Having played several of the versions earlier in the month, and watching most of Martijn’s stream last night, I’ve come to the conclusion that the DOS port isn’t actually all that much worse than any of the others despite what Jordan Mechner himself may think. It’s very picky on speed so that is a definite problem with the port. The music isn’t all that much different to what you get on the Apple II on a 4.77 Mhz XT though. And some of those other ports are so slow. If they’d used composite CGA (which they really should for an Apple conversion targeted at XT machines of the era) so we’d got some more colours, it would be near enough on par with any of them.
There are some little details missing I think, like the bird looking at the people moving around while sat on the villains shoulder. The gate “puzzle” behaves differently and the combat is slightly easier on DOS. None of them make a huge difference.
My biggest problems are with the game itself on all the versions. It’s so short it beggars belief and the bird aside, the combat is essentially hold down kick. The longevity is extended by having to figure out tactics with the bird and gate but I still finished it within an hour easily. Martijn got through it on the second attempt with a tiny bit of advice. We had more problems getting the controls working than anything else.
I’m thinking you needed to be playing it in 1984 to appreciate this but I’d still have been disappointed with how short it was. I remember how amazed I was with Prince Of Persia’s animation when I saw it, I presume this was a similar experience back in 1984 on an Apple II so maybe that made up for it?
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