PrinceWatercress plays Smurf: Rescue in Gargamel's Castle - Longplay

Now to have fun with this game, minus commentary. Enjoy!

Let's Play

Smurfette has been kidnapped by the evil Gargamel, and it's up to you as a nameless Smurf to leave the village, avoid the hazards that come your way and get to Smurfette.

To start the game, press the fire button on Controller 1. The Game Select switch let you start on higher loops/difficulties, but that is about it. You can also choose between one or two players, and both players take turns with the other person playing when someone loses a life, which usually happens when someone either runs out of energy or touches a hazard. 

Left and Right lets you move left and right, respectively, while Up on the joystick allows you to jump. After you jump, you can then hold Up and Right on the jump to do a superjump. This will allow you to perform a higher jump after hitting the ground, which will allow you to get over hazards and enemies. By getting past enemies and hazards, you'll score points, and if you score 10,000, you'll earn an extra life.

You have a timer that goes down, which the manual calls an energy meter, and when it runs out, the Smurf gets tired. Whenever you enter a new area, you'll refill your energy.

The game starts out in the forest. Use the superjump to get over the fence that gets in your way. You'll need to use the superjump to get over the streams and steps. You'll soon enter a cave. You'll want to jump so you can land to the left of the spider is, then you'll want to wait until the spider is out of your way to continue right and superjump to the other side. After superjumping over another stream, you'll be in Gargamel's castle. Make a regular jump to the chair on the left, then keep superjumping your way to the table, then to the top of the chair in the center, and finally to the platform where Smurfette is. Run into Smurfette, and you'll get a ton of points and start the second loop.

The second loop introduces new hazards. After the fence in the forest, you'll run into a hawk. Wait for the hawk to dive down, then superjump over it. At the streams, you'll also have to avoid snakes. Wait for the snake to be in the stream, then jump over both the stream and the snake. There will also be hawks at the steps as well. Each area will also have one more screen in the second loop than in the previous loop, which means you'll have to be fast to get through each area and refill your energy. When you enter the cave, you'll have to get past the spider twice, and the spider will be a little bit faster. As for Gargamel's castle, which you'll reach after two more streams (and snakes), you'll want to watch the hawk as you do what you did last time to get to Smurfette and start the third loop.

In the third loop, you have three of every screen in each section. Not only are the enemies faster, but the snakes also double back! You'll also want to be ready to get in place and jump to Smurfette. As for the fourth loop, the enemies are even faster. The fourth loop is definitely difficult, though. You'll need to keep superjumping after you get past an enemy by holding Up and Right when you get past the enemy, as the snake can and will eventually return. At this point, the game is relentless, and understandably, this is the part where you can really easily lose all of your lives.

This is a fine game to get for the Atari 2600, and a fine first effort for the Smurfs franchise. The backgrounds are pretty colorful, the Smurf characters are easily identifiable, and you can pretty easily identify all of the enemies, too. The music is very Smurfy, and it really fits the mood of the animated cartoons from the era. You even get some slightly darker music for the cave screens with the spider! Controls are easy and responsive, but they take a little while to learn and get used to, and once you know how to use the superjump, getting through the game is easier. There is a little bit of replay value in getting through and past the fourth loop of the game, what with the game being easy to learn and difficult to master, and a two-player alternating mode is also pretty fun. All in all, this is a fine game for Atari 2600 (and Colecovision), and should definitely be in an old-school video game library.

PrinceWatercress plays Smurf: Rescue in Gargamel's Castle - Let's Play

This one is easy to play, but hard to master when you get into the later loops! Definitely worth playing.

Longplay

Smurfette has been kidnapped by the evil Gargamel, and it's up to you as a nameless Smurf to leave the village, avoid the hazards that come your way and get to Smurfette.

To start the game, press the fire button on Controller 1. The Game Select switch let you start on higher loops/difficulties, but that is about it. You can also choose between one or two players, and both players take turns with the other person playing when someone loses a life, which usually happens when someone either runs out of energy or touches a hazard. 

Left and Right lets you move left and right, respectively, while Up on the joystick allows you to jump. After you jump, you can then hold Up and Right on the jump to do a superjump. This will allow you to perform a higher jump after hitting the ground, which will allow you to get over hazards and enemies. By getting past enemies and hazards, you'll score points, and if you score 10,000, you'll earn an extra life.

You have a timer that goes down, which the manual calls an energy meter, and when it runs out, the Smurf gets tired. Whenever you enter a new area, you'll refill your energy.

The game starts out in the forest. Use the superjump to get over the fence that gets in your way. You'll need to use the superjump to get over the streams and steps. You'll soon enter a cave. You'll want to jump so you can land to the left of the spider is, then you'll want to wait until the spider is out of your way to continue right and superjump to the other side. After superjumping over another stream, you'll be in Gargamel's castle. Make a regular jump to the chair on the left, then keep superjumping your way to the table, then to the top of the chair in the center, and finally to the platform where Smurfette is. Run into Smurfette, and you'll get a ton of points and start the second loop.

The second loop introduces new hazards. After the fence in the forest, you'll run into a hawk. Wait for the hawk to dive down, then superjump over it. At the streams, you'll also have to avoid snakes. Wait for the snake to be in the stream, then jump over both the stream and the snake. There will also be hawks at the steps as well. Each area will also have one more screen in the second loop than in the previous loop, which means you'll have to be fast to get through each area and refill your energy. When you enter the cave, you'll have to get past the spider twice, and the spider will be a little bit faster. As for Gargamel's castle, which you'll reach after two more streams (and snakes), you'll want to watch the hawk as you do what you did last time to get to Smurfette and start the third loop.

In the third loop, you have three of every screen in each section. Not only are the enemies faster, but the snakes also double back! You'll also want to be ready to get in place and jump to Smurfette. As for the fourth loop, the enemies are even faster. The fourth loop is definitely difficult, though. You'll need to keep superjumping after you get past an enemy by holding Up and Right when you get past the enemy, as the snake can and will eventually return. At this point, the game is relentless, and understandably, this is the part where you can really easily lose all of your lives.

This is a fine game to get for the Atari 2600, and a fine first effort for the Smurfs franchise. The backgrounds are pretty colorful, the Smurf characters are easily identifiable, and you can pretty easily identify all of the enemies, too. The music is very Smurfy, and it really fits the mood of the animated cartoons from the era. You even get some slightly darker music for the cave screens with the spider! Controls are easy and responsive, but they take a little while to learn and get used to, and once you know how to use the superjump, getting through the game is easier. There is a little bit of replay value in getting through and past the fourth loop of the game, what with the game being easy to learn and difficult to master, and a two-player alternating mode is also pretty fun. All in all, this is a fine game for Atari 2600 (and Colecovision), and should definitely be in an old-school video game library.

AqualungGameReviews reviews The Smurfs: Rescue in Gargamel's Castle

Of course, you don't have to take my word for it.

/readingrainbow

Highlordretrogamer89 plays The Smurfs: Rescue In Gargamel's Castle

C'mon, it's not that bad.

This game has probably the most frustrating second screen in any Atari 2600 game if you don't know what to do. I remember watching a friend play this on a netbook on the Stella emulator and we both wondered how the hell to jump over that lousy fence. It was harder than it should have been, and that fence became a pain in the ass until we finally found out there's a double jump. To do the Double Jump, you jump, then immediately jump again in the direction you want to go. This second jump is much higher, and as long as you keep jumping, you'll keep doing the high jump. I find it amazing that you have to use the double jump to basically get past every obstacle in the game, and that touching as much as a simple fence outright kills you.

Once you know how to do that, the game's pretty much easy. The hawk and the bat are both easy to double jump over when you do it at the right time. Double jump over the snake when he's on the river. The spider's pretty easy, too. Just walk under him when he's right over your Smurf's head level while he's on his way back up to the web.

It's all really a matter of not screwing up in Gargamel's House to rescue Smurfette, as you have to position yourself in a certain spot and figure out the double jump's limits. The bat waits a little longer than the hawk to dive down for a few seconds, but once you figure the bat out, all that's left is Smurfette.

You get an extra life every 10,000 points.

Is this one worth picking up? Despite the occasional person on the Internet telling you that it's really bad, it's really not that difficult once you get everything down, and it's actually quite enjoyable when you do. There's not really much to the game in terms of action, and it's all a matter of knowing what to do when. Once you figure out how to do the double jump and memorize as the enemies' attack patterns, the game is ridiculously easy. It's a must for a Smurfs fan, but it's definitely worth a shot even for the most casual gamer as there are few choices better than this one for the beginning 2600 enthusiast who actually wants to play the games as much as collect them.


Try this game out. You won't be too disappointed.