Gauntlet Legends

About Gauntlet Legends

Gauntlet Legends (1998) is Atari Games' 3D arcade sequel to Gauntlet, adding RPG-style character levelling saved by password as heroes chase runestones to banish the demon Skorne.

Gauntlet Legends in Depth

Long ago the corrupt mage Garm used a set of Runestones to summon the demon Skorne, who crushed him, imprisoned his soul in the Underworld and scattered the stones across four realms so they could never be used against him. Players must defeat the bosses of each realm to win the four keys to the desecrated temple and banish Skorne, while collecting the scattered Runestones, which let them pursue him into the Underworld to destroy him for good. The game continues as long as players keep their health up, and the first 500 arcade players to finish and send in a validation code won a free T-shirt.

New to the series is levelling: slaying enemies and gathering treasure earns experience that raises four attributes, Strength for physical damage, Speed for movement and attack rate, Armor against enemy attacks and Magic for the range and power of potions, and gold can buy further increases. The classic heroes return in new forms, the Warrior as a Minotaur, the Wizard as a Jackal, the Archer as a Tigress and the Valkyrie as a Falconess, each starting strong in one attribute. Unusually for an arcade game, progress is saved through passwords, letting players build characters up to level 99 with attributes of up to 999 over many sessions. GamePro said the 3D was "much more than a gimmick" and the legend "treated with befitting respect".

Making Gauntlet Legends

Atari Games developed and published it for arcades in 1998, giving the series 3D graphics and long-term character saves. The Nintendo 64 port arrived first, in North America in September 1999, followed by PlayStation and Dreamcast versions. The arcade original received favourable reviews; the PlayStation version was mixed. NextGen said of the Dreamcast version that "four controllers and one Legends make for party-game excitement of the highest order", and GamePro called the N64 version an impressive port of a polished arcade game.