Arcade Archives Rastan Saga

Genre: Action-Platformer

Players: 1-2 (Local Alternating), Online Leaderboards

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Review:

Rastan Saga, sometimes simply titled Rastan, is an Arcade-style Action-Platformer released in 1987 in arcades. This modern release sees the game coming to PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch in 2024.

Rastan Saga is an Action-Platformer with a “Conan the Barbarian” medieval fantasy aesthetic that has players taking the role of a muscular warrior fighting through hordes of enemies. It has its charms, but it features clunky movement, unforgiving gameplay, and absolutely terrible music that will have you reaching for the mute button.

This release of the game includes a new “Hi-Score Mode” that challenges players to score as much as they can in one run before seeing a game over screen. There is also a new “Caravan Mode” that does much the same, but with the limit being five minutes. In addition, this release of the game includes both International and Japanese releases, various display options, sound options, challenge modifiers, button mapping, and online leaderboards.

Overall, I can see how Rastan Saga might have appealed to players when it was originally released, but by today’s standards it’s repetitive, controls poorly, and is overly-difficult in a way that seems to be deliberate to push players to keep feeding quarters into a machine. In 2026 you have countless better options on Nintendo Switch, play one of those games instead.

tl;dr – Rastan Saga is an Action-Platformer with a “Conan the Barbarian” aesthetic, and while it has its charms, it has aged very poorly – it has clunky controls, is overly-difficult, and too repetitive. Skip it.

Grade: D+

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