Targhan

STORY / GAMEPLAY
Targhan, a barbarian warrior and son of a tribal leader, fights his way through a mythical world against other warriors, archers, bats and enormous monsters in order to protect his village Edengarhn. His main quest is to find and avenge the evil lord that terrorizes his people claiming the whole territory. The game is divided into 4 levels. Targhan travels through forests, dark dungeons (where he needs a source of light), tree houses and finally the castle of the evil lord. The game is a mixture of fighting action, killing enemies with your sword (plus a few extra weapons found on the way) and adventure since you'll find scrolls that give you clues and other objects that help you in your quest. But to get there is not so easy. You travel through the flick-screen forests that are pitted with entrances to underground passages, pass through the mountains of Clorg and reach a mysterious temple before finally finding the walls of the Evil One's castle!
Overall, Targhan is a standard side-scrolling action adventure that has some nice visual effects and a pretty tough gameplay. The last is a common characteristic of almost all Silmarils' games! Although the game boasts of "more than 120 landscapes and 40 different characters", repetitive levels and cardboard-cutout characters make it feel a lot smaller. Its great graphics and atmospheric sound, though, save the day and make a great to play, atmospheric game!

GRAPHICS / SOUND
The Atari ST version is technically quite similar to the Amiga version, but offers up to 16 colors on screen (same as the MS DOS version). Back in the days, many people thought that all versions were identical in terms of graphics, but apparently they are not (in considering the number of colors used on each version). In general, the game features stunning graphics with plenty of colorful and nicely drawn backgrounds and sprites, although dark colors are mainly used and the game runs in flip-screen mode. The animations are amazing at times but with significant slow-downs when too many sprites occupy the screen. The same glitch is found on the Amiga version (but fewer times) which makes me think that the Amiga version is a direct port from the ST with just a few enhancements. Each scene/screen is beautifully designed and offers thick forests, mountains and caverns, some with animated objects that add to the atmosphere. The game's sound features a really cool introductory theme, and several ambient sounds along with sampled SFX like grunting, growling and sword slashing.