Gods

n/a

Gods
System(s): Sega Mega Drive
Publisher: Mindscape (US), PCM Complete (JP), Accolade (EU)
Developer: Graftgold
Original system(s): Atari ST
Developer(s) of original games: The Bitmap Brothers
Sound driver: Graftgold custom
Genre: Action
Number of players: 1
Release Date RRP Code JP 1993-03-26 ¥8,8008,800 T-85013 US 1992-11 $49.9549.95 T-87016 EU 1993-11-26 T-119036-50 DE 1993-11 DM 110110 PT 1993 MD119036
Non-Sega versions Amiga Archimedes Atari ST IBM PC PC-9801 VX Super NES

Gods (ゴッズ) is a 1991 platformer by The Bitmap Brothers, originally released for the Atari ST and later ported to a variety of home consoles and computers, including a 1992 port to the Sega Mega Drive. This version was the first game published by Accolade after acquiring an official license after winning Sega v. Accolade (though they still presumably continued to press unlicensed games).

Story

"Four guardians" have broken the citadel used to protect the city of the gods, and have asked any warrior to retake the citadel in return for a favor. The greatest gift of all: immortality. You play as one such warrior, who asks to become a god himself, equal to the others.

Gameplay

The game has a self adaptive difficulty level, sometimes giving out health and extra lives to players instead of score related items.

shoots your weapon (which you carry one of and find throughout each level). jumps. To jump off ladders, hold down and tap left or right. By pressing , you face the wall, and can then use to do actions like flipping switches on the wall. You can carry up to four extra items with you, such as keys (used to open doors). To take an item, hold to switch to item grabbing mode and hit to pick the item up and put it in one of four slots (shown in the HUD), and then hit again to move the cursor to the next slot. To drop an item, move the cursor onto an item and leave item grabbing mode. You do not need to drop items to use keys; they activate automatically when you approach a door.

Passwords are given out at the end of each world after defeating the respective boss. You are given a pre-defined amount of money to power up, should you continue using a password.

Enemies' appearance changes from world to world and sometimes also from stage to stage, but their behavior can be categorized:

• walk a predefined path
• walk straight for the player's position
• fly for the player's position
• turret like behavior
• So called "thieves" take a special position. Starting with world 2, these characters will grab items and carry them around. They can be attracted by dropping a golden key, the item they desire the most. They can be utilized to transport items out of areas they player can't reach by himself.

Points are accumulated by defeating enemies and collecting treasure, often hidden away in secret areas that can only be accessed by solving puzzle sections. A lot of the bonus sections are very hard to find without the use of external resources. Extra lives and bonus points are rewarded for certain scores. As all score is lost when powering off the console, a play session focusing on score needs to be done in one sitting.

While the score system was carefully crafted, a design oversight exists: The beehives in the labyrinth stage release an unlimited amount of bees, and thus infinite score can be accumulated.

Worlds

Each world is split into three sections. Between these individual sections, new weapons, power ups and other items may be purchased at a traveling merchant's shop.

	The City
	The Temple
	The Labyrinth
	The Underworld

Weapons

• Main Weapons:

Each weapon has three power levels. Level 1 is a straight shot, level 2 is straight and upward, level 3 is straight, upward and downward. The angle the weapons are fired can be altered by pickups.

• Knife: standard equipment
• Throwing Star: stronger than the knife
• Spear: stronger than the throwing star, goes through walls
• Mace: weaker than the knife, can break certain blocks
• Axe: strongest weapon, no special properties

• Sub Weapons:

Aside from these main weapons, the game also features sub weapons, which are fired simultaneously with the main weapons.

• Energy star: arching shot, can be used together with the hammer
• Hammer: jumps long the floor until it finds a target
• Spiked Ball: homing shot

Versions

• All versions are region locked. The PAL version has speed up music but slower gameplay. Disabling the region lock with a cheating device (e.g. Game Genie code EAAT-AL1T) makes the game and music run at the correct speed. Content wise, the games are identical aside from translation differences.
• Compared to the Atari ST and Amiga releases, the home console ports feature:
  • A new, animated intro screen (but without the image song) compared to the still image of the original
  • In-game music was added, while the ST and Amiga releases were silent
  • New HUD that displays all items, this works without compromising the visible area as the Sega Mega Drive version runs at a slightly higher resolution.
  • Some palette changes in all stages, likely due to the higher amount of simultaneously displayed foreground colors - Amiga:32 MD:64 (e.g. the hero's armor is slightly blue colored compared to the grey ST version armor, enemies now have their own palettes).
  • The Amiga's "copper mode" background gradients, which can't be reproduced on the Sega Mega Drive without heavy dithering, have been replaced with parallax scrolling buildings and scenery.
  • The final ascension to olympus scene was made exclusive for console versions.
  • The ability to perform a straight vertical jump was added & walking speed is much faster, making it possible to clear the game in ~1 hour (compared to the Amiga version, which took ~2 hours).
  • In the Atari ST version, you are given "immortality" by receiving a screen full of 1UP items after the final boss, which is missing in the Sega Mega Drive version. The extended ending scene is a replacement for this.
  • The game doesn't loop infinitely with an increased difficulty level after clearing it. Instead it brings the player to the highscore screen

Production credits

• Design: Eric Matthews, Steve Tall
• Original Coding: Steve Tall
• Graphics: Mark Coleman
• Original Music: John Foxx
• Sega Conversion: Gary J. Foreman at Graftgold Ltd.
• Sega Sound: Jason Page
• Additional Graphics: Mark Coleman, Eric Matthews, Philip Williams

Magazine articles

Main article: Gods/Magazine articles.

Promotional material

Print advert in Sega Visions (US) #11: "February/March 1993" (199x-xx-xx)

Print advert in Mean Machines Sega (UK) #15: "January 1994" (1993-11-30)

Print advert in Computer & Video Games (UK) #146: "January 1994" (1993-12-15)

Print advert in Video Games (DE) #1994-03: "3/94" (1994-02-23)

Print advert in Todo Sega (ES) #9: "Diciembre 1993" (1993-1x-xx)

Print advert in Beep! MegaDrive (JP) #1993-01: "January 1993" (1992-12-08)

Physical scans

Sega Retro Average

Publication Score Source Aktueller Software Markt (DE) 92 Beep! MegaDrive (JP) 53 Beep! MegaDrive (readers) (JP) 52 Computer & Video Games (UK) 83 Computer & Video Games (UK) 87 Mean Machines: The Essential Sega Guide (UK) 78 GameFan (US) 87 GamePro (US) 95 Hippon Super (JP) 40 №1993-01, p83 MAN!AC (DE) 59 Sega Mega Drive Advanced Gaming (UK) 91 Mega (UK) 76 Mega Action (UK) 83 №1, p65 Mega Action (UK) 88 №7, p42-43 Mega Machines (UK) 68 №2, p40-42 MegaTech (UK) 89 Mean Machines Sega (UK) 89 Player One (FR) 75 №37, p156 Sega Power (UK) 87 №49, p98-99 Sega Pro (UK) 92 №13, p36-37 Sega Pro (UK) 92 №18, p65 Sega Pro (UK) 81 №25, p62-63 Sega Zone (UK) 92 Sega Force (SE) 60 Sonic the Comic (UK) 86 №18, p12 Video Games (DE) 72

	79
Based on 26 reviews

Sega Retro Average

Publication Version Score 1700 igr dlya Sega (RU) 70 Alaab Alcomputtar (SA) 85 Aktueller Software Markt (DE) 92 Beep! MegaDrive (JP) NTSC-J 53 Consoles + (FR) 88 Computer & Video Games (UK) 83 Computer & Video Games (UK) 87 Digitiser (UK) 60 Entsiklopediya luchshikh igr Sega. Vypusk 1 (RU) 70 Mean Machines: The Essential Sega Guide (UK) 78 Famitsu (JP) NTSC-J 55 GameFan (US) NTSC-U 87 GamePro (US) NTSC-U 95 Games World (Teletext) (UK) 85 Hippon Super (JP) NTSC-J 40 MAN!AC (DE) 59 Sega Mega Drive Advanced Gaming (UK) 91 Sega Mega Drive Advanced Gaming (UK) NTSC-U 91 Mega (UK) NTSC 76 Mega (UK) NTSC-U 76 Mega Action (UK) NTSC 83 Mega Action (UK) PAL 88 Mega Force (FR) 82 Mega Fun (DE) NTSC-U 68 Mega Machines (UK) PAL 68 MegaTech (UK) NTSC 89 Marukatsu Mega Drive (JP) NTSC-J 65 Mean Machines Sega (UK) NTSC-U 89 Player One (FR) 75 Play Time (DE) 81 Power Unlimited (NL) 82 Sega Power (UK) PAL 87 Sega Pro (UK) NTSC 92 Sega Pro (UK) NTSC-U 92 Sega Pro (UK) PAL 81 Sega Zone (UK) NTSC-U 92 Sega Zone (UK) PAL 74 Sega Force (SE) 60 Sega Mega Drive Review (RU) 68 Sega Saturn Magazine (JP) NTSC-J 52 Sonic the Comic (UK) PAL 86 Todo Sega (ES) PAL 77 Tricks 16 bit (RU) 79 Video Games (DE) 72

	77
Based on 44 reviews

Gods

Mega Drive, US
Cover
Cart

Mega Drive, EU
Cover
Cart Manual

Mega Drive, JP
Cover
Cart Manual

Technical information

ROM dump status

System	Hash	Size	Build Date	Source	Comments
✔	CRC32 fd234ccd MD5 7c3fcd8a86e01e5b542434fd37a49002 SHA-1 bfc84beba074c7dc58b0b4fcac73fffcf0c6b585	1MB	1992-06	Cartridge (US)
✔	CRC32 6c415016 MD5 b4b855462eba7076407a7fa6265b61e4 SHA-1 404bc6e67cd4942615ccb7bd894d780278ec6da7	1MB	1993-09	Cartridge (EU)
✔	CRC32 e4f50206 MD5 020bf924cf6073e52f9df6e70eeaa800 SHA-1 804fd783c6fb7c226fbe4b227ed5c665d668ff57	1MB	1992-06	Cartridge (JP)
?	CRC32 2c06bb64 MD5 8d08d9aa97bd912870cfe13f9995a25d SHA-1 dd9c03eaf3160303775ca1bca048101614507203	1MB	1992-06					Page