Crap Games #13

Sword of Sodan (1990)
By: Innerprise / Electronic Arts Genre: Fighting Players: 1 Difficulty: Hard
Featured Version: Sega MegaDrive / Genesis First Day Score: 108,900 (including three pit deaths)
Also Available For: Amiga, Apple IIGS, Apple Mac

Is it me or does she look like Rebecca Romijn?

Back in the glorious days of Sega's mighty Mega Drive, EA weren't the soul-sucking, studio-destroying corporate leviathan that they are nowadays and they weren't yet flooding the shelves of used-game and charity shops with thousands of copies of their nearly-identical sports games. Much of what they released was pretty good, excellent even, and a forthcoming MD game of theirs was something to look forward to. Until Sword of Sodan came along. It was a conversion of an Amiga game from the year before which was well-received by magazines, so surely a version for the slightly-more-powerful Mega Drive would be more awesome than a unicycling panda? It was, however, slaughtered in reviews as though falling victim to the very weapon of its title, and it damaged EA's decent rep among MD owners as a result. Consequently, I never bothered with it. Was I wise?

Yes, I'm poking these guys in the balls with my sword...

Unsurprisingly for a game involving brave warriors and swords and magic and all that stuff, there is a backstory: it is set in a land with the immensely creative name of 'Northern Kingdom' where an evil necromancer (who has a tower made of human bones, naturally) is planning to overthrow Lordan, ruler of said kingdom. Jump forward a few years and he has done just that, raining death and destruction upon the people of the Northern Kingdom by way of some ghastly creatures brought forth by his dark magic. Among the dead is Lordan who may or may not have been executed in some creative and unpleasant way. Having foreseen this doom, he sent his son Brodan and daughter Shardan to a faraway land to keep them safe. Upon learning of their father's brutal and possibly-prolonged death, they head for Northern Kingdom armed with the legendary Sword... of Sodan!

Surrounded! And with spikes to contend with too...

It's certainly a rousing story which is sure to fire up any just and noble warrior capable of great deeds, but I'm not too sure I believe it - the enemies you meet for the first few stages just look like normal soldiers who would probably rather be at the local tavern with a chicken leg in one hand and a tankard of ale in the other. They do try to stick you with their pokey ends though, so let justice be brought upon them! To that end, the game is a pretty typical single-plane scrolling hack 'n' slasher. You can choose which of the two siblings you wish to control, not that it seems to make much difference beyond the aesthetic, who will have seven relentless stages to get through before peace can be restored to the kingdom. Or something. After the first two stages, the enemies start getting more nightmarish too, and include zombies/monsters/demons/etc in addition to more evil-looking humans. The gameplay remains unchanged however - shuffle along stabbing the attack button!

Don't worry, this ghastly creature is just visiting...

Sadly there are only three swordy attacks you can perform which are the same for both warriors - swish, overhead swing, and forward 'thrust' - and they can also jump. Fallen enemies often drop one of four different potions which can be used by themselves or in various combinations. Benefits can include increased strength, endurance, extra health, extra life, temporary invincibility, one kills the nearest enemy, and you can even skip the current stage if you know the right potion combo (and if you can stockpile the required potions too, obviously). Any help was gratefully received when I played this game through though (or tried to), as it's harder than doing advanced algebra while cartwheeling through a minefield thanks mainly to some rather lazy stage design. The floor of the whole second stage, for example, has spikes rising and falling as you try to despatch the enemies, and the fifth stage has pits of death that you will fall into without any warning.

Yes, I will watch out, thanks. Oh, too late. Nice...

You might remember where they are the next time you play through the game, admittedly, but enemies can also knock you down them (while being immune themselves, obviously), and unfair deaths like this are likely to deter anyone from wanting to play again! Something else that will do that is the sluggish controls. Your bumbling warrior doesn't move around quickly or smoothly at the best of times, and landing strikes is rather unreliable too. With these things in mind, the fact that enemies attack from behind as well as in front makes this a very frustrating affair. You will routinely take damage from behind as you try to turn back and forth fending off what can be a considerable number of enemies at some points. You do get an energy-meter as well as a decent number of lives (which can be adjusted before starting) but it can still be infuriating to say the least. It's not like you even have some dazzling audio/visuals to soften the blow as both are pretty poor.

The white background is due to some scary lightning...

It looks okay from the screenshots, I agree, and indeed, the scenery is quite good and the sprites are as sizeable as I remember, but the animation is awful. Check the video below and marvel at the shuffling heroes and the enemies with scarcely two or three frames. Sadly the audio is even worse. There are a few effects including some grunts and screams but there is no music at all which is hard to accept for a Mega Drive game. I don't usually like to be too harsh on games - it's unlikely the developers actually tried to make it bad after all - but then I think about how I would've felt if I had received this game as a gift for a Christmas or birthday. There would've been some initial excitement, but after bearing witness to the weak audio/visuals, sluggish controls, and poor, repetitive, unfair gameplay, to say I would've been disappointed is a tremendous understatement.

RKS Score: 3/10

Gameplay Video: here's a video of the whole game being played by one of the talented fellows at World of Longplays (check out their great channel here). Oh, and don't watch if you want to avoid spoilers!