"Sydney Hunter and the Sacred Tribe" is a homebrew game for the Commodore 64 released
by Collectorvision, in early 2018.
In it, you return as the famous explorer "Sydney Hunter".
This time instead of making your way to the temple, you are trapped within the temple
and must find your way out.
The back of the box explains:
"You're Sydney Hunter, a great adventurer.
You've been travelling to South America seeking for treasures.
During one night you've been captured and made a prisoner by a Sacred Tribe.
Even if they don't want to hurt you, they won't let you free either."
The Commodore 64 treatment of the graphics and sound effects are quite impressive.
This game expands upon and improves upon it's predecessor, "The Shrines of Peril", in every
way.
When the cartridge is first powered on a fancy splash screen is displayed.
Next we see a nice closeup image of Sydney's Hat and a musical tune is played.
Heading on into the Colectorvision title screen, pressing the button brings us to the main
scary title screen with the torch skulls adorning both sides of the screen.
When the game begins you will notice your lives remaining on the bottom left, diamonds
collected, bottom center, and the keys collected on the bottom right hand portion of the screen.
Gameplay: You start the game speaking to one of the
village elders who is asking you to please help them find the way to the sacred doorway
which leads to the ancient Mayan City.
After accepting the challenge you will quickly realize you are at the top of a maze and must
travel down at least 9 levels to make your way out.
Doing so is not an easy task, being there are many obstacles standing in your way, including;
spiders, bats, wasps, scorpions, snakes, rats, slugs, and entry ways requiring a key or diamonds
to pass through.
There are even a few screens with quicksand lining the bottom of the screen.
If you happen to fall in don't worry you sink very slowly and can jump out of it to escape.
You have to be a careful explorer, try not to miss any room that has diamonds.
You need all of them in order to bribe some of the Mayans to pass further into the game.
In addition to diamonds you can collect Pineapples, which will grant you a spare Sydney Hunter.
Also sparsely spread throughout the game are miniature white skeletons or Mayans, which
grant you temporary invincibility.
This power up, will turn your Sydney Hunter character a solid shade of purple and lasts
for only a few seconds.
Controls: Using a joystick you can control Sydney Hunter
moving in all four directions.
Pressing the button will make him jump.
Even though the manual says to plug the joystick into port 1, doing so will result in not being
able to play the game.
Use Joystick Port 2.
The only issue I've ran into with the controls in the game are moving up and down the ladders
or vines.
You have to be positioned just right or he will not move.
This can be frustrating.
Pressing F1 on the keyboard will display the interactive map.
Pressing the Commodore button (bottom left) on the keyboard will immediately end the game.
Scoring There is no score kept in Sydney Hunter and
the Sacred tribe.
This is one of those games like Atari Adventure where once you complete the quest, that's
it, the game is over, no score.
However if you had to figure a way to keep score, I would say at the end of the game
you could go by how many Sydney Hunters are left over added to your gems collected.
Or you could just measure how long it took you to complete the quest.
The diamonds are color coded each one awarding you a different quantity of diamonds 1, 5,
10 or 20 diamonds.
When you open a chest you are usually rewarded with a nice amount of diamonds.
Strategy "Sydney Hunter and the Sacred tribe" is not
that difficult a game, it's more of a marathon than a sprint.
You have to have patience and try to learn the games map.
I found the most success once I started mapping things with pencil and paper.
Remember that you can press F1 to display the interactive map which shows your progress.
Learn how far you can jump.
Learn where to find the pineapples which award you spare man, and be careful to avoid the
baddies.
Graphics The graphics in "Sydney Hunter and the Sacred
Tribe" are outstanding.
There are a lot of visual elements in the game to take in, for example, multi colored
windows, skulls etched into the concrete walls, torches lighting up various rooms, fire, even
quick sand on some screens.
There was a lot of detail and effort put into getting it right.
Sydney Hunter himself is a nice multi-colored and animated sprite.
You can tell he is wearing a hat and wearing multi-colored clothing.
You can even tell he is wearing blue shoes.
The imagery does evoke the feeling of being deep within the Mayan caverns.
Sound I like the simple music in the game and appreciate
that it changes as you progress deeper into the game.
This helps keep it interesting.
The various sound effects in the game include a sound for moving Sydney Hunter, a separate
sound for jumping.
The flying hawk and bats each have their own unique sounds.
Music is constantly playing in the background which does change as you progress further
into the game.
When your mission fails a different tune is played.
Packaging The boxed copy limited cartridge edition of
Sydney Hunter and the Sacred Tribe is terrific.
The artwork looks like a scene right out of the game where Sydney is jumping over spikes
while holding a diamond with a Bat and Snake in pursuit.
The Mayan architecture is represented along with a spider web and Skull and bones.
The same image is also used on the games printed manual and 11x15 included poster.
I love the fact that the games manual includes color photos of the games development team,
something you don't see very often.
An authentic looking 8.5 x 11 map of the Mayan temple is also included.
What clues can be gleaned from it?
OSTs
A gentleman on Atariage who goes by "Nyuundere" was selling original sound track copies for
Sydney Hunter and the Sacred Tribe and Mecha for the MSX systems.
I picked up a copy and can tell you it is good but quite short, only about 7 minutes
long in total.
Ports Sydney Hunter has sort of become it's own
Mayan themed franchise.
The "The Sacred Tribe" is the first port of the game to the Commodore 64 and is the third
game released in this product line, the first being "Sydney Hunter and the Caverns of Death"
and second, "Sydney Hunter and the Shrines of Peril".
The Commodore 64 version of "Sacred Tribe" was released in disk and digital formats as
well as a limited Cartridge release.
In addition to the Commodore 64 the "Sacred Tribe" was also released on the following
systems: The Intellivision, two releases, Standard
and Game of the year editions.
Colecovision and MSX systems and the The Sega Master System
Bugs Sydney Hunter and the Sacred Tribe for the
Commodore 64/128 is an extremely well polished game.
You can tell a lot of work went into getting it working just right.
To that point I only ran into a few situations that I would classify as a temporary bugs.
On the screen with quicksand under the collapsing bridge, I once jumped up while underneath
the bridge and when I went to the next screen, Sydney Hunter, was hovering slightly above
the floor.
This hovering continued until I went through the doorway and back.
Not a huge deal.
Every once in a while, the game would not register a diamond capture, but also not a
big deal.
Suggestions for improvement One thing I believe that could be improved
on is the brick color, not that it's bad, but I would have like to have seen it change
colors the further you progressed into the game.
Although there were at least 10 baddies, it always could of used a few more.
I would have like to have seen some puzzle elements thrown in.
As much as I like the sounds in the game, sometimes they were damp'end by the background
music.
There should be a way to toggle the music on or off.
There probably should have been a sound effect for capturing diamonds, pineapples or the
invincibility cloak.
Throwing in a game save feature or at least checkpoints, also would have been welcomed.
Easter Eggs On the Commodore 64 version I am only aware
of one "easter egg".
I have learned there is one Easter Egg which will make you invincible and one that will
grant you nine lives.
The one I know about is just a secret room that leads you to a treasure chest.
It's pretty simple to find.
I'll give a hint, it can be found 6 levels down from where you start.
The manual alludes to some easter eggs.
"You will find the cartridge is full of special features that make Sydney Hunter and The Sacred
Tribe exciting every time you play".
Purchasing Information: I picked up my boxed copy for $55 from Collectorvision
back in January this year, 2018, and it included the digital version.
The boxed cartridge and floppy versions are currently listed as out of stock but you can
still pickup the digital version for $10.
Conclusion Sydney Hunter and the Sacred Tribe for the
Commodore 64 significantly expands the playing field over it's predecessor, with over 100
unique screens, an interactive map, and at least 10 different types of enemies.
This expansion was a step in the right direction.
Collectorvision has boldly brought this game not only to the Commodore 64, but to several
other gaming systems, which is rare in the retro gaming community.
That was no easy task, which I commend them for.
But the bottom line question that needs to be asked, is Sydney Hunter and the Sacred
Tribe a fun game to play?
Is it worth the hassle of trying to figure your way out of the more than 100 screens?
To answer than, first I would say, yes this is a fun game to play, however depending on
your level of patience, the game can drag on a bit at times, especially if you make
it far into the game and lose your last Sydney Hunter, requiring you to start ALL over from
the beginning.
This is my second delve into the Sydney Hunter universe.
I enjoyed playing the "Sacred Tribe", I am looking forward to playing more of these games.
Recommended.
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