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Well, if you thought the year-long wait for Sabre Wulf to port across to the C64 was recessive, Lord knows what you make of the 34 years it took for Knight Lore to make the same journey! Still, here it is...

Poor Sabreman. Unsuccessful in his previous outing, the Sabre Wulf has bitten him and so every night, at the rising of the moon, Sabreman turns into a werewolf! The only place to find a cure is the wizard Melkhior's castle. Time is of the essence though - there are 128 rooms to search and if Sabremman hasn't found the six ingredients to the cure by the time 40 nights have passed, he will remain the werewolf forever...

In order to concoct the cure, Sabreman has to find the wizard's cauldron, which is, naturally enough, quite magical and it can tell our questing hero exactly which ingredient is required next. Armed with this knowledge, you can begin the quest which will ultimately end with Sabreman banishing the wolf... or in his death.

Melkhior's castle is viewed in isometric 3D, giving rooms a solid feel. Objects and furniture can be jumped on, moved or, in some cases, picked up. It's necessary to manipulate the surroundings as some of the required ingredients may be out of reach, or entrances to other rooms inaccessible by conventional means.

The task is made more difficult by virtue of the fact the castle is not empty. Creatures roam its halls and contact with most of them results in death, although others do prove helpful at times. There are also guards in various rooms and it's clear they didn't get the memo from Melkhior that you're there with his blessing, as they'll kill you too. As if that wasn't enough, there are traps and spiky things all over the castle. Guess what they do to you on contact?

Once all six ingredients have been found and returned to the cauldron, the werewolf's curse is lifted, to Sabreman's relief. Just as well, as there are sure to be more adventures in store for this intrepid explorer...

Oh man, does this trigger some serious nostalgia for me! I remember playing this stone cold Ultimate classic back in late 1984 on my brother's ZX Spectrum, mapping my way through the game and solving its rock-freakin'-hard puzzles one at a time in a war of attrition until I finally managed to reach the end screen.

Quite how I did it, I do not know, because these days I'm all fingers and thumbs with this game. And that's because it's old-school hard.

The controls are especially tricky, and it's often difficult to know precisely where you are on the screen, resulting in more than a few untimely deaths as you accidentally collide with deadly hazards, fall off objects, or misjudge your jumps.

It does make the going frustrating, but then that was also true of the original game. Speaking of which, this C64 port looks and feels very similar to the ZX Spectrum version. It does slow down occasionally when there are a lot of objects on the screen, but fortunately not so badly that it detrimentally impacts the gameplay. Other than that, though, C64 Knight Lore is a very faithful recreation of one of the all-time great ZX Spectrum games. It may be very tough to play these days, but it's a classic slice of gaming history that everyone should try at least once.

Finally, we C64 owners get the chance to see what the fuss was about with this functional conversion. I say 'functional' as it's a faithful conversion of the Speccy original's monochrome graphics, and the slight slowdown when a few moving objects appear on screen.

Functional but ultimately disappointing, and the frustrating thing is I'm not sure what could have been done about adding colour into the isometric view.

Nevertheless, the hook-in drives you to better your completion percentage, some puzzles are tricky enough to make you smile, and it is of course a mapper's delight. The nice loading screen and pleasant soundtrack are the few enhancements, but otherwise for me it just doesn't sit well on the C64 with its Speccy look and feel.

I've wanted this on my C64 since I played it on a mate's Speccy back in 1984. I even had my ten pounds ready and waiting, to no avail. I was resigned to it never happening... but look! Here it is! What's more, I couldn't be happier about it.

Okay, 35 years down the line its gameplay looks a little long in the tooth, but Knight Lore is still a good game (even if I haven't got any better at it in the intervening years). The controls and viewpoint conspire to make Knight Lore a little annoying at times and some may be unhappy that this is a straight port (barring the sound), but otherwise it's a splendid effort.

Head Over Heels is better, but it's good to finally have this legendary title right where we want it!

Presentation 92%
Menu features scenario, instructions, tons of options to play with.

Graphics 80%
Monochromatic, but beautifully detailed and nicely animated.

Sound 75%
Unusual title track can also be played in-game. Decent FX.

Hookability 89%
It's very exciting to finally see what all the fuss was about.

Lastability 75%
A difficult and addictive quest, but a little finicky to play.

Overall 80%
A great conversion of a ground-breaking game whose qualities have not diminished too much over time.

Presentation 92% Graphics 80% Sound 75% Hookability 89% Lastability 75% Overall 80%