold knight and chivalrous gentleman, so when his lady love is kidnapped by the Demon King, he instantly springs into action. Grabbing a clutch of lances, he begins his challenging quest through six levels. The first level is fairly conventional, horizontally-scrolling with lots of baddies to shoot - including zombies rising from the ground.

Some enemies carry sacks with weapons in them, ranging from the useless firebomb to the speedy dagger. More protection is provided by Art's armour, one hit strips him down to his undies but he can still carry on until the next hit.

Later levels include an ice palace, a burning bridge and plenty of moving platforms to jump on: making for one of the most imaginative coin-ops around, which Ghouls 'N Ghosts so brilliant followed up.

The bad news is the poor programming, especially the terrible memory-efficiency resulting in a 1Mb only game.

The collision detection also seems a bit dodgy, though thankfully it's on the generous side. And for some reason Arthur can't turn around in mid-jump as he could on both the coin-op and the C64 version - very odd.

The good news is that the technical anomalies are made up for by the classic coin-op's supreme playability.

It's almost four years since the classic C64 version won a Gold Medal, still utterly brilliant due to great gameplay and programming. The Amiga version looks good as well, with more colours than the ST version and more background detail than Ghouls 'N Ghosts.

But the programming is disappointing, the scrolling somewhat jerky horizontally and awful diagonally on level two. When the action heats up, things slow down. Still, this doesn't seriously affect gameplay and it remains a very good game. Worth a look.

Presentation 67%
Nice, short intro, alternate two-player mode, rapid quit option.

Graphics 69%
Generally very good, with plenty of detail. Diagonal scrolling is poor, though.

Sound 70%
Unspectacular, but effective rendition of melodramatic coin-op tunes and FX.

Hookability 78%
Instantly playable, with lots of lives to allow some progress...

Lastabiltiy 72%
...but there's plenty of levels to be conquered with lots of variety.

Overall 73%
A nice-looking and very playable conversion of one of 1986's best coin-ops. A pity there are no plans for a half-Meg version.