Sword of Sodan
Description
Like Søren Grønbech's other game Datastorm, Sword of Sodan was most noted on the technical side, as the sprites were large and distinctive-looking. Your task (as either a hero or heroine) is to dethrone the tyrannous Zoras the Necromancer, and avenge his killing of your father.
There are 11 levels to take on, with indoor and outdoor settings. Your character has a range of sword-slashing and jumping moves, which must be used to their full effect if you are to make progress. The game features digitised sound and speech, as well as an action-replay feature, an unusual concept outside sports games at the time.
Spellings
- ソード オブ ソダン - Japanese spelling
Groups +
Screenshots
Credits (Amiga version)
| Original Program by | |
| Movement and Magic by | |
| Illusions and Illustrations by | |
| Conjury and Compositions by |
Reviews
Critics
Average score: 54% (based on 26 ratings)
Players
Average score: 2.3 out of 5 (based on 23 ratings with 1 reviews)
Slow difficult side scrolling action game.
The Good
This is a hard game to find something to like about. The large detailed characters were supposed to be cutting edge but they only look good in stills. Now I keep this game for it's "Bottom of the Barrel" appeal.
The Bad
The characters are highly detailed but only use a few frames for animation so they appear blocky. They only face one direction. The controls are awful and sluggish and selecting a potion is likely to get you killed while you are trying to use it. The high score screen takes 5 minutes to draw while little creatures fly in and drop a single character.
The Bottom Line
When this game was released the promise was for an action game with larger than usual characters. Is is a basic side scrolling hack and slash that was one of the first to show blood and gore. You walk, jump, duck and attack. Use potions to heal or attack. But mostly you run into spears and you die. One life is all you get. So get used to restarting.
Genesis · by gametrader (208) · 2006
Trivia
Cancelled ports
Sword of Sodan was advertised as "coming soon" for both IBM and Apple IIgs, as seen in this ad, but was released for neither format. The version for the Apple IIGS was in development at Visual Concepts, Ltd and only a non-playable demo was released.
Cancelled sequel
Though they never released their promised royalties for Sword of Sodan, Grønbech and Larsen set about making a sequel for Bethesda Softworks. Sword of Sodan 2 was never finished, but a screenshot may be seen in a an old newspaper article.
German index
On April 29, 1989, Sword of Sodan was put on the infamous German index by the BPjS. For more information about what this means and to see a list of games sharing the same fate, take a look here: BPjS/BPjM indexed games.
Message
The first Amiga disk contains the following message from the authors of the game to all potential crackers:
hi, strange place to meet?? i guess it's ok for you to peek around in my boot block, but if you are out to crack this program, may the worst curse be on you forever!
Information also contributed by B.L. Stryker, Игги Друге and Kabushi.
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Related Sites +
-
Søren Grønbech's website
has the Amiga version of Sword of Sodan to download.
Identifiers +
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Contributors to this Entry
Game added by Martin Smith.
Antstream added by firefang9212. Macintosh added by Kabushi.
Additional contributors: Alaka, Xoleras, j.raido 【雷堂嬢太朗】, Macs Black, Patrick Bregger.
Game added January 27, 2005. Last modified September 9, 2024.