I greatly enjoyed the Atari 8-bit version of Archon. Like Bill, I confess that I played the pirated version, but later bought the game (Atari version). Where my copy of Archon is now, I have no idea.
Anyhow, as a fairly heavy Archon player back in the day, of course I used the strategic aspects of the game to my advantage, but in my opinion, the game was HEAVILY slanted to favor joystick jockeys like myself. I could beat anyone I knew just through the arcade combat aspect of the game. No matter how strategic my opponent played, I could pretty much wipe them off the board through my joystick prowess. In many cases, I could even take out their most powerful pieces by "clubbing" them with one of my pawns, even if the square's "brightness" was completely in the opponent's favor! And that was against human opponents; the computer opponent was ridiculously easy to beat. "Archon" often played out like a player-versus-player shooter, with "strategic elements" tacked on as an afterthought.
Sometimes I even let my opponents wipe out most of my pieces to give myself a handicap, then proceeded to clean their clocks with my few remaining pieces!
Essentially, the game had a feel much like "Unreal Tournament" online, where master players could annihilate moderately-skilled players, and especially newbies, making the game seem much less fun to the lesser players.
I didn't play much Archon II: Adept, but if I recall correctly, it not only had the same "joystick jockey" weakness, it might have made this problem worse! It had an "Armageddon" mode, where at a certain point, one player could declare "Armageddon" (or whatever it was called in the game), and the game was settled in a toe-to-toe "slugfest" between the two players. The end result was kind of like a soccer match that goes into overtime, where the entire match is settled on some goal kicks, i.e. entirely negating all the skill that went into the game up to that point. Needless to say, a good "action" player could settle the match easily over a less skilled opponent, no matter how strategically the opponent played!
The game should have had more concessions for strategic players. Perhaps skill levels that handicap the opponent, evening the playing field, could have been added. Or, perhaps more severe penalties for being on a "dark" square if you're a "light side" player, and vice versa. Perhaps slowing you down more, or slowing your rate of fire (more?), or whatever, might have made the game more competitive for "cerebral" players.
The game had its balance problems, but it was a very creative concept and well-executed, and would have made an excellent game for two high-skill "action" players. It's still a classic, but I would have liked to see highly-strategic players having a better chance against the action-oriented players.
Imagine a game that pits a strategy genius against an action genius, with various variations of tactical play styles inbetween, all equally effective depending on how well you play according to your style! Archon didn't achieve that, but it might have shown the way.
I greatly enjoyed the Atari 8-bit version of Archon. Like Bill, I confess that I played the pirated version, but later bought the game (Atari version). Where my copy of Archon is now, I have no idea.
Anyhow, as a fairly heavy Archon player back in the day, of course I used the strategic aspects of the game to my advantage, but in my opinion, the game was HEAVILY slanted to favor joystick jockeys like myself. I could beat anyone I knew just through the arcade combat aspect of the game. No matter how strategic my opponent played, I could pretty much wipe them off the board through my joystick prowess. In many cases, I could even take out their most powerful pieces by "clubbing" them with one of my pawns, even if the square's "brightness" was completely in the opponent's favor! And that was against human opponents; the computer opponent was ridiculously easy to beat. "Archon" often played out like a player-versus-player shooter, with "strategic elements" tacked on as an afterthought.
Sometimes I even let my opponents wipe out most of my pieces to give myself a handicap, then proceeded to clean their clocks with my few remaining pieces!
Essentially, the game had a feel much like "Unreal Tournament" online, where master players could annihilate moderately-skilled players, and especially newbies, making the game seem much less fun to the lesser players.
I didn't play much Archon II: Adept, but if I recall correctly, it not only had the same "joystick jockey" weakness, it might have made this problem worse! It had an "Armageddon" mode, where at a certain point, one player could declare "Armageddon" (or whatever it was called in the game), and the game was settled in a toe-to-toe "slugfest" between the two players. The end result was kind of like a soccer match that goes into overtime, where the entire match is settled on some goal kicks, i.e. entirely negating all the skill that went into the game up to that point. Needless to say, a good "action" player could settle the match easily over a less skilled opponent, no matter how strategically the opponent played!
The game should have had more concessions for strategic players. Perhaps skill levels that handicap the opponent, evening the playing field, could have been added. Or, perhaps more severe penalties for being on a "dark" square if you're a "light side" player, and vice versa. Perhaps slowing you down more, or slowing your rate of fire (more?), or whatever, might have made the game more competitive for "cerebral" players.
The game had its balance problems, but it was a very creative concept and well-executed, and would have made an excellent game for two high-skill "action" players. It's still a classic, but I would have liked to see highly-strategic players having a better chance against the action-oriented players.
Imagine a game that pits a strategy genius against an action genius, with various variations of tactical play styles inbetween, all equally effective depending on how well you play according to your style! Archon didn't achieve that, but it might have shown the way.
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