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Xyphoe's Vids - [AMSTRAD CPC] Xyphoes Fantasy - Longplay & Review

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[AMSTRAD CPC] Xyphoes Fantasy - Longplay & Review
27 September 2011, 7:39 am

 
[AMSTRAD CPC] Xyphoes Fantasy - Longplay & Review

My 199th video special! And well ... I thought I would finally do the game behind my name - Xyphoe's Fantasy on the Amstrad CPC! This is a French game (apparently there may be a UK and Spanish version but they haven't been found) so I'll have to translate a lot of this for you - but it's a truly spectacular game with stunning graphics and digitised music converted from the Amiga and Atari ST and 780k of data compacted! Plus 'overscan' pictures and in game action!! (Overscan is the use of the 'border' that is always present around CPC games, which you would see 'flashing' when loading from tape). Game description from back of the box - ==== For thousands of years the SKULL barbarians have reigned in terror over the kingdom of Norem. Their forces have captured your girlfriend in order to sacrifice her to their god. You set off in search of her on the back of your fleet-footed warhorse. In the couse of your quest you must face many monsters and cruel warriors. You must also be shrewd enough to find the trophies which once combined will lead to the destruction of the empire of the Skulls. Xyphoes Fantasy consists of more than 650KB of compacted data and is the first game which has animations and displays in overscan, digital music and sound effects from the AMIGA and the ATARI ST, and which makes full use of the 128KB on your CPC. ==== PLUS the full backstory I translated from the French instruction manual for you - gx4000.co.uk (c) Silmarils 1991 cpc-power.com Levels, Menu ...
From: Xyphoe Views: 2 0 ratings
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MacDeath

An impressive realisation, sadly the balerine-like movement of Xyphoes is to much gayness for me... ;D

Anyway, the game features an impressive amount of big colourfull sprites, perhaps even too much for the game to be Smoother/Faster ?

Example : lvl3 : the Xyphoes sprites are bigger, sadly even less good looking animation (moves are strange...)
No wonder the game is so huge, he could have re-used the LVL1's sprite/size...

Sadly Fefesse was not a professionnal animator at Disney's... :D

Comparable to shadow of the beast on Amiga...
The kind of game to set the higher visual standards on a machine, sadly not gameplay-wise higher performance..

Silmarils game = most Awesomest graphics.
nuff said.

BTW this kind of game was quite typicall at the time on 16bits...

Ivanhoe on ST/Amiga...(cartoonish)
Wrath of the demon on Amiga(ST?) too I guess...(serious Shadow of the Best ripp-off)

they included the side scroll, Horse sequence and some Boss fight + graphic cutscenes with text or not.

Very refined/polished graphics and sounds.

The sad part is that this kind of game/realisation/production should have been a standard feature on CPC but nope, the cheap-trick speccyporters never used the 128K RAM nor a full Disk and no proper Graphic artist on CPC.

Rerspect to Fefesse, we shall remember you !

redbox

A great game and nice review Xyphoe.


Anyone know what happened to Fefesse...?  Such a shame he died so young.

tastefulmrship

Quote from: redbox on 14:13, 27 September 11
Anyone know what happened to Fefesse...?  Such a shame he died so young.
I always loved playing THE NOMAD SOUL! One of the greatest underrated games on PC ever! (Along with ANACHRONOX, of course!) The sequel was planned, but I've seen very little of it!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omikron:_The_Nomad_Soul

A great talent, sorely missed! (R.I.P.)

MacDeath

Yeah, at the time I was in Grenoble and I had a friend with a powerfull PC/3D card.

He bought the game Nomad Soul, we were quite impressed.

It was clearly an awesome production of its time, with a deep story and so on.





PS : hey Tastefulmrship, i didn't knew you were Italian...

Bryce


tastefulmrship

Quote from: MacDeath on 14:33, 27 September 11
PS : hey Tastefulmrship, i didn't knew you were Italian...
I like Italian people, the Italian countryside and Italian food but, alas, I'm just a humble Irishman... who likes computer games. And computer game music. And demos. And pretty 8-bit pictures. And girls and drink! And bricks!

MacDeath

QuoteHe's not, that's the Irish flag
>>implying it wasn't a joke...

Then whose stole whose flag ??? ;D

Bryce

Nobody, The Italian Flag is Green-White-Red, the Irish one is Green-White-Gold (actually more orange than gold, but that's the official colour names). Although I admit, the Wiki Icon is a bit too red to distinguish Italy and Ireland. Doesn't France have exactly the same flag as Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique and Mayotte? Holland isn't that far off either :D

Bryce.

Xyphoe

Thanks guys!

Glad you enjoyed ... a quick summary for me would be - absolutely fantastic production and presentation all round, but not great fun to play.

The comparison of this being the CPC's equivalent to Shadow Of The Beast on the Amgia is very good ... stunning graphics etc, but not a game to come back and play again and again. I thought this whilst playing, but neglected to make that observation in the review, oh well.

Oh and what happened to Fefesse? He died? Oh no, that's awful  :(

What happened to Stephanie Saint-Martin too?

Gryzor

I never really understood the point in those three-coloured flags. Take the Swiss flag, for instance, or the Canadian one (ok, a bit silly), the Greek one etc etc, but three stripes of colour? Seriously? :D

Anyhow, we may not think the best of Xyphoe's Fantasy (what *was* the fantasy after all?), but do recall, back in the day it looked superb, and sometimes this was enough for us to enjoy a title...

AMSDOS

Seriously nobody can question the music or graphics and it's obviously pushing the limits for a 128k machine, though the gameplay and collision detection bring this game down so badly. A simple jump to the platform above you doesn't even register and when you want to hop down to the platform below it won't let you!  >:(  And if you get too close to obstacles is does some stupid effect where you have to jump several times to get over it!  :o  This is one game for those people who think Titus The Fox plays badly or think Baby Jo or Wizard Willy has problems. Otherwise the animations work, maybe I'm just jealous that such a game can look so good that I decide to find fault, though sadly that's what I find!  :(
* Using the old Amstrad Languages :D   * with the Firmware :P
* I also like to problem solve code in BASIC :)   * And type-in Type-Ins! :D

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remax

Quote from: Gryzor on 08:30, 30 September 11
I never really understood the point in those three-coloured flags. Take the Swiss flag, for instance, or the Canadian one (ok, a bit silly), the Greek one etc etc, but three stripes of colour? Seriously? :D

Anyhow, we may not think the best of Xyphoe's Fantasy (what *was* the fantasy after all?), but do recall, back in the day it looked superb, and sometimes this was enough for us to enjoy a title...

The Blue and Red stand for the people of France that circle the White of Monarchy in order to control them.
Brain Radioactivity

Bryce

Many countrys mottos or national values are based on three words (such as frances "Liberté, égalité, fraternité"), the three colours usually symbolise the three values.

@Gryzor: Aren't these three word mottos called "Hendriatis" (or something spelt vaguely similar :D ) which I think is actually Greek? Is it?

Bryce.

MacDeath

QuoteThe Blue and Red stand for the people of France that circle the White of Monarchy in order to control them.
Yeah, but also :

Blue : the sky (or sea)...freedom of open space.
White : all colours mixed equally. equality.
Red : blood... blood bonds... brotherhood...

Liberté, égalité, Fraternité...

I like this one.
8)

redbox

Quote from: MacDeath on 23:12, 04 October 11
Liberté, égalité, Fraternité...


I always thought that the current French flag was the product of the revolution and therefore stood for the above.


Didn't realise it was supposedly had links to the 'monarchy'. 


We need better history teachers in English schools  ;)

Bryce

I think the "Monarchy / peasants" comment was meant to be sarcastic.

<Off Topic History Class>
The Monarchs of France used a white flag with yellow crests or with a single large family crest in the middle, white was considered the "French colour". The Revolutionary guards wore Red and Blue uniforms during the revolution and these two colours were added to the french white some time after the revolution, resulting in the flag they have today.
</Off Topic History Class>

Bryce.

redbox


MaV

Quote from: MacDeath on 23:12, 04 October 11
White : all colours mixed equally. equality.

Hm, I usually get brown if I mix all colours together.


On the other hand:

White: the colour of the monarch's shirt
Red: the colour of the monarch's shirt after being dragged to the guillotine
Blue: the colour of the monarch's body before he's thrown into a common grave.

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robcfg

QuoteHm, I usually get brown if I mix all colours together.


You should try RGB instead of CMYK ;D

Gryzor

Huh, very interesting discussion. Wish people would explain other flags as well (yes, there's Wikipedia, but it's more interesting this way).

I didn't mean, of course, that there's no meaning in all the three-color flags; it's obvious colours have a meaning, it's not like people just liked these specific ones :D

@Bryce: oh gee, I hadn't heard this word in... well, I don't remember! I didn't know it applied to flags, but it makes sense. It comes from the words (thread fusion!) "ένα δια τριών", or "one through three". Meaning, one meaning comes through three words. Kinda difficult to explain, I had no idea the word existed in english*


*a word I had heard in a movie and I've been desperate to use but haven't found a use for it, so here it goes: thrasonical! :D

AMSDOS

Flags?? Oh yes an AA89 Type-in featuring BASIC 1.1  :laugh:  It also made it onto one of the Covertapes (AA90?) for those who didn't want to type in it's sheer size!  :laugh:  They forgot to do the Australia flag!  ??? 
* Using the old Amstrad Languages :D   * with the Firmware :P
* I also like to problem solve code in BASIC :)   * And type-in Type-Ins! :D

Home Computing Weekly Programs
Popular Computing Weekly Programs
Your Computer Programs
Updated Other Program Links on Profile Page (Update April 16/15 phew!)
Programs for Turbo Pascal 3

redbox

Quote from: CP/M User on 08:27, 16 October 11
They forgot to do the Australia flag!  ???



10 USE BRITISH_FLAG
20 MAKE SMALLER
30 ADD SOME_STARS
40 PUT THE_BARBIE_ON

Nich

Quote from: Gryzor on 11:41, 09 October 11
Huh, very interesting discussion. Wish people would explain other flags as well (yes, there's Wikipedia, but it's more interesting this way).
I was considering responding to an earlier post about the Irish tricolour, but I decided not to as I do not want to start a flame war on this forum.

MaV

Quote from: Gryzor on 11:41, 09 October 11
Huh, very interesting discussion. Wish people would explain other flags as well (yes, there's Wikipedia, but it's more interesting this way).

Well, there's a legend about the Austrian flag (from top to bottom: red-white-red) and duke Leopold V. of the house of Babenberg (originally from Bavaria and the rulers of Austria before the Habsburgs).

At the siege of Akkon during the third crusade (ca. 1191) duke Leopold V. conquered a tower of Akkon and placed his flag there. King Richard Lionheart was angry at that and wanted the glory all for himself, so he tore it down into mud. After the battle Leopold's garment - originally white - was drenched in blood. He took off the broad leather scarf belt he wore in the middle that he used to belt up his sword, and it revealed the original white colour beneath it. His knights decided that this be the new flag.

Incidentally the tearing down of the flag was the reason King Richard was taken prisoner by duke Leopold in Vienna (not far from my flat) and taken to castle Dürnstein (now a ruin, but can still be visited).
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