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Your loved one, Princess Koong-Shee is being forced to marry a merchant. Naturally she prefers you but what chance does a mere clerk have of breaking into the Mandarin's palace, rescuing the princess and escaping to a waiting boat? Here's your chance to find out! Your first impressions on playing Willow Pattern is that it is nothing more than a Sabre Wulf in Chinese clothing but a quick play soon reveals that there are some major differences.

Apart from racing round the maze collecting assorted objects, you also have to overcome the palace guards. This involves hurling a vicious-looking sword at them before they do likewise to you. The only problem is that you don't have a sword!

Some can be found lying around, others can be won by quickly moving out of the way when a guard throws one at you. You can only carry one at a time and so will have to back-track a lot and plan your route carefully.

As you move through the maze, you soon come to a bridge to be crossed. Here, the action shifts to another scene from Chinese mythology. Legend has it that river crossings are protected by giants. You must leap from rock to rock whilst the giants try to knock you off. Naturally, most of the back-tracking you have to do takes you across a bridge.

The graphics in Willow Pattern are some of the most attractive that I have seen. The trees, temples and bridges look lovely. There are many worse arcade adventures than this and at a much higher price.