The beast was present in the land and from tower to tower the sorcerers voice called upon him. As night encroached and set the sun to flight, so his legions made ready to conceal the tablets that would see daylight banished forever.
So, as the same last bloody light drained from east to west, the...
The beast was present in the land and from tower to tower the sorcerers voice called upon him. As night encroached and set the sun to flight, so his legions made ready to conceal the tablets that would see daylight banished forever.
So, as the same last bloody light drained from east to west, the paladin came forth, ready to do battle against the legions of the night, using all his might and skill in this tale of swords and sorcery.
FEATURES
Explore a strange and deadly world where the minions of Murk roam throughout the land
Defeat your enemies with advanced swordplay mechanics
Collect artifacts to increase your strength and to trade with the 7 Wizards
Craft spells using ingredients scavenged throughout the world
Find the ancient stone archways to traverse across paths
Blade Warrior is a decent side scrolling hack n slash adventure game. In the game menu there are different speeds you can play the game for various difficulty levels. This DOS version only has PC speaker sound (emulated through DOSBox of course) and the visuals are are a choice of CGA, EGA or VGA. VGA mode has a nicely colored title screen, but the gameplay still looks like an EGA color palette. I wish GOG had included the Commodore Amiga version. The Amiga variant of this game has superior visuals and four channel digital sound which produces a far more engrossing experience. A modern game that kind of reminds me of this would be 'Song of Iron' which I wish would come to GOG. -=wink wink=-
Blade Warrior is a port of an Amiga title that got a score of positive reviews back in the day. The PC version was pretty obscure and plays slightly different, but has a charm of it's own. The game combines several types of game-genres and uses several ‘systems’ to accomplish this. Three genres stand out:
- A side-scrolling brawler, where you roam the land and fight enemies with sword & spells.
- An adventure game, where you search for items, needed to obtain fragments of a tablet.
- A SHMUP, where you ride a dragon between wizard’s towers, shooting at incoming enemies.
While the combined genres provide for an entertaining and engaging game, the implementation of the individual parts feels a bit rudimentary at times. The hack-and-slash part is pretty nice: the game has a good selection of enemies and sword-strokes to vanquish them. The adventure-part consist of item-based puzzles: you roam the lands collecting things and trading them for others. Wizards provide artifacts, spells and clues. To visit them, you'll need to access different roads through archways. Some of these are closed and require keys that can be found on other roads. The SHMUP-part is mainly used travel quickly from A to B.
Compared to the Amiga version, the PC-port has a more sedate pace. Since it can be quite hard to hit enemies when you're not facing them strategically *and* the random encounters allow you to get mobbed from different directions, the Amiga-version is more challenging and (to me) less fun.
*TLDR*
I like the game and think the combination of different genres works well, even though they're not extremely impressive when looked at individually. My summary:
Pro's:
- Moody graphics that communicate a lot of detail even in silhouette
- Interface is quite intuitive
- Collecting stuff, trading with wizards etc. takes time but is fun
Cons:
- Sound is almost non-existent
- It can be quite hard to hit enemies at times
- Noticeable slow-downs when parallax scrolling portals animate
I have to be Honest.
When i see Simon Bisley Artwork on a Game my attention is instandly catched.
There are a few Games out there that are really good and have a Cover done by him.
About Blade Warrior i never heard before.
But im glad that my love for Bisley Artwork brought me to this Game,its a little Gem to me.
The Artstyle is interesting as well as the Gloomy Athmosphere.
Gameplay Mechanics and the World are my kind of thing.
Since there is no Soundtrack i would recommend listening to some Dungeon Synth while playing.
I wonder why gog doesnt bother to add a Manual to it,but you can easily find it on the internet.
I used to have this on the Amiga, it was a bit of a hidden gem, most people don't remember it. Here the gameplay is the same and the visuals still look nice and are atmospheric. They hold up surprisingly well. Sound however, is pretty poor with the bleepy beepy sounds of the old on board sound chips we had before the time of soundblaster cards and it hurts the atmosphere of the otherwise stylish visuals.
A very indie-esque game, even for it's time, this was generally overlooked in my humble opinion.
This is certainly a game I fondly recall from my youth and at this price I had to buy it... and it's just as fun as I remember!
It has some notable features that, in the late 80s / early 90s weren't generally found in games of this genre, these include:
- Spell crafting
- Discussions with local Wizards / Lords that typically involved dedicated quests
- Hours of gameplay
- Flying dragons as well as ground combat
- Some RPG elements
- Unforgiving combat
The story itself isn't that deep and it's really left up to you, the player to piece together some of the lore of the land the antagonist inhabits.
I would also dare to suggest that this is almost a grandfather, of sorts, to the Dark Souls trilogy... but fear I might eat those words! ;)
