Originally published July 5, 2016. Updated January 20, 2023.
If the life of being a sneaky Ninja in Saboteur was just too quiet for you, then the job waiting for you at No.#54 in the Your Sinclair Top 100 will be truly be right up your street. It’s time to take your chopper in hand and prepare to swing it hard as Rastan has walked into the room!
Rastan was originally released by Taito as Rastan Saga on the arcades back in 1987, then the fantasy based slash’em up was ported over to the ZX Spectrum in 1988 by Imagine. Created by Tom Lanigan, Paul Murray, Ed Knight with Jas C. Brooke [you’ll possibly know that name from Out Run] on the music, this conversion also received a subtle name change to just Rastan.
With this side-scrolling, occasional up & down, slashing affair we find Rastan – our hero – tackling nefarious beasts sent down upon him by the evil wizard Karg. It’s your job to hack your way through each and every one of these demons – spawned upon your land – until you can finally battle Karg himself, in his soul-sucking dragon form. Along the way you’ll come across numerous weapons and pieces of armour to help you in your quest.
Rastan is an excellent conversion on the ZX Spectrum, from the splendid graphics plus the animation, along with this speed of the game which runs extremely well, and we have some brilliant sounds coming out of our black box too; it is a rather great game. There is an issue in relation to the colours of the game however – due to the use of monochrome the enemy mobs tend to vanish into the background meaning you lose health rather unfairly.
Imagine’s Rastan has certainly stood the test of time on the ZX Spectrum and I’d recommend loading it up right now, just so you wave your massive chopper around and declaring yourself the Warrior King…if you haven’t already today.
