beyond minor changes to the title screen and some prompts/messages. In North America, it was compared unfavorably to The Legend of Zelda (1986), which had improved significantly upon Hydlide. The NES version of Hydlide became notorious in the West for its repetitive background music that bears similarity to John Williams' Indiana Jones theme or Disney's It's a Small World After All. In Electronic Gaming Monthlys 1989 review of the NES version, Ed and Donn each scored it 6/10 while Steve and Jim scored it 5/10. Ed called it a "good" game with "average" graphics and "not too terribly annoying" music, and said it is "a good alternative to Ultima, Zelda, and other quest-oriented" RPGs; Steve said he's "not the biggest fan of RPG type games" and it is "a little tricky to get started" but has "some redeeming features" and many surprises despite "rough" graphics and sound; and Jim said the graphics are "not too good" but considered the gameplay as solid. Retrospective reception of the game has been generally negative in the West. Series Hydlide had several follow-ups: Hydlide II: Shine of Darkness was originally released for the NEC PC-8801 in 1985 and then ported to the MSX in Japan. An official English version was released through the Dutch MSX games distribution platform WOOMB.net in late 2006, the first official release outside Japan. The game introduced a morality meter, where the player can be aligned with Justice, Normal, or Evil. Killing humans or good monsters lowers the player's morality, while fighting evil monsters increases it. If the player has an evil alignment, the townsfolk will ignore the player, denying access to certain clues, dialogues, equipment, and training. The game also introduced a time option, allowing the player to speed up or slow down the gameplay. Hydlide 3: The Space Memories was released in 1987 for the MSX in Japan; a Family Computer version (with the subtitle 闇からの訪問者 = yami kara no hōmonsha = visitor from darkness) was released in Japan in 1989. The game retains the morality meter of its predecessor and expands the time option with an in-game clock and a need to sleep and eat. The game uses four distinct character classes. This game was also re-released through the Dutch MSX games distribution platform WOOMB.net in late 2006, with an English translation. Super Hydlide is an updated port of Hydlide 3 released for the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive.