TITLE: ARAMO
COMPANY: SEIN SOFT
YEAR: 1986
GENRE: FUTURE SPACE ROLE-PLAYING
SYSTEM: MSX
FORMAT: ROM
SOUND: PSG

Good good, after several months in unemployment I begin again my walkings beyond the seas with one of those rare games that lie in the forgetfulness. The truth is that with respect to Sein Soft I am not sure if there were a satellite company of Xain Soft or it simply was a previous stage. Like curiosity I remember that once I had the original Bastard game, and in its interior there were some stickers of this game, therefore it must be some of the two things that I have mention before. The first time I put this game years ago it seemed to me a complete mess. The truth is that the Xain-Sein games never have been characterized by a remarkable quality, although is not certain that they were so bad either, as the Deep Forest, Garyvo King, Super Tritorn and others, that in addition were the first non Konami Mega ROMs which arrived to Spain.



Recently I have had the opportunity to acquire the original game and I decided to throw a look again at it. My following impression returned: it was a mess, but this time, instead of leaving the game I continued playing a good while, and began to happen to me what with so many other games that practically the MSX has only the capacity to do above the other platforms: playability and capacity to keep you interested. His music that although is repetitive began to like me, and accompanied to be being able to collect objects and to understand the mechanic of the game, I achieve to see this game with other eyes. The game explains to us more or less that our ship crashes in an inhospitable planet and we will have to leave it or surely we will die. The game is in 3D perspective like Alien 8 or Knight Lore. First of all what we must do is to look for a bag in which there are the Jump Boots. These boots are essential to jump, and they open an immense fan of possibilities to move the character with greater ability around the mapping and power us to flee over some walls in case of danger. By the way we will kill some tiny beasts of blue color like they appear in the screenshoot (we are the green character and the red spider will be our following victim in the survival roster once we have raised at least a new level). To all this we will have to worry to find the knife. All the objects are in bags, and once they are in our possession we will be able to use them entering in the menu option and in "Equip or Use" we will activate them. Also it is very important to obtain the bottle that increases the H.P. and also the shield. When we have obtained as minimum of all these objects and have raised 3 or 4 levels we can enter in another phase of the game. In certain points there are stairs, and if we took them the scenery changes completely, just as it happened in "Mirai The future". Here the game becomes something better as far as grafic quality, the perspective 3D disappears and shows all in a bird view in a unique screen without scroll. In this phase I have not ventured myself hardly by the poor acquired level, so you see the importance of becoming strong enough before entering yourself in greater adventures.



A thing that I always have emphasized of the MSX games is that if it does not have the option to continue or to save the game they loose interest. This one has it luckyly, but it only saves in cassette or in the memory of the game (not to confuse with Sram, because the option is only useful while we are in the game). Once we leave it via reset he have to say good bye to all and start again. For that reason if you do not have a cassette connected to the MSX the best option is to play without stop or to try it in some emulator to replace the previous lack of saving. When we attack the enemies, the method is by body contact like "Hydlide", but later we can obtain a pistol which we will use with the Graph key.

In short, an entertaining game without more pretensions than to make us spend a good while.

Select or Return: Menu.
Stop: Pause (spacebar to resume).
Cursors: Movement. Main Attack.
Space: Start game. Jump (if we have the boots).
Graph: Shoot (if we have the gun).




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