Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows

Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows abandons the purely arcade concept of its predecessors and moves closer to an action RPG with a more pronounced story about seven sins that need to be cleansed. Instead of the quartet of iconic archetypes from previous entries, it offers new characters with their own backstory, voice acting, and more branching motivation for even venturing into dungeons full of monsters at all, and cutscenes between missions give the whole campaign a clearer story arc than any of the arcade entries ever had. The core gameplay, though – tussling with hordes of enemies, collecting gold and food, and gradually upgrading the character – remains recognizably Gauntlet, and a fan of the previous entries will get their bearings in the controls instantly.

On the PS2, the game also for the first time in the series focuses on a home console as its primary platform without an arcade cabinet in the background, which shows in the pacing: gone is the pressure of dwindling time forcing coin payments, missions can be played more calmly and with greater emphasis on exploring individual levels and searching for hidden treasures. The levels are more sprawling and less repetitive than in the arcade predecessors, because they no longer need to be designed to be looped through endlessly for the sake of coin revenue. Co-op for up to four players remains intact, albeit now only via split screen or multiple controllers on a single console, not in a hall full of strangers at neighboring cabinets. Voiced characters and ongoing dialogue during missions give the campaign an atmosphere that the terse arcade entries never needed, since their goal was mainly to keep the player occupied between payments, whereas Seven Sorrows wants to tell a self-contained story with a clear ending.

Why play it: Anyone who knows Gauntlet only as a coin-driven arcade grinder will find in Seven Sorrows a slower and more story-driven variant of the same concept, tailored to home play on the PS2 and to a longer sit-down in front of one television.