Harharagon (2024)
a COMMERCIAL game by ‘Icon64’ for Commodore 64
published by ‘Psytronik Software’
Written for BrewOtaku #002 by Syed Raza
Power and love do not go hand in hand most of the time. A soldier going by the nickname 64-K has been falling in love with Nico, the daughter of the ‘Grand Galactic King’. Possibly you would wish them all the best, lots of luck and maybe lots of children, but the father was not happy at all. GGK imprisoned 64-K for literally no reason at the spaceship ‘Harhargon’. Surprisingly, you were left with a weapon, so you can make your way out of this trap and go back to see Nico.
GET HIM AWAY… AT ANY COST!
‘Stuart Collier’ wrote the code, while ‘Trevor Storey’ took care of design and graphics. ‘Saul Cross’ fulfilled his part, so your ears won’t get bored. Design wise there is inspiration from ‘Impossible Mission’ with an essence of Metroidvania, but that doesn’t lower the action fun spread across 230 screens. Numerous obstacles and troubles are waiting for your appearance. Your goal is to put together an escape pod, for which the components are scattered all across the ship. An automatic feature within the game tells you about your progress and gives information regarding how many lives are left, what pieces remain and everything else that is relevant. As soon as you kill a ‘resident’, they leave out crystals that you must collect to add to the escape pod. Along the way, you have the ability to collect power-ups and enhanced arms. The graphics are hi-res, and there is a wide variety of vivid details that can be seen throughout the game: Flashes on fires, diamonds jumping and scattering are just a few examples.
Conclusion
Harhargon is a pretty slick looking PAL and NTSC compatible game that plays well. The difficulty is manageable, not too easy, not too hard — just about right for the average player. This game can be already considered a fresh C64 pearl and deserves to be supported. Attention collectors: Grab a real tape while in stock. A paid digital version is available too.
