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Salamander Clones and Ports (Salamander-likes)


Clones & Ports of Konami's Salamander



This article is concerned with computer-game clones and ports of Konami's Salamander coinop of 1986.

Salamander-likes are defined by me as stock-standard scrolling shoot 'em ups that usually feature weapon pick-ups and power-ups, levels to progress through, end-level bosses, and dynamic and/or destructibile terrain.

Salamander-likes are missing:


Salamander-likes can feature horizontal and/or vertical screen-scrolling.

The origin of Salamander is Konami's Gradius of 1984, of which Salamander is a simplified spin-off. 

Salamander-likes are some of the most playable and stylish shooters.

The article is only concerned with Salamander clones and ports that appeared on Western computer game machines. The Salamander clones and ports are presented chronologically.

Salamander Clones


IO: Into Oblivion Commodore 64 1988


Coded by Doug Hare of Kinetic Design in 1988 for the C64, IO: Into Oblivion is a difficult side-scrolling shooter that features some of the best graphics on the Commodore 64.


IO's graphics were drawn by Bob Stevenson, and its audio was composed by David Whittaker. IO's weapons system consits of smart bombs that can be shot for weapon upgrades and orbs that increase the ship's defense. IO Bosses:


Armalyte Commodore 64 1988: Delta 2


Cyberdyne's Armalyte of 1988 on the Commodore 64 is much better than the 16 bit versions. Indeed, in regards to gameplay, graphics and technics C64 Armalyte is one of the best shooters in my entire treatment range. Don't pass over this one.


Designed and coded by Dan Phillips, Armalyte is the sequel to C64 Delta (a Gradius-like).

Armalyte bosses:


Armalyte Amiga 1991: The Final Run (Delta 2)


A remake of C64 Armalyte, 1991's Armalyte: The Final Run by Arc Developments is notable for its extreme trial-and-error difficulty. You will be doing well to survive the first horizontal wave let alone the first vertical wave. In addition, collision detection is off. The music is good but the sound effects are awful. Overall, this is a 5/10 shooter at best.


Armalyte coded by Derrick Owens.

Catalypse Commodore 64 1992


Catalypse is a high-quality horizontally-scrolling shooter coded by Andrea Pompili of Genias for the C64 in 1992. In the infographic below, the top-left image shows max firepower and the other images show the Catalypse bosses.


Catalypse bosses:


Catalypse was coded in CHAMP assembly language. Its backgrounds were drawn in the character set editor of the Shoot 'Em Up Construction Kit developed by Sensible Software in 1987. Music composed by Michael Tschögl.

Enforcer Commodore 64 1992


Enforcer: Fullmetal Megablaster is an exceedingly slick horizontally-scrolling shooter coded by Manfred Trenz aka The Master in 1992 for the Commodore 64. And Trenz is indeed a master of shoot 'em ups. Enforcer pushes the C64 sprite-count to the limit; its music is also king-tier. What an awesome shooter.


Enforcer bosses:


Salamander Ports


Salamander Commodore 64 1988


Here we have Imagine Software's 1988 Commodore 64 port of Konami's 1986 Salamander coinop.


Coded by Peter Baron, what we have here is smooth horizontal and vertical scrolling, high sprite-count (33 on-screen objects), super-fast sprite-shifting and slick sprite-scaling powered by a 6510 clocked at about 1 MHz, with 64 kbytes of RAM. And while there is some slowdown when the screen gets busy Salamander on the C64 was nevertheless one of the most impressive shooters of the 80s. The main thing is: I never lost a life due to slowdown.

The only problem is that C64 Salamander is too short and too easy.

The ZX Spectrum version coded by Andrew Glaister in 1988 is harder:


cf.


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