Review - The MSX2 version of this classic arcade game is a bit "different" in the sense that it doesn't scroll but moves by fixed screens.

I was very curious to see how this would affect gameplay but to my surprise, I must say that an excellent job has been done in maintaining almost intact the gameplay of the original game. Sure, the parallax scrolling is gone but the graphics have generally a nice amount of detail. Rastan himself is amazingly drawn while most backgrounds are faithfully reproduced. Oddly, although well drawn, enemies are monochromatic. I don't know if this is because of hardware limitations but anyway, this won't be much of a hindrance. So basically, this is for the most noticeable differences.

For the rest, there are some slight changes in some levels (like for example, the last stage is different from the arcade and similar to the GameGear version) but unfortunately, the MSX2 version is missing the amazing GG-exclusive Red Dragon boss.

On the bright side, the music is as catchy as usual and sounds pretty nice while gameplay is really excellent since Rastan is very easy to control and magical weapons are generally scattered around more generously than in the arcade game and the other ports.

All in all, Rastan for MSX2 is a very pleasant action/platformer. It is much better than the C-64 port and it is even slightly better than the GameGear version. Veteran Rastan players will only regret that the glorious intro and outro have been cut out from this version, maybe because of memory constraints.

Note: Interestingly, some copies of Rastan sold in Europe have the exact same packaging of the Japanese version, but have a b/w English manual different from the Japanese. I don't think the game was officially released for the MSX2 outside of Japan , so this is kind of puzzling.

Bottom line: A good port from the coin-op and an overall nice game to play on your MSX2 machine....7/10