Bentley Bear as a character has a bit of an interesting story. You see, the character first entered arcades in his first outing Crystal Castles in 1983. In this game, the story is that Bentley went to the Crystal Castle in search of gemstones. When the game was brought home to the Atari 2600 a year later in 1984, the story of Bentley was altered. The altered version of the story according to the manual is that Bentley took a nap and when he woke up, he found himself in a giant
castle. He found that he was trapped in the castle by a witch named Berthilda. In order to escape, he was tasked with gathering gemstones. While gathering gemstones, he had to be careful to avoid Berthilda’s minors.
So that’s a little bit of history about Bentley Bear. But all that to say that this review is about the latest entry in his series and the first (hopefully not last) sequel called Bentley Bear’s Crystal Quest for the Atari 7800.
In this game, we see Bentley Bear traveling across the five realms and reclaiming the life crystals to restore the realms to their former glory. It is up to Bentley to brave Berthilda the Witch’s minions and eventually reach Berthilda and dispatch her at the end of each realm to reclaim the live crystal.
Bentley Bear’s Crystal Quest (from now on will be referred to as BBCQ) is a game that is reminiscent of games like Super Mario Bros in the way that it plays; it’s a side-scrolling platformer. You are put at the start of a stage with rocks and other hazards to jump over like pits. There are hidden treasures you can collect, different colored jewels to pick up, and Berthilda’s minions to dispatch. You have a single weapon to do this with which to me looks like a shiny rock that you throw at bad guys (it’s actually one of the colored gems and is white).
While enemies take a single hit to dispatch, Berthilda takes several hits to defeat at the end of each world. Bentley Bear will also take one hit to lose a life. This is unless you obtain one of the colored jewels. The way the jewels work is that there is white, red, and green. The white one you start out with is what you can throw at enemies and gives you one hit point. So once an enemy hits you, the hit point is depleted and you lose a life (the game calls them turns). The red jewel will give you two hit points and will replace the white jewel that you pick up. The green jewel that you can pick up won’t replace the one you’re holding, but it will enhance whichever jewel you have equipped.
So this means that if you have the white jewel and pick up a green, it will give you two hit points instead of one. If you have a red jewel and pick up a green one, it will give you four hit points. The really cool thing about the green jewel that really makes it special is that it can be stacked. So if you have one white jewel for example and pick up two green jewels, you will have four hit points instead of two. These green jewels can be stacked to the point of having a maximum of eight hit points total.
One thing to keep in mind with these jewels is that if you have a white jewel and two green jewels, don’t pick up a red jewel. If you do, it will reset the stack and be like you never had the previous green jewels and start the count back at two, which is the value of the red jewel.
When it comes to enemies in the game, there are a total of four. You have floating heads, crystal balls, knights, and mini Berthilda. The floating heads have one hit point, are worth 750 points and unpredictable. They are slow to appear and can suddenly charge at Bentley at any time. Crystal Balls have five hit points, are worth 1000 points, and can be difficult to dispatch. They will charge at the Bentley and will track him vertically when jumping on platforms. If they miss hitting him, they will turn around and charge again. Knights have one hit point, are worth 500 points and are the slowest enemies in the game. They have the ability to hit jewels that Bentley throws with their sword. So it’s best to spam the jewel at them to defeat them. Mini Berthilda is the rarest enemy you will encounter. She takes the patterns of various flying enemies when encountered, has four hit points and is worth 2500 points when defeated.
At the end of each of the five worlds you have to defeat the mighty Berthilda the Witch. I say she’s mighty because well, she’s really had to defeat and you have to defeat her a total of five times. When you encounter her at the end of a world, she takes all of your jewels and leaves you with a red jewel so two hit points, unless you’re carrying a white one, then you will be reduced to one hit point.
This means that if you have been going through the world like a boss all beefed up with green jewels and eight hit points, you my friend will be reduced to two hit points, or even one, depending on which one you’ve been stacking the green jewels on top of. Not only does this old witch nearly break you when it comes to hit points, but she takes thirty two hits to defeat.
No, that wasn’t a typo. She takes thirty two hits to defeat, but hey once you defeat her, you get a life crystal and get to move onto the next world!
When it comes to graphics, well Bentley Bear’s Crystal Quest looks really good. I mean yes this is a game on the Atari 7800 so it’s not going to look like something you would find on modern platforms. But with that said, for an Atari 7800 game, it’s easily one of the best looking games to come to the platform.
All of the enemy sprites are colorful and bright. Bentley himself even looks like a bear! I mean he is large enough on screen and has a lot of details to the point you can definitely tell he’s a bear. The backgrounds of each level doesn’t have the same level of detail, but has enough to be serviceable. The first stage is a forest stage with trees in the background and even some in the foreground that you have to use as platforms. As primitive as this may sound, it feels a bit like an NES game and is graphically impressive for the platform.
What makes this so significant is that the Atari 7800 came out a full month before the NES did, at least in North America, back in 1986. Now one could argue that this game is a game that was released just this past year in 2024, which would be correct. But the fact of the matter remains that the platform released a full month before the NES and here we have a game on the 7800 that looks on par, and in some cases looks even better than that of its competitor the NES.
While I would go so far as to say this is one of the best graphically looking games on the platform, its performance is just as impressive as its graphics. Before I go into this game’s performance, I will say that this is the first time I have played a side-scrolling platformer on the Atari 7800. When it comes to this era of gaming, the only side scrolling platforming games I played was on the NES. I feel it’s necessary at this point to kind of go off on a side tangent about the NES. With the NES, it has issues with sprite flickering, and very rarely can have issues with scrolling depending on the game you’re playing and how it’s been optimized.
I said that to give you an idea on my experience with the NES and side scrolling platformers. So when I went into BBCQ I was sincerely blown away. I mean this game has buttery smooth scrolling that is very fast and fluid. The game has zero slow down of any kind. Flickering sprites? Yeah forget that! There are none present with this game on the Atari 7800! Playing this game and seeing how it performs on a console that was released a full month before the NES had me smiling every single time I sat down to spend time playing it.
When it comes to sound, BBCQ doesn’t fare as well as it does with graphics and performance. That’s not to say that it doesn’t sound good, it’s just not as impressive when it comes to audio as it is with graphics and performance. The game sounds really good..but for an Atari 7800 game. The game has some good sound effects and the music sounds really good. The music is up beat and compliments each level really well. The music doesn’t sound repetitive or annoying and does nothing but add to the fun of each level of the game. Sound effects are decent, but are also a bit on the repetitive side. It’s enough to get the job done and be serviceable, but isn’t as nice on the ears like the music is.
Bentley Bears Crystal Quest is one of the most impressive side scrolling games I’ve ever played on an 8-bit platform. The game isn’t too long, offers a good amount of challenge, average enemy variety for a 7800 game, has great music, and some of the best graphics and performance on the platform. BBCQ rivals that of Mario in a big way and in my eyes surpasses it when it comes to the NES games. I mean this is a side scrolling platformer that you really must play to really get just how fantastic of a game this is.
If you have an Atari 7800 and you don’t have this game, you really should remedy that immediately. The game is a must have for your Atari 7800 collection and I recommend playing this game at least once in your lifetime!
Disclaimer: A review copy was provided.
Those interested can purchase the game here
In addition to writing articles, Ryan Byers also creates content for his YouTube channel called "Obscure Games and Consoles", collects video games, and dabbles in video game development.