Game Info
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Developer: Elite
Publisher: Elite
Year of Release: 1988
Game Review & Impressions
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Even before I started this longplay, I knew it was going to be bad. I covered the C64 version of this game several years back, and it was a less than stellar experience. Those familiar with its history may already know it didn't start life as a ThunderCats game at all; Elite purchased and rebranded Samurai Dawn, a near-complete title by FTL Games, when they realised their existing ThunderCats game was going to miss the Christmas deadline. The Amiga port has the added insult of being an obvious conversion from the Atari ST, replete with embarrassing blip-bloop sound effects and intro tune that is nothing even remotely like the music from the cartoon show.
What we have here is a dull and utterly repetitive side-scroller where you wander left or right, depending on which way the arrow at the bottom of the screen is indicating, jumping over water, avoiding obstacles, and dispatching enemies by whacking them with the Sword of Omens or shooting them with a weedy pew-pew laser gun. Bonus lives, points and weapon swaps can be acquired by hitting parts of the scenery, although the skull-shaped containers will actually kill you if you touch them, which seems rather ridiculous. It's dull, monotonous drivel which squanders the license on which its based and in no way deserving of the +70% review scores awarded by certain magazines. The ultimate insult to injury in this whole charade has to be the Poundland Mumm-Ra that rises out of the floor on one of the later levels, rooted to the spot like some cardboard cut-out.
Thunder....Thunder....ThunderCats?? Noooooooooo!
Chapters
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00:00 Title screen & music
02:09 Gameplay
10:50 Mumm-Ra!
12:23 Gameplay
25:08 Ending