Through a Rose Coloured Bezel – Cadash

Hello.  This is the weapons shop. Would you like to buy something?

As a kid, I loved going to Jammo Pool. The smell of chlorine, coconut oil and hot chips with sauce – there was something magical about it.  I suppose the pool itself was probably pretty nice as well, but I spent most of my time in the tiny little arcade room next to the takeaway counter.

It was in here that I first laid eyes on Taito’s sword and sorcery / platform / rpg game, Cadash (1989). Cadash was graphically a lot like another Taito game, Rastan, which was also a favourite of mine, but offered something much more interesting to me.  The RPG element.  Choosing from a cast of four characters that included a Fighter, Mage, Priestess and Ninja, you set off across the medieval fantasy world of Dirzir in an attempt to kill the demon wizard Baarogue (later to be named The Balrog in the TurboGrafx version released in 1991) who has kidnapped King Dilsarls daughter and retreated to Castle Cadash.

The appeal of the game for me was the choice of characters, with each one having a different feel and play style.  The Fighter, Toru, had a quick attack speed, the Mage had strong magical attacks, but not much in the way of health.  The Priestess had a better ranged weapon, but it was slower than the Fighters and the Ninja had great ranged weapons like shurikens.  There was also a basic leveling system in the game and the ability to talk to villagers and buy equipment from vendors, something that, aside from Capcom’s “Black Tiger”(1987) and Sega’s fantastic “Wonder Boy in Monster Land”(1987) , I hadn’t really seen a lot of up until this point. (Capcom would go on to make Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom in 1993 that used a lot of the same ideas)  But damn! This game was hard!

Release . . . The Kraken!

The entire game had a cast of Dungeon & Dragons staples; skeletons, slimes and the much feared “Black Pudding“.  Later levels are infested with Mud Monsters, Harpies  and the like (and watch out for the dreaded Kraken guarding the Mermaid in The Underwater Caves).  The game was relatively short with speed runs coming in around 27 minutes and the difficulty really did depend on the class that you chose at the beginning of the game (I always chose the Ninja being a huge Shinobi (1987)  fan.

Once you have made your way through the Jungle Caves and into the Caves of the Dead (there were a lot of caves in this game) you made your way into Baarogue’s Castle to your final showdown with Baarogue.

"I shall kill you with my bare hands"

Overall it was a little underwhelming, but it went a long way to quenching my thirst for a D&D style arcade game and, as I mentioned earlier, started introducing some fantastic elements that would later feature in some great RPG style arcade games.

What are your memories of Cadash?  Did you have a favourite character that you played with your friends?  Why not post your comments below are share your experiences with the NerdGasm readers?

"Thank you for the important thing!"