Rastan (Master System) Playthrough
242A playthrough of Sega's 1989 action-platformer for the Sega Master System, Rastan.
Conan the Barbarian was one of my favorite movies as a kid in the 80s. I badly wanted a game that gave me to chance to experience the open steppe, fleet horse, falcons at my wrist, and the wind in my hair, and Mindscape's Conan: The Mysteries of Time for the NES didn't do it for me. Since I was completely indifferent to the Master System back then, I had no idea that Sega's 8-bit machine had exactly the game that I had been looking for all that time.
Rastan, an adaptation of Taito's 1987 coin-op title Rastan Saga, is a Conan game in all but name. As a broad sword-wielding barbarian looking to create a legacy, you take on a quest to save a kingdom that has been threatened by hordes of mythological beasts.
The game is an action-platformer that evenly splits it focus between monster battling and precision platforming challenges across its six levels, each of which is split into two stages and capped off with a big boss fight. The controls are excellent, the action is demanding but fair, and the enemy designs and backdrops do a great job of capturing the violent fantasy tone of the films.
Though I didn't discover it until decades after its release, Rastan has since become one of my favorite 8-bit action games. I can't recommend it highly enough.
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