SKALD: Against the Black Priory (2024)

 

SKALD: Against the Black Priory is a Kickstarted RPG by Anders Laurindsen that hearkens back to classic PC RPGs, particularly those for the Commodore 64, but adds in a much darker mood that leans heavily on Lovecraftian horror. 

The game has a strong story focus. You create your own hero, but once you set out the game will generally progress in the same way, with only minor differences depending on how you resolve subplots and which skill checks you pass or fail. The opening sees you on a ship sailing to "the Outer Isles" when suddenly the boat is attacked by a leviathan of the deep. The game then flashes back to a calm scene of you being summoned to a lord's court, where you're given a mission to find the lord's daughter, a magically-touched woman, who happens to have been a childhood friend of yours, who has vanished on the trip to the Outer Isles. The game then flashes forward to the present of you waking up on a beach. You set about your mission, finding equipment and companions to help you along the way.

The party members are pre-generated characters such as Kat the thief, but you can also hire mercenaries and these you can customize to your liking. The party members will occasionally contribute to the story, offering exposition or simply their opinions on what's happening, but thankfully this is no blockbuster RPG in which people engage you in lengthy conversations for the purpose of starting a romance or requiring you to be a psychiatrist and helping them with their particular hang-ups. The writing is bent on furthering the game's dark atmosphere but still relatively restrained, without huge reams of text dumped on the player. The only place it really falls down is in providing worldbuilding details (e.g., magic system stuff) that feel awkwardly inserted and are arguably extraneous. Laurindsen is also clearly a fan of the movie Aliens and doesn't mind throwing a reference in the dialogue here and there.

Beyond the tentacle monster ripping your ship in half at the opening, shortly after washing up on the beach you'll be exploring caves full of giant man-eating crabs - you can tell they eat men because the gory remains are all over the place. You learn that the major town on the island literally went crazy one night as good citizens began slaughtering their neighbors and formed a cult of human sacrifice. Refugees who managed to escape are dying from a grotesque disease that causes writhing things to grow in their bellies. Even a mid-game episode involving a trip to an idyllic town, where you run fetch quests to help happy residents prepare for their yearly festival, devolves into a Robert W. Chambers-influenced nightmare. With the leviathan still patrolling the deep waters around the islands, the characters have no option to simply leave. The game feels like a tight corridor you're being herded down and the sense of doom gets thicker the closer you get to the end. The ending isn't very happy.

It's a fun game to play, though. The restrained completion time is always welcome compared to the bloat of so many modern RPGs, and the nasty tone is unlike most modern RPGs, which often can't resist self-aware humor or nonsensical worldbuilding. Such a local-level story, based on simply finding a missing person, is particularly rare in video games, as even most sword-and-sorcery-influenced games still incorporate dark lords or battles for the fate of the world, trying to make the low and high sides of the fantasy genre play nice with each other. The game feels like playing a very horror-heavy Dungeons & Dragons module, and Laurindsen's experience as a DM for his own table-top games comes through.

The combat system is a bit rigid at first (no diagonal melee attacks), but it's easy to get to grips with it, and the C64-like graphics lend a sense of grit and darkness to the game, the only major downside being that they're so detailed that it's easy to miss important things unless you hold the shift key to highlight interactive objects.

Sword of Kadash (1985)

 

Sword of Kadash is an early action RPG, created by Chris Cole and one of the very first releases from Dynamix. Dynamix was behind many classic games such as Project: Firestart, MechWarrior, Stellar 7, the Aces war simulation series, Red Baron, and Rise of the Dragon, among numerous others. Almost none of their games are fantasy-themed, however, so Dynamix likely won't be coming up again here.

Like many PC games of the time, it has an arcade sensibility, similar to something like Berzerk, but with just a bit extra to hopefully interest players beyond recognizing algorithms and honing reflexes. The player controls the hero from a top-down view, attempting to navigate a huge maze one screen at a time. The player can pick up different weapons but despite whatever the weapons are identified as, the combat always takes the form of firing arrows across the screen at enemies. Among the threats you face are various types of wildlife, the undead, orcs, and a liche, among others.

The maze is always the same, but it's full of devious traps beyond the creatures inhabiting it, so progress is best made by mapping or memorizing the layout and noting how the traps work and which items are safe to pick up, so the player can gradually work out the most efficient path through. It's a tough but engrossing game.

The story explained in the manual is that your character is a merchant traveling to Persia to do business, but your guide sneaks off with all your merchandise and provisions, leaving you to die in the desert. Fortunately (?) a band of brigands appears and takes you captive. The leader forces you to enter the Fortress of the Dragon to recover the fabled Sword of Kadash or die trying. You're sent in with "a dagger, a shield, and your natural charm." Assuming you actually succeed, your now hardened hero emerges with the sword with the intent on turning it against the brigands instead of peacefully handing it over.

Cole told the CRPG Addict that he envisioned the game as having more a high fantasy theme, but that the publishers forced the Middle Eastern/historical fantasy theme on him late in development. It's possible a high fantasy theme may have improved sales - this was the mid-80s, when things were shifting toward epics - but for the purposes of this blog, the game's final theme is actually much more in line with classic sword-and-sorcery. A lone adventurer exploring a haunted fortress in the middle of the Persian desert and dealing with brigands sounds like the kind of premise Robert E. Howard could have used for a yarn featuring Conan, El Borak, or maybe Cormac Fitzgeoffrey. 

[Apologies for very slow upload pace in recent months. Real life concerns have been incessant, but there's no lack of things to talk about.]

Lionheart (1993)

Lionheart for the Amiga might be described as being like Thundercats except not lame. The story of the game is that Valdyn, a half-man/half-cat swordsman nicknamed Lionheart, is sent on a quest to retrieve the Cat People's priceless Lionheart jewel, which has been stolen by the evil wizard Norka. As an extra incentive, Valdyn's woman was turned to stone by Norka, so he needs to find a cure for her, too. Shortly after beginning his quest on the back of a flying dragon, however, Valydn is shot down by Norka's airship and crash lands in a forest far from his objective, so now he has to fight all the way across the land, through forests, swamps, volcanic lands, and the city and fortress.

The game was created by a team at German publisher Thalion and it's one of the great visual feasts of its era as Henk Nieborg really knocked himself out with the pixel art, pushing the Amiga as far as it could be pushed for 2D graphics. As graduates of the demoscene, Thalion was known for having beautiful games and Lionheart is arguably its masterpiece. Every single element of the game is lushly rendered, from the multi-hued skies to the verdant plantlife, and the parallax background scrolling. There are effects used for the opening and closing cutscenes that are never re-used in the gameplay. And the sound is exceptional for the Amiga, with simultaneous music and sound effects, something Commodore machines often traded off on because of the limited sound channels available. Valdyn himself is very smoothly animated and has numerous poses that also lead to their own specific animations; e.g., step to the edge of a platform and he'll make a show of maintaining his balance. Slide down a steep surface and Valdyn will unveil a new sword-swinging animation specific to that situation. It's the kind of character-based design that was highly valued in the 16-bit era, when every company was hoping a game character would show personality and break out as a popular mascot. 

The game doesn't just look great, it plays well, too. Although there's a strong Rastan influence on the game, it plays a bit differently in that Valdyn has to stand still while attacking. Hold the button down and push forward and Valdyn will perform a straight swing of his sword, push up and he'll do an overhead strike, push backward and he'll do a spinning reverse attack. Kneel down, hold the button and push forward and he'll do a low kick. It takes a short while to get used to it but it's not a bad system when you settle down with it, and the game isn't so blisteringly paced that it rushes at you before you've had a chance to practice. Jumping is generally easy to control with the possible exception in some instances of gaps that need a fast running start before Valdyn can clear them.

Like a lot of games of the time, levels are full of collectibles for extra lives, attack power-ups, and health refills. Also be sure to find the hidden level to get the magical amulet that unlocks the best ending for the game.

If there's a major flaw in the game, it's that the game is just really long for a game of its genre. Levels play out three or four times as long as those in similar action games, and the game is quite difficult, so memorizing and executing the right path through the game is even more exhausting than usual. It can be done, the game is mostly fair in how it's designed, but there are times when it crosses the line from feeling thrilling to "Huh, this is going on a bit, isn't it?"

The Amiga library is in an awkward place in retrospect. The system was well ahead of its time, delivering 16-bit graphics and sound in 1985, but most of its games were designed for a single-button controller that rapidly went out of date, so players used to advancements in console gaming in particular tend to deride most Amiga efforts at competing with Nintendo and Sega games. Lionheart stands as an example that in the right hands the Amiga was well up to the task of competing.

Although there were no sequels to Lionheart made - Thalion didn't last much longer - Valdyn did reappear in Thalion's classic RPG, Ambermoon, as a recruitable party member. And in recent times, Lionheart was ported to Windows in a freely available version.

Unexpected Conan: Fallout 2 Restoration Project

Fallout is obviously not sword-and-sorcery, but if you install Fallout 2's Restoration Project mod, you might get to meet a character who bears a striking resemblance to a famous pulp hero. 

Among the content that was cut from the original release of the game but restored by the mod is a primitive tribe living on the California coastline in Fallout's post-nuclear setting. The hero of Fallout 2, the Chosen One, can meet a member of this tribe named Sulik while exploring the settlement of Klamath. Sulik is a "tribal" who comes from the Umbra Tribe and after recruiting him as a companion, you can travel to their small village. After arriving, you can meet the tribe's head warrior, a fellow named Krom.

The game's description of Krom: "This sun-bronzed giant looks as if his corded muscles were carved out of granite. Beneath a mane of black hair, his smoldering blue eyes pierce into you." Krom goes on to ask you about who you are and what your purpose is. Krom is well-spoken and supportive of your quest to find the Garden of Eden Creation Kit to save your village, although he scoffs at the concept of the GECK itself in favor of man toiling against the earth with his own natural gifts. He also makes it clear that he's well-travelled and the village is just a temporary home for him before he decides to move on and see what else the world holds for him. You can continue to interact with him while staying with the tribe and he'll put you to work on solving some simple tasks the village could help with.

So Krom is an expy of Conan himself, transplanted cleanly into Fallout's world. It goes to show in a very minor way that despite the differences, post-apocalyptic fiction and S&S are cousins of sorts, both genres about people battling strange forces and hostile environments as much to just survive as to vanquish some great evil.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance (2018)

No sorcery in this one, just sword, but a lot of classic S&S does have a strong historical element. And even as history-minded as this game is, it does brush up against a sense of weirdness in a couple of spots. 

Kingdom Come: Deliverance was Kickstarted in 2014, released in 2018. The player takes control of Henry of Skalitz, the son of a blacksmith living in a Bohemian village in 1403. The king, Wenceslaus IV, is a bit of a disappointment compared to his father, Charles IV, who presided over a golden age for the country. In response to Wenceslaus's frivolous ways, his half-brother Sigismund leads an invasion of the country to presumably sort things out. What this means for humble citizens like Henry is that his village, a valuable silver-mining center, is sacked by Cuman mercenaries who take liberties with the locals in the process, including killing Henry's parents. Just before the invasion, Henry's father had forged an exceptional sword for the local lord, Sir Divish, and in the early portion of the game the sword is stolen by the villains, so Henry's quest becomes to recover the sword while taking revenge for his parents and village. Henry will become a knight in Sir Divish's service and will travel across a region that includes the towns of Sasau and Rattay.

The game is a first-person RPG, built on the CryEngine, with very good graphics that emphasize realism over art direction and mood. Henry has basic needs for sleep and sustenance that have to be monitored, although they aren't too difficult to maintain. Injuries have to be looked after. Not bathing or taking care of your clothes and armor will draw insults from other characters. The fighting system involves having to practice to level up strength and skills so Henry will have more endurance and ability to parry, strike, and counter attacks. The combat system is interesting but disappointingly falls down in major battles where Henry is part of larger forces clashing. It simply becomes a mess of men flailing at each other and the most effective technique is probably to just run behind the enemy shield wall and start backstabbing people while your fellows keep them occupied in front. Not exactly the blood and thunder one would hope for in such situations.

KCD had to be crowdfunded because historical games, especially ones in as obscure a setting as medieval Bohemia that require a hefty budget, terrify game publishers that would greatly prefer to stick to tried-and-true settings like Tolkienesque/D&D-flavored fantasy or space marine-centric sci-fi. As much as possible, KCD is based on real places and events, peppers its story with several actual historical figures, and generally tries to present its setting with as much accuracy as a video game could reasonably allow. A writer like Harold Lamb might have found it interesting. Accessing the game menus will allow the player to read brief encyclopedia entries on medieval society, enough that playing the game will give players an elementary-level foundation of Bohemian history. The game also is generally even-handed in how it depicts its setting, eschewing Monty Python-like images of cruel nobles mercilessly beating idiotic peasants covered in mud and excrement. Instead there's a range of personalities shown, with nuanced examples of people all along the social strata. Some lords are entitled brats but others are serious-minded and dedicated to their duties on behalf of subjects, while peasants might be hardworking, lazy, or opportunistic depending on their minds and circumstances.

The story is linear but the player is free to define Henry however they like. He can be a selfless do-gooder or a complete psychopath or likely somewhere in between. He can specialize in fighting (and particular weapons) or have a silver tongue or be a stealthy type. The game is open enough to different playstyles that there are usually multiple valid ways to overcome situations. Come across a bandit camp and don't think you're strong enough to simply walk in and massacre everyone? Perhaps try waiting until midnight and then sneak into the camp so you can take out watchmen silently in the dark and then murder the others in their beds. Or slip poison into their food and let it do its work.

Even at his strongest, Henry isn't a cartoon hero. Travel on the roads can be very tense, especially in the earlygoing, as Henry can run into highwaymen, stray bands of Cuman raiders, or be baited into traps by people claiming to be in distress. Henry's odds of winning a fight drop significantly with each extra man added on the other side - one-on-one isn't too bad; one-on-two is doable; against three, four, or especially five, though, and he might be in real peril and simply trying to escape or even surrendering might be the best play.

As mentioned above, the game does touch briefly on more fantastic aspects in two notable sections. First, there's a sidequest that can only be completed if Henry is able to access a cabinet of forbidden books in the Sasau monastery's library. The particular book he needs is Lovecraft's Necronomicon, although somewhat disappointingly, the presentation of the book is a bit drier than might be anticipated. Nothing about its authorship by Abdul Alhazred, and even looking over its pages makes it seem like nothing more than just another book, albeit slightly more esoteric than some. But at least it's something, and the lighter touch in how it's presented is probably more in the spirit of classic S&S than the overkill most games go for.

The other episode is a somewhat more standard one in which Henry is tasked with uncovering witchcraft in one of the villages. His investigations will take him to a secluded woodland spot where some of the women are trying to commune with Satan by using psychedelic drugs, and, after confronting them, when they smear the drug on Henry's face he starts hallucinating, seeing men with the heads of beasts. 

KCD ends on a bit of a cliffhanger, but the sequel has yet to appear despite the game turning out to be an unexpectedly big hit. Considering how actual history went and the allegiances of the main characters in this game, it doesn't look good for Henry and his friends having a triumphant ending, but perhaps he will slip through the cracks and land on his feet somehow.

COVER ART: Kid Niki: Radical Ninja (1987)

 

A bit of an odd choice this time but an interesting contrast in how games are marketed in different regions. Kid Niki the game is a cute action-platformer with a goofy sense of humor. For the North American cover, the company went with this more realistic and fiece image of the hero facing down his enemies with his sword already running with blood, with the damsel in distress at the center looking like a swipe from Frazetta's Egyptian Queen. Not an uncommon occurence in the marketing of 8-bit video games, as we saw with Deadly Towers.

The original Japanese cover for comparison:

Volgarr the Viking (2013)

Volgarr the Viking was one of the old Kickstarter success stories, a throwback to Rastan intended to be particularly challenging and gameplay-heavy. "A game with no real challenge is like a cheeseburger with no meat...We're here to put the meat back in the cheeseburger!" the creators, Crazy Viking Studios, said, and they meant it. Volgarr the Viking is a tough game that demands practice and memorization of the best ways to overcome difficult parts.

Being a viking, Volgarr is resurrected by Odin and sent out to fight whatever happens to be in front of him. That's about the extent of the story, although there are multiple endings based on how you play and the endings reveal certain things, such as how Fafnir the Dwarf was transformed into a dragon. The creators weren't kidding when they talked about a "time when games were about the game, not about the cutscenes or cinematic presentation."

The pixel art isn't a lush knockout on the level of Henk Nieborg's work or the Metal Slug games, but it's solid enough and the graphics are very clear, with characters easy to distinguish from backgrounds at all times, which matters in a challenging gameplay-first game. Despite the Norse theme of the game, Volgarr will cut his way through a variety of Lovecraftian fishmen and lizardmen and other giant bugs and sea creatures.

The music is deliberately non-retro and features stirring compositions by Kochun Hu that stand up well to anything short of Basil Pouledoris's Conan the Barbarian score. There are many sword-and-sorcery B-movies that wish they had music as good as this game does.

To get into the details of how it plays, Volgarr can swing his sword and also throw spears that when thrown into walls also serve as platforms for him to jump on to reach high places. He can move while attacking with the sword but must stop in place to throw a spear. He can also double-jump in midair and stab downward while falling. Similar to Rastan but with a few extra wrinkles thrown in and making progress mostly means knowing which sequence of moves to make in particular situations. Volgarr also has various layers of protection. Get hit once and he'll lose his helmet, get hit again and he'll die. His shield can block attacks but it will break unless a reinforced version of the shield is picked up.

Unlike a lot of modern games, Volgarr doesn't feature liberal use of checkpoints or saving, so if someone plans to get good at the game, they'll do best to carve out some decent time for the game and be willing to die and retry many times until they master just a single level, never mind the whole game. And then even more so if someone wants to get the best possible ending.