Lord of the Sword

The Good
Graphically the game is decent, with some foreground props, objects across the platforms and a slight parallax scrolling for the outside background. Sprite animation is smooth, so that you can tell when your character and enemies are making their moves. The portraits of characters you talk to are okay at best, but not very lively. Also music in its FM goodness goes well as you travel the lands of Baljinya, hero style.

There are many opportunities to put your enemies down to the sword and archery. Thankfully you do not run out of arrows. And the bosses, their attack patterns are easy to ascertain, so you can dodge and strike with little difficulty. Apart from the caves, fields, swamps and other locations that your plow through, there are two platform temple levels late in the game so you do at least get something different to break up the similar looking scenes. You would be wise to visit characters you talk to more than once for some more helpful hints and flavor text.

The Bad
Due to the way the controls work (not being able to move, jump and attack at the same time) and because the hit detection in the game is pretty stingy for the most part, sword hits don't always seem to connect consistently, especially with bosses. Also it's hard to tell where the hitbox of the sword swing is around your character. As a result you won't always know if you're actually doing damage or if you can hit any enemy before it hits you. If you don't have precise aim, you'll get hit and hurt again and again. You also get ambushed all the time because you need to be oriented to one side of the screen to move, which is too close to incoming enemies for comfort, giving you little time to react. Your only means of restoring lost health is resting in towns, no healing pickups. And lastly, there's no way to save the game, not even a password system. The limited number of continues you have, make this as frustrating as the hardest of arcade games.

Navigation in the game is a pain because you need to pathfind your way across screens, up slopes that make up different paths, all the while fighting through areas riddled with enemies. The manual map is no help at all, just there for game lore. Even when you've spoken to the right people, it's not always clear where you have to go next. At least there are finger posts to let you know there is more than one way to go. And for all your efforts, the score points you get are pointless due to the lack of high score.

The Bottom Line
At first sight this game is a Sega counterpart of Zelda II. It's hard as heck, not conforming to the average player's capabilities. Unless you're willing to spend countless hours fighting and wandering around, you're not getting through this game without a walkthrough. While this game did gets its share of high praise from reviewers, it should have had dynamic controls and movement, a save game mechanic and an easy mode. This is one of those Sega titles that comes and goes. Win it once and you're much less likely to replay it after all that grinding.