Kick ass games of my youth: Rastan: The arcade game

If you are around my age you probably remember how incredible arcades were. Although I didn't much care for the series I did enjoy the scenes in Stranger Things where the boys would meet at an arcade. The sound of the machines, the neon lighting, the buttons getting mashed, the cheap slices of pizza and cokes... man, those were the days.

Things got more and more advanced in arcades as the years went by and one game really captivated my attention a lot more than some of the others, and that game was called Rastan

That arcade box doesn't look that great and honestly, it wasn't. It was your stock standard CRT tv with some sort of mainboard below it but this one just seemed special in a way. By the way you can buy one of these for your own house for a mere $3000. Sheesh.

This cabinet came out in the Schwarzenegger Conan days and there is no denying that this is exactly what they were going for when they made this game. Shirtless muscular guy with flowing hair and boots on looks very familiar. On most of the stages there was a sort of simply simulated 3D effect going on with the background moving slower than the foreground. That was pretty cool because we didn't have many games like this in the mid 80's.

There wasn't a lot to figure out here: you jump, you swing a sword, those are your two buttons. Enemies will attack you from both sides and some of then throw projectiles that you have to swing at while you are ducking lest you take damage.

Unlike other games like this though, you had a health bar, not just some system where you can only get hit one time. You did need to be careful to not fall into the water or some other hole in the ground because that would kill you right away.

Every now and then you would be offered the fire sword and this was a real game changer because now you had the ability to throw fire across the room as well but for a limited amount of time only. so use it wisely!

The enemies get more difficult and some of them are actually placed in certain cheesy orders so that you will have to take hits at some point. There are some HP refills that you encounter along the way but there aren't very many of them. The jumping mechanics are also pretty janky, as was the tradition at that point in time.

The music was outstanding for the era and the colors, I dunno, there was just something quite special about them. There is no denying that a big part of what was fun about this game was the similarity between it and Conan though.

By levels 2 and 3 they were starting to play nasty tricks on you such as dropping items that actually harm you. The red potions will sometime be blocking your path but it you pick one up it will take away HP.

Things get frustratingly crowded as the levels go on, but there aren't very many levels, only 6 in fact but believe me, at an arcade there was very little chance you were going to see anyone even get past level 1. As a child I only made it to level 3 a handful of times and I only once saw anyone get further than that. That was part of the fun of arcades. You would sometimes revel in the success or expertise of others even if you didn't know them.

This is the final boss. He wasn't really that tough once you understand that you have to come at him with a full health bar or close to full and then just accept the fact that he is going to burn you. Then he is stuck in his animation and you can just swing away until he is dead.

During those times we had games like this on home consoles but arcades were still a lot more crisp back then than anything you were ever going to be able to plug into your NES or even a Genesis. Strangely Rastan was never ported to any major console. Strange.

Things would start to change dramatically in the early 90's though when home consoles started to have as good or sometimes even better graphics than arcade boxes did.

Rastan probably took about $20 of my money in quarters and the boxes were designed to do just that. Each time you would get a bit further, remember a bit more about the patterns but you would always be given the opportunity to continue endlessly if you chose to do so. This was a great money maker for people that were able to lure kids in to spend spend spend because honestly, almost all quest games like this one were defeatable if you put enough money into them. But even as a dumb-ass kid I started to realize that after a while I was just throwing money away.

I don't remember a great many of the arcade games that captivated me, but Rastan was one of them. Did you have one?