Castlequest

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Castlequest/Castle Excellent
Box cover of Castlequest for the NES
Developer(s)	ASCII Corporation^[1]
Publisher(s)	Nexoft Corporation^[1]
Platform(s)	MSX, NES
Release date	^US September 1989^[1]
Genre(s)	Adventure/Puzzle
Mode(s)	Single player
Rating(s)	n/a
Media	Cartridge

Castlequest (known as Castle Excellent in Japan) is an NES and MSX game in which the object is to navigate through Groken Castle to rescue Princess Margarita. In the NES version, the player has 50 lives (whereas in the MSX version, the player starts with 4 lives only) with which to complete the game, and receives an extra life every 10,000 points. There are two magical fairies to help. It is a sequel to the MSX game The Castle.

The enemies are:

Knight
Bishop
Wizard
Fire Spirit
Attack Cat
Phantom Flower

The player can push certain objects throughout the game to accomplish progress. In some rooms, the prince can only advance to the next room by aligning cement blocks, Honey Jars, Candle Cakes, and Elevator Controlling Block. In some rooms, this can be quite time consuming since the prince can only open a particular door if he can stand by the door. Meaning that he can not open the door while jumping in mid-air. The prince must also carry a key that matches the color of the door he intends to be open.

The player can navigate the castle with the help of a map that can be obtained from the first room that he/she begins. The map will provide the player with a matrix of 10x10 rooms and will highlight the room in which the princess is located.

A notable difference between the MSX and NES versions is that the player can attack enemies with his sword (or dagger) only in the NES version. While this attack is limited due to the fact that the enemy must be very close to the player for the kill to take place, which puts the player in the risk of being killed by the enemy because timing is crucial. The prince can dash and retrieve his weapon on a timely basis, and attacking in the wrong time can prevent the player from launching another attack when the enemy is in the right location to be attacked, leading the certain loss of one life from the player. This scenario, however, is not relevant to the MSX version, since the only way to eliminate an enemy is to throw an object on it.