Game Review: RIP (Gameboy Color Remake, WLS)

Mastertronic’s RIP was one of the most memorable games they ever released for the Vic 20. In fact, when I wrote my Top 5 list for the system, it landed in first place and received the highest score I’ve awarded so far for a Vic 20 game. Not only was it an incredibly addictive game, by the developer Mark Srebalius achieved a technical masterpiece cramming the entire 20-screen arcade exploration game into just 5k of memory.

But now, Hungarian developer László Rajcsányi has come along and as part of his ongoing work adapting many of his old 8-bit favourites, he has converted RIP from the Vic 20 to the Gameboy Color so we felt that it was time to go back and take a second look…

RIP – Rest In Peace

RIP – or Rest In Peace according to the opening screen – is a multi screen arcade game written, originally written for the Vic 20 by Mark Srebalius, author of Rockman and Phantom Attack. In RIP, your King has given you the task to seek out the 20 Chalices Of Truth that are located deep within the Crypts Of Darkess. Sounds spooky, doesn’t it? Armed with your trusty Staff Of Light as your only means of defence against the creatures within, you have to find them all and return them safely back to the King.

Strip away the clichéd plot and in essence it’s a flick screen shoot em-em-up and all you need to do is collect all of the Chalices scattered randomly around the maze of screens. Either avoid or destroy all of the creatures on each screen using your staff to shoot, but beware as they shoot back as well.

Gameplay

Unlike the original, gameplay is a lot more sedated and plays at a more relaxed pace. Originally the screens were filled with creatures, all shooting at and chasing you and as well as navigating the maze, it was a fully-fledged shoot-em-up. Leave a room and return, and any creatures you have destroyed previously have automatically respawned giving you that extra chance to boost your score while on your challice quest.

However, when it comes to this Gameboy Color conversion, there are now only two creatures in each room so the game has taken on more of a strategic twist and moves away from its arcade origins. Changes have also been made to the way both you and the creatures fire. While you can still fire your staff rapidly, it’s now limited to relatively close range fire (as are the creatures) so you need to rely more on reactions and evasive movement than anything else.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a fun game and the classic design and playability still shines though. I can understand why changes had to be made to ensure that RIP would run on the Gameboy Color in the first place, even more so as it was produced using a game development engine, so I can’t be too critical in that respect.

Longevity

Probably the biggest change made to this version of RIP is the game map. The original featured 20 levels and presented them in a completely random way each time you played, so no two games ever played the same way. For this version of RIP, there are fewer screens and the map layout is static. The only randomised element is the position of the Challices and you will find yourself having to revisit rooms a number of times until you collect them all.

So while it doesn’t have the frantic arcade action of the original or even the unpredictable nature of the maze itself, there’s still enough variety not knowing just where the Challices will appear from one game to the next to keep you coming back. I certainly spent plenty of time playing it over and over before I sat down to write this review so László Rajcsányi must have done something right…!

Graphics and Sound

Considering the lower resolution of the Gameboy Color, the graphics have been adapted well, and the tweaks to the screen layout – moving the score and status to the bottom – work remarkably well. While the play area itself is smaller, resulting in larger characters and chunkier designs for the screens themselves, it still has the same look and feel. One thing I did like was the look of one of the creatures which was based on the Phantoms from Mark Srebalius’s earlier Vic 20 game Phantom Attack, and fully animated as well.

Sound was quite limited to just a few sound effects for weapon shots, the death of yourself and the creatures and when you collect the Challices. However, on a positive note the absolutely dreadful music present on the Vic original has been left out so this is one area where the Gameboy Color version is actually superior to the original!

All Change

I’ve touched upon some of these earlier but there have been a few changes in this conversion of RIP to get it to run on Nintendo’s handheld. The most obvious one is the size of the game and the fixed nature of the map. I don’t know how much memory the Gameboy Color has available so I don’t think that would have been an issue, but I do believe that most game engines – and certainly ones of this nature – would struggle with creating randomised game maps.

The weapons and quantity of creatures on screen – not particularly a deal breaker and if anything it adds a new strategic element to the game. Instead of RIP being an all-out action shoot-em-up, it’s now changed genre slightly and it still works while still retaining the core game concept.

One thing that has changed in this respect however is that the creatures can no longer shoot and kill each other. Again, this is understandable both from a technical perspective with the engine but also from a gameplay point of view. With so few creatures on screen, if they took each other out, it would get tedious pretty quickly!

The important question most will ask is do these affect the quality of the conversion in any way? Truthfully, no and if anything most help this version of RIP become a fresh take on the game all of its own.

Not Quite Perfect…

Unfortunately, as much as I loved playing this new version of RIP, it’s not without its issues. With both yourself and the creatures having restricted firepower, at times it was difficult to tell just when they were shooting at you, especially when you were at close range so it was quite possible to get shot before you shot them without seeing it coming when going head to head against them.

And my other gripe again centred around the weapons. For some strange reason, this version of RIP allows both yourself and the creatures to fire through the scenery. Even with a limited range for your weapon, it is possible to be shot through a wall if both you and one of the creatures is standing either side of one and they fire at you. Frustrating to say the least!

Overall

Despite the technical limitations and changes made to get this to work on the Gameboy Color, this is still an admirable conversion of RIP. It’s never going to reach the high standards of the Vic 20 version and frankly to expect that would be unreasonable, but this is a great game in its own right and well worth checking out not only if you’re a fan of the original but if you’re a Gameboy fan generally.

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