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Crystal Castles (クリスタルキャッスル)

Released in 1983

Developer: Atari
Manufacturer: Atari
Distributor: Atari

****.5 (2 total votes)

Crystal Castles marquee
game marquee

Game Summary

The Brothers Grimm go 3-d. Pac-man style game in which you move Bentley Bear through a series of dazzling 3-d landscapes, collecting gems and avoiding balls, trees, and other bad guys.

Hardware Info

Controls: Trakball / Button(s)
Horizontal-mounted Raster monitor
256 x 232 Resolution
Colors: 32 Color

Additional Hardware Info (from Mame)

M6502 cpu @ 1 Mhz
Pokey audio @ 1 Mhz
Pokey audio @ 1 Mhz

Hardware Platform

Atari 6502 Colour Raster

Mame ROMs

ccastles, Crystal Castles (set 1)
ccastle2, Crystal Castles (set 2)

Game Details

You are Bentley, a snuggly bear, trapped in the witch Berthilda's castle.  Your mission is to move through a series of increasingly elaborate castle landscapes, collecting gems as you go. Unfortunately Berthilda's henchmen, in the form of ghosts, trees, skeletons, one-eyed squiggly creatures, and the like, are also after the same gems, and, of course, you.

The game controller is a glowing trakball, which can take practice to get the knack of, but is well-suited for navigating the complex architecture of the levels.  With their 3-d isometric views, landscapes are reminiscent of Q-bert, and much of the charm of the game comes from exploring their elevators, ramps, and hidden back sections.  The landscapes are grouped into "levels" and after completing a landscape Bentley travels on roads connecting the landscapes and levels.

There are many warps that take you to higher levels. Pots of honey award extra points, but are guarded by an angry swarm of bees that descends with more urgency the longer you spend on a landscape.  Grabbing the witch's hat makes Bentley invincible to the evildoers, and enables him to kill Berthilda when she makes her sporadic appearances.

A landscape is complete when all the gems are collected, and you get a bonus if Bentley collects the last gem. Bentley is transported to the next landscape accompanied by a beeping rendition of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite.

This is one of the few games to actually have an end, and a clever touch is that the high scorer's initials are incorporated in the design of the first level.



Crystal Castles control panel
control panel


Crystal Castles cabinet photo
cabinet photo
Crystal Castles title screen
title screen
Crystal Castles gameplay screen shot
gameplay screen
Crystal Castles promotional flyer
promotional flyer

"Maybe" Images

(fuzzy search, these MAY match the game, or they may not)

Cyystal Castles cabinet

Coinop.org Member Ratings / Comments

***** by rsvore. Comment: "This is a great classic game. I bought this in November for $150 and it works great. Replaced the track ball bearings which inproved game play dramatically. My three year old girl can make it to the third maze all by herself." 2004-01-28 12:14:30Z

**** by Riggolitz. Comment: "I have an old stand up of this.... I love it. My trackball inputs are jumpy though. Even after replacement, can't seem to figure out the problem." 2003-12-10 15:16:56Z

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This game page was created 8/3/1998 12:00:00 AM and last updated 12/13/2021 6:38:28 AM