Night Hunter

STORY / GAMEPLAY
Night Hunter exploits the adventure of Dracula hunted by Von Helsing, a gallant vampire killer. The game has ten (10) levels of in which you must collect five keys and three parchments to further proceed. Dracula finds himself trapped inside a castle, fighting other creatures of the night, including... humans! You need to always feed by biting humans and drinking their blood to replenish your blood supply, otherwise you'll be left for dead! The game's objective is split into different levels each one including 20 panels. To go from one level to another, Dracula must collect 8 objects and find a magic door (a blue or red one). The 8 objects are 1 scroll, 1 red bottle, 1 cross and 5 keys. Each key enables you to open a door that leads you to other screens of the level. By the time Dracula passes through 5 levels (reaching a town), he has to collect these 8 objects and find the medallion to go to the next level. The enemies vary from armed humans (with arrows, axes, wooden stakes, crosses), rats, to even walking skeletons, flying witches and... priests sprinkling holy water! You will also encounter policemen shooting silver bullets! As the mighty Prince of Darkness, you have the ability to transform into a werewolf and a bat! The werewolf allows you to jump over traps on the floor and on platforms while the vampire bat allows you to fly over water and quickly reach higher areas of the level.

GRAPHICS / SOUND
The graphics on the ST are beautiful, the sprites are funny and the animation is swift. There are several details on each level varying from indoor castle graphics (with i.e. coffins and animated candles found everywhere) to outdoor landscapes, city blocks and so on. Technically, the ST version has 16 colors on-screen (comparably the Amiga has 20+) but still the two 16bit versions look equally good. The sound on the ST is limited to sound effects only with no in-game music, but they are all sampled and add a lot to the game's creepy atmosphere. As the game loads, a loop of a sampled horror music opens the game. Overall, the ST version is one of the best action platform games ever created for the 16bit Atari home computer.