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There's no time to daydream when your planet needs you and in Moonshadow, you can take it as read for starters that your planet needs you. The action takes place both on and under the surface of your home world, which it would appear has no name [Would that be the place where the streets have no name then? - Ed]. The two moons orbiting this mighty globe, though, do have names. Fulax is the lovely little spheroid that keeps the planet alive with magical energies. Septerios on the other hand is the black moon and will, before long, eclipse Fulax, thereby cutting off its magical protection. Big deal? So what?

The problem is there's a huge snake waiting in the darkest recesses of the planet and, when the eclipse occurs, it will be free to carry out a variety of nefarious activities, of which most probably involve death on a large scale.

The game looks much like an unsophisticated Black Tiger with flick screens rather than a smooth scroll. At first sight this makes it look unimpressive. But, as you find after a few games, its merits are in the gameplay. The playing area is a large maze made up of platforms, stairs, rivers, doors and so on. By leaping around and collecting a number of useful items (more on these later) you can access more and more of the planet which is spread over three distinct sections.

No arcade adventure would be complete without a substantial helping of beastly types. Moonshadow delivers in this area too. While the number of opponents is limited, all have very distinct movement and attack patterns and are placed in such a way that you need to form a well-defined strategy if you hope to get anywhere. You also need to practise your shooting skills during your first few games otherwise baddies make mincemeat out of you.

The weediest of your foes is the pathetic bird. Birds tend to hover around before diving at speed towards you. One well-aimed shot is enough to kill them though. Tentacles rise from beneath the ground now and then. These can give you quite a pummelling. The trick is to remember approximately where they are and edge towards them. Then wait until they sink back into the ground. Fire-spitting ariel gargoyles are also worthy opponents. Either avoid them or employ nerves-of-steel tactics and blow them away. The toughest beasts by far are the leaping sprogs [You don't really know what they are, do you Andy? - Ed]. If you try to out-manoeuvre them, you'll die sure as eggs is eggs. Stand your ground and fire a lot.

The good thing about all of the nasties in Moonshadow is that they always appear in the same screens and form the same patterns. When you've cleared a screen, they never reappear so retracing your steps to previously-unexplored sections is not the impossible task it could have been.

Moving swiftly on now to the fruits of your labours, namely the collectibles. Across the top of the screen in your inventory bar. By using the cursor keys, you can access an empty space then when you next find an item it will automatically appear in the gap. By selecting the item you wish to use, pressing RETURN will implement your choice. Items can be found lying around the play area but are usually protected by a bevy of beasts. Keys open doors, potions replenish your energy and map tokens allow you to display a map of the rooms you've already visited. Those are the self-explanatory ones.

There are also other weird and wonderful items that are for use in specific sections of the game. The horn lets you enter a castley bit and the stick with a skull on it allows you to kill a pile of floating skulls that block another part of the adventure later on. All are simple puzzles like this but are sufficiently well-structured to make solving them tricky-but-highly-enjoyable as well.

On first playing Moonshadow, it all appears fairly unremarkable. However, ignoring the run-of-the-mill graphics (and they're by no means poor) you soon get gripped by the gameplay and can't tear yourself away. I imagine there are very few C64 owners out there who would walk away after trying a few plays. Good visuals, good sound and inexplicably gripping gameplay make Moonshadow worth basking in.

1. Large play area should take yonks to explore.
2. Sprites are well-drawn and nicely animated.
3. Backdrops are atmospheric and colourful.
4. Your character is highly manoeuvrable.
5. It's nicely structured: the puzzles are neat, the monsters well placed.
6. An addictive platform game with a difference.
7. Precise control method.

1. Slightly bugged. Now and again Mr. Moon gets stuck and can't move... but it rarely happens.
2. Screen flips instead of scrolling.
3. Graphics are slightly repetitive.