Subject: REVIEW: Barbarian II
From: [email-masked] (Sherman Chan)
Date: 31 Jan 1993 03:06:31 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews

[MODERATOR'S NOTE:  This review was modified slightly on February
	15 and 18, 1993.  - Dan]

PRODUCT NAME

	Barbarian II

PUBLISHER

UK:     Psygnosis Ltd.
	South Harrington Building
	Sefton Street
	Liverpool L3 4BQ
	UK
	TEL - (051) 709 5755

USA:    Psygnosis
	29 Saint Mary's Court
	Brookline, MA 02146
	USA
	TEL - (617)-731-3553

DESCRIPTION

	An arcade style "adventure" with elements of platform and
fighting games worked in.

LIST PRICE

	Unknown.  I paid $12 at a software store clearing out what's
left of its Amiga titles. 

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

	512K Amiga, one disk drive.  No mention is made of
compatibility with any specific model of Amiga, processor, or
Kickstart version.  The box notes this is the NTSC release.

TEST HARDWARE

	Amiga 500 w/68000 7Mhz CPU
	512K Chip - NTSC only
	512k Slow
	2 Megs of fast ram
	Kickstart 1.2
	A1010 External floppy drive
	Kraft one button joystick

COPY PROTECTION

	Disk based.  The game does not appear to be HD installable, and
requires a reboot to start, and exit.  The recoverable RAM-disk I use (VD0:)
does not survive the reboot to exit the game. 

REVIEW

	Barbarian II is one of three games I picked up at a software shop
clearing out what was left of their Amiga section.  The $12 price tag and my
memories of Barbarian on the C64 make it the only one of the three I didn't
think twice about buying.  (The other two games are Agony and Thexder.)

	If you don't remember Barbarian, it's a one on one fighting game
where you and the computer pitted your Conan-like combatants against each
other.  The action isn't particularly fast or furious, but there are a
plethora of moves your sword fighter could perform.  Choreographing them
properly to fit your opponent's style is the game's charm.  The supporting
animation is gruesomely humorous:  there's a goblin that dines on the remains
of the loser; victims of the "beheading pirouette" manuever have their
decapitated heads kicked about like a soccer ball; and so on.

	I don't think Barbarian II is the sequel to that game, though.  While
there certainly are similarities, the look and feel of the game (even
accounting for hardware differences) are so radically different that I can't
believe this is the sequel.  Perhaps the title "Barbarian" is too generic to
receive trademark protection, and more than one firm released some game(s)
under that title.  So if you're looking for the sequel to the C-64 game,
this isn't it. 

	[MODERATOR'S NOTE:  Two readers have pointed out that Barbarian II
	is indeed *not* the sequel to this C-64 game.  The Amiga version
	of the C-64 game is called "Death Sword."

	Barbarian II is the sequel to the Amiga game "Barbarian" created by
	Psygnosis.  - Dan]

	But as a bargain-basement purchase, Barbarian II does have some
things going for it.  First is the gentle learning curve.  There isn't too
much that can't be figured out by experimenting and just poking around.
Second is the save feature provided.  This feature may be nothing new to
many game players, but it's pleasant surprise for me, as I'm unaccustomed to
finding such a feature outside of an adventure or strategy game.  Last, the
joystick controls are pretty intuitive, making it easy to choreograph a
series of moves Conan would be proud of. 

	The obligatory background scenario is as follows:  you are Hegor the
Barbarian, dragon slayer, and the hero who defeated the evil Necron (who
also is your brother).  But sometime later, you hear about Necron's
underlings' bringing him back to life.  So Hegor rushes off to take care of
Necron, and this is where the game begins.  After a beautifully animated
opening sequence (which can be skipped by pressing the fire button),
depicting Necron's transformation into a lich, the player is allowed to
choose the language in which he wants the on-screen prompts to appear in.
Then the game loads. 

	Hegor starts out in a forest without any gold or weapons.  There are
various creatures and robbers hiding out here.  Disposing of them allows
Hegor to acquire their gold, weapons and potions.  Eventually, the player
will find a way into the caves, and Barbarian II begins to resemble a
platform game here.  The subterranean monsters are considerably tougher than
the forest denizens, many of which must be simply avoided.  The variety of
attacks and strategies employed by the cave creatures makes it imperative
that the player learn the joystick controls intimately here.  To my
surprise, I found many of the creatures in the later segments of the game
easier to kill, though there are many more mechanical traps and puzzles
(standard platform fare, disappearing ramps, trapdoors, chains) to impede
progress.

	Game play is no more than hacking apart your opponents, jumping and
climbing, and hitting or shooting objects in a certain order to gain access
to new areas.  But the combination of joystick jockeying and puzzling over
combinations of actions makes the game a little deeper than a typical hack
and slash.  

	Barbarian II does suffer somewhat from what I call the "Sierra
Syndrome", which is a situation where it's impossible to advance because you
forgot to do something on a previous level.  I wouldn't have a problem with
this if you are allowed to return to correct the problem, but in several
instances you cannot.  Actually Barbarian II is fairly forgiving about this,
but at several critical junctures it's possible for you to advance to the
next level without exploring some alternate doors.  And after advancing,
often a column of stone drops into the passageway, preventing your return.
Sierra Syndrome is a personal beef of mine, because I feel it has no place in
an arcade style game.  Barbarian II isn't a true arcade game, but there's
still more joystick jockeying than brain strain involved, and mistakes
should be correctable, or else instantaneous death should be inflicted.  The
latter doesn't occur in too many places in Barbarian II, probably because
the player doesn't get multiple lives.  The save option is invaluable in
preventing frustration, as it's likely that you'll back yourself into a
corner the first few times. 

	The graphics are decent but nothing spectacular.  The characters are
detailed, and attention has been paid to their animation, but they're a
little on the small side.  The backgrounds are the best class of the in game
graphics (but they can't touch the beautiful opening animations); even
though they're never anything spectacular, the detail levels and textures
present are surprising.  You can see knots in the wood of the trees, the
bumps in the castle wall stones, and the occasional cracked window or
missing shingle on a building.  There's even multi-layered scrolling in a
few areas.  For some reason, I think this game began life as some Atari ST
code.  The wood tones and greens remind me of some games I saw on a friend's
ST eons ago.  It's kind of like how I was always able to detect an Apple II
screen shot years ago:  the oranges and pinks were always hotter than those
of the Atari 8bits and the C-64. 

	The sound effects are a little disappointing.  There's little more
than Hegor's grunts and your enemies' howls.  Digitized of course, but the
other sounds are pretty much limited to chimes and the swish of your
swinging weapon.  The music that plays during the title screen isn't bad,
and I wouldn't have minded hearing it play during the game (with an option
to shut it off, of course).

	The game is a bit on the easy side.  I was able to complete a less
than optimal solution (the pause display told me I had completed 71% of the
quest just before the final battle with Necron) in about eight hours of
play.  I did use the save function to back up after crucial mistakes, but I
had thought the game would last longer than this.  The game's end is
disappointing.  There's no animation or fanfare:  just a screen shot of
Hegor, and some words congratulating you for completing the quest.  And I
have no desire to play through the game again to try for a 100% quest
completion.  If Barbarian II cost me more than $12, I would've been a little
angered, but as a budget purchase, I'm fairly satisfied with what I got.

CONCLUSION

	If the game sounds appealing to you, and you can get it
inexpensively, consider buying Barbarian II.  The game doesn't provide
enough replay value or first run longevity at a new game price.  Don't pay
more than $15 for it.

Comments to:
[email-masked] (Sherman Chan)

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