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Released in 1989 on the Taito F2 hardware, this very unique arcade puzzle action game
actually flew under the radar of many a gamer.
In the US it was released as On The Ball.
A crappy title indeed but at least it makes more sense than Cameltry.
The game play is fairly basic but addictive like all great games.
You control a maze that rotates around a marble.
The aim is to guide the marble to the goal of the stage while avoiding time penalty traps
and obstacles that are designed to slow you down of even trap you.
The game uses a rotary dial just like that found on Taito's own Arkanoid game.
This allowed for precise movement of the maze at any speed you wish.
Talking about the maze, I'm amazed Sega were never sued as the bonus stages in the original
Sonic the Hedgehog are defiantly "inspired" by Cameltry.
So the first port we’re going to take a look at is the Sharp X68000 version from the masters
of ports, Dempa.
Now before I begin I must point out that the flashing backgrounds and missing textures
on some icons is due to an emulation issue rather than the game.
When running on genuine X68000 hardware these issues are not present.
So let’s get in to the game.
First thing we notice upon visiting the title screen is the option to make your very own
courses.
This is a fantastic bonus but we won’t go in to it here.
This port also offers an arranged soundtrack although it’s not that special to be honest.
The original is fine in this game’s case.
Playability wise the controls are spot on.
I’m using the mouse controls here however this port came packaged with an accessory
that allowed you to turn your mouse in to a spin dial to control the game.
How about that for cool.
This accessory made an already fine playing port in to a near perfect arcade experience.
Cameltry also made it to the Fujitsu FM Towns and also came packaged with the exact same
accessory for turning your mouse in to a rotary dial.
Just like the X68000 port this version was ported by Dempa.
The FM Towns is a powerful system but we can see that it doesn’t quite work as well as
the X68000 when it comes to rotating the screen.
Still, despite the slightly rougher look this is an excellent port that also includes a
Micomsoft (Micomsoft are Dempa) original mode, which is cool.
Being that the Super Famicom was an amazing system when it came to rotating backgrounds
it’s only natural that Cameltry got a port to Nintendo’s amazing 16 bit console.
This port looks very close to the arcade original despite running in a lower resolution which
in turn gives us less of the maze on screen.
The audio is also extremely well done and dare I say sounding even better than the arcade
original.
One thing that is different though are the backgrounds.
For some reason Taito saw fit to change them.
Some of the changes aren’t a problem but some are just odd.
For example the 4th stage on Beginner mode is titled Space Walk, yet the background now
looks nothing like space.
So you may be thinking that this is an excellent port.
And it is apart from one point and that’s the movement of the ball.
It feels too stiff at times, as if it’s rolling around in mud or something.
This makes navigating some of the mazes more difficult than they need to be.
Especially if you are accustom to how the arcade game controls.
Still, you can get use to the less than fluent ball physics and using the mouse does help.