Pentagram (video game)
| Pentagram | |
|---|---|
Cover art
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| Developer(s) | Disputed; see main article |
| Publisher(s) | Ultimate Play The Game |
| Series | Sabreman |
| Engine | Filmation |
| Platform(s) | MSX ZX Spectrum |
| Release | 1986 |
| Genre(s) | Arcade adventure; Maze |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Publication | Score |
| CVG | 5/10 |
| Crash | 93% |
| Sinclair User | 3/5 |
| Your Sinclair | 7/10 |
Pentagram is a ZX Spectrum and MSX video game released by Ultimate Play The Game in 1986. It is the fourth in the Sabreman series, following on from his adventures in Sabre Wulf, Underwurlde and Knight Lore. Similarly to Knight Lore it uses the isometric Filmation engine. The game was written by either Tim and Chris Stamper or a U.S. Gold programming team (see the main article for the reason for this confusion).
Typically for an Ultimate release, the inlay card provides little actual instruction for playing the game, but includes a cryptic short story as an introduction.
"The runes must you learn and glean, their place in Magic and in this land will they find without aid and the PENTAGRAM will be yours."
This was Ultimate's way of describing the object of the game, which is to recover the lost Pentagram, an artifact of magical power. Firstly Sabreman must locate one of the wells located in the maze of screens, shoot it several times with his spell and take the resultant bucket of water to one of the broken obelisks. When dropped on these, the water will "heal" the stone. This must be done with each of the four obelisks to make the titular Pentagram appear in one of the rooms. Once this is done, five magic runestones must be found and placed on the Pentagram itself.
Though the objective in Pentagram is more complex and obscure than the simple "find and fetch" gameplay of the two previous Filmation games Knight Lore and Alien 8, the gameplay is similar to those two titles. The main differences in this final revision of the Filmation engine are the new ability to shoot enemies with a projectile magic spell, and the ability of the enemies to respawn. The "directional control" system of the previous games was also removed because the Spectrum's single joystick button was now needed to fire Sabreman's spell, so could no longer be used to jump (instead, "down" on the joystick is used to jump).
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Wikipedia