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Not content with 'keeping da Speccy alive', Russian homebrew retro gamers, Retro Souls, have now also started 'keeping da MSX alive' too by porting their ZX Spectrum game Yazzie across to the MSX releasing it nine days after the Speccy version.

One can only thank these wonderful Retro Souls for doing so and perhaps they may realize the Amstrad CPC is not much different and start converting their games to that platform to 'Keep da CPC alive!'

But now it's all about Yazzie MSX. Am I playing a Speccy or MSX? There doesn't appear to be any great differences. Sure, the colour palette is slightly different, and there are minor differences in sound quality (The MSX is slightly poorer than the Spectrum version in my opinion) but in terms of gameplay and each of the rooms, it's very hard to tell the difference. The sprites and graphics look identical with the main noticeable difference for me is the gold appears white on the MSX version.

Or is it just my poor eyesight telling me that? In this Lode Runner style game, Yazzie is a gold seeker, you know the yellow specs of metal found in the dirt that mining companies extract in the hope of big profits to turn it into gold bars and sell them at $1,517 United States dollars an ounce. Yup worthwhile this gold stuff and Yazzie needs to collect all the gold from within a strange mansion he finds himself in. We'd all like to hoard all the treasure to ourselves like Daffy Duck in a Warner Bros. cartoon but enemies abound inside the mansion too and they want to keep all the gold inside of it.

Each screen is littered with ladders that can be climbed up and down, obviously to get to areas where the gold is and also to avoid your enemies from killing you with their touch. Pick axes allow you to dig through the brick floors at the touch of a button. There is an instant drop possible through platforms coloured green; you just need to press the down key or press down on your gamepad arrow.

Where you see a gap in the platform, you can expand a bridge out by pressing your fire button - I love this feature and it should be in more platform games. As you progress, other subtle changes occur. You can fall through screens where the floor is marked with an arrow down. This can be a help and a hindrance as poor timing leads to an instant death if you fall on top of an enemy.

Mines appear that when walked on set off a timer - don't be standing on the mine when it blows or your dead. The explosion breaks away the bricks that allow you to get to the gold pieces that seem impossible to get to. There is one life, one repeated life because if you die you just start again on the same level.

Old school retro is the game style, platforming is the action. Avoiding enemies will keep you alive and collecting all the gold will get you to the next level.

'Keeping da the MSX alive' with a new game in 2019 that took just a week or so to release is amazing! Keep it up guys and and let's see more of it in the coming decade on other systems too.

The colour palette is gorgeous for this game even though it's just a few windows and a brick tile map, but hey I like computer bricks!

Simple puzzles to solve levels provides lasting gameplay and the controls to move Yazzie around each room of the mansion are smooth and fast making for a very fun game to play.

Perhaps too simplistic? Is there such a thing? The colour of the gold appeared white, and all the character sprites are white - there could have been some different colours used. Musically it's a bit limited, nice enough spot effects but not enough ‘oomph' in the soundtrack.

The enemy A.I. is a bit weak, sometimes they have you cornered quickly, but at most times they seem to have no idea where you are (not that I am complaining, it helped me get further into the game) but there may be some that feel this is a weakness.

I can't really fault the other aspects of the gameplay because I found it so enjoyable to play.

Could this game have been any better than what was delivered? The answer is possibly, but I think any tweaks wouldn't be necessary as why would you sell your car when it's perfectly fine for a more expensive new one? Yazzie MSX is just the fun sort of Lode Runner platform game MSX'ers need right now as I am sure they are bored of playing all those cool RPG's and Shumps they have!