Odallus: The Dark Call (2015)

 

Odallus is the creation of JoyMasher, a Brazilian studio headed by Danilo Dias and Thais Weiller. It's their second game, following 2012's Oniken, with both games being united by a relatively strict adherence to the limitations of the original NES (the studio's next game, Blazing Chrome, moved beyond the NES to more of a Sega Mega Drive feel). Although the 8-bit aesthetic has been very popular among indie developers over the last decade, most such games settle on something that looks NES from a distance but on closer inspection has effects that are beyond what an NES could really do, such as mixed resolutions, going beyond the 4-color limitation, and rotation and scaling effects that were a big selling point of the Super NES. Oniken was very dedicated to being a game that wouldn't look out of place among real NES games. Odallus is much the same, although they've colored slightly outside the lines in certain ways, such as dedicating the screen space beyond the 4:3 gameplay window to character information. 

In Odallus, the player controls the somewhat unfortunately named Haggis, who returns home from a hunt to find his village burning and his only son missing. The only thing to do is to head out for revenge and to rescue his boy from the demons that took him. The dark and downbeat story is mostly conveyed through short dialogue segments when facing level bosses. JoyMasher's games so far have all featured a style that is very reminiscent of 1980s and early 90s anime, with a lot of influence from western action and horror movies. Instead of the cute, nonthreatening protagonists popular in modern anime and games, JoyMasher's stern-faced, muscular characters look like they walked out of something like Fist of the North Star, and Odallus in particular feels like a combination of Highlander and Berserk. In terms of how it compares to other games, there's a strong Castlevania and Demon's Crest influence but the dark blue-green colors and grungier feel recall the NES games published by Natsume. Natsume is mostly known today as the company that publishes Harvest Moon, but among their earlier output were games like Shadow of the Ninja, Shatterhand, and Power Blade II - games that come across like moodier takes on the sort of platforming action Konami and Capcom thrived on at the time.

Although Odallus is often described as a Metroidvania, it doesn't have the completely open world of that particular type of game. Instead, the game is broken into distinct levels with multiple exits and the player is encouraged to explore as much as possible, move to the next level, and after obtaining particular items they can then return to previous levels and unlock previously impassible exits to follow a different track for a while. It's more like the structure of Demon's Crest or Demon's Souls. Also like Castlevania, the use of limited secondary weapons is required, although Haggis has the ability to grab ledges and pull himself up, an ability that would have come in handy in many old platforming games. 

It's a very well-crafted game. Hard enough to put up a solid challenge without leaving the player too frustrated. JoyMasher has been a consistently good studio that works in a style that isn't being covered by many other modern game developers. While many other small developers have been trying to work in a childlike, super-deformed style that has become somewhat standardized, these guys produce games that not only look and sound like late 80s work but also replicate the same kind of easygoing coolness.

Castlevania (1986)

 

It's hard not to figure that an action-packed battle to slay a vampire or some other monster isn't a classic S&S premise. For instance, Conan versus Akivasha in The Hour of the Dragon. Karl Edward Wagner's Kane fought werewolves in Reflections on the Winter of My Soul. Much like how Konami's Contra is basically "Rambo and Commando vs. Aliens," Castlevania can be boiled down to being about a Conan-like hero using a whip to fight his way through the entire Universal Horror pantheon, albeit with some tweaks for legal purposes and some other monsters from western culture thrown in to pad out the rogue's gallery.

The original Japanese title is Akumajo Dracula, for which the closest translation appears to be Demon Castle Dracula. The Japanese title was considered a bit too satanic and therefore religious to get past Nintendo's strict "no religion" censorship policy, so it was retitled Castlevania in the West. The hero is named Simon Belmont, who travels to Dracula's castle to eliminate him, armed with a magical whip called the Vampire Killer. The oddness of a vampire hunter using a whip is often remarked on but the reason is simply that the creators of the game were big Indiana Jones fans and thought the whip would be cool.

Director Hitoshi Akamatsu grew up a fan of the Universal horror movies and he wanted to create a game that was very cinematic. The title screen scrolls in sprocket holes at the edges of the screen and there's a moody cinematic showing Simon approaching the gates. Upon finishing the game, the player is rewarded with fake end credits that list names inspired by classic horror icons Terence Fisher, Christopher Lee, Boris Karloff, and...Jean-Paul Belmondo?

By the time Castlevania came along, video games had evolved from single-screen concepts that demanded quick reflexes and pattern recognition skills for success toward broadly scrolling games that emphasized memorization of level layouts and placement of enemies and traps. Although it's a challenging game, it can be overcome by simply learning where everything is and working out the correct sequence of actions to navigate a section, almost like a puzzle. Simon can't walk and attack simultaneously and the arc of his jump is fixed, so restraint is helpful in determining when to strike and when to move. Success can be made much easier if the player picks up the right alternate weapons depending on which level boss is being faced. The axe works well for the giant vampire bat, while the watch that stops time is deadly to Medusa. The holy water is generally best because it can freeze many enemies while doing constant damage.

Graphically, the game is especially nice-looking for an NES game. Although the system wasn't much for shadows, especially at that period, the game features moody colors with lots of deep reds and blues and well-proportioned, naturalistic figures. The best part of any Dracula adaptation is the beginning in his crumbling, cobweb-ridden castle and the game wisely is based entirely around that. Simon begins outside the moat, makes his way over the drawbridge into an entrance hall lined with ragged drapes, and eventually will pass through bone-strewn dungeons and the water-logged foundations crawling with fish-people, ascend a clocktower, and then finally penetrate Dracula's tower. It's an internally consistent pattern that worked so well that most of the game's sequels adhere relatively faithfully to it. There are various embellishments but the general map doesn't change much. Lastly, all the Castlevania games are renowned for their soundtracks and this one got the series off to a great start.

Akamatsu apparently wanted to set the game up for sequels, much like horror films often do. An idea that doesn't come across clearly in the game is that Dracula doesn't become a demon or reveal a second form after his health bar is depleted, but his head flying off and his body exploding were supposed to be his actual body scattering across the earth, leaving open the possibility of his resurrection (which indeed became the basis of the second game as Simon returned to track down Dracula's body parts). The demon the player fights afterward is supposed to be an embodiment of sin or "an incarnation of the curse of man," insinuating that Dracula's persistence is tied to the darker side of human nature. Akamatsu also clarified that the clock tower, a fixture of the series, is supposed to represent Dracula's heart.

It's a classic game that holds up well and kicked off a series that remained relatively consistent in high quality despite some significant evolutions in gameplay, even if the expansions of the backstory became confusing and somewhat watered down the gut-level appeal of simply battling Dracula, the Mummy, and Frankenstein's Monster.

PERSPECTIVE: Publishing vs. Gaming Trends

 

The explosion in fantasy paperback publishing is generally observed to have occurred from around the early 1960s through the early 1980s. Works by pulp writers such as Robert E. Howard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and A. Merritt were reprinted while new works by Michael Moorcock, Karl Edward Wagner, and Charles Saunders, among many others, debuted. Lord of the Rings and certain other epic fantasy works were also published in paperback, but a great deal of the popular fantasy at the time was in the sword-and-sorcery/heroic fantasy/low fantasy mold, often in books with covers by Frazetta, Jeff Jones, or Jim Steranko.

Video games went commercial in the early 70s and hit critical mass somewhere between 1978 (the debut of Space Invaders in arcades) and 1980 (the debut of Space Invaders on the Atari 2600), and have generally kept growing ever since. 

Although there are many fantasy-based games (and no lack of fodder for this blog), there's little overlap between the sword-and-sorcery boom period and the growth of video gaming. In 1977 Terry Brooks's Tolkien-influenced The Sword of Shannara was published, and in 1978 the Thor Power Tool Company v. Commissioner decision contributed to the demise of midlist book publishing. There occurred a shift away from spinner racks full of slender books about lone adventurers fighting for more personal stakes toward world-shaking, Tolkien-esque epics initially spread over thick trilogies, and then expanding even further into enormous series in which single volumes could exceed the entire LOTR in page count.

By the time video games started making serious technological advances in the early/mid-80s, particularly at home, the sword-and-sorcery genre was receding and the genre as it evolved through the filter of table top role playing games was taking over. There's a bit of Conan persisting in video games like Golden Axe and Rastan, but the majority was party-based action descended from Wizardry and Ultima, and video games started incorporating bigger, continent-smashing fantasy stories about chosen ones and their friends battling dark lords to match the fiction that was becoming more and more popular.

One sub-genre that was relatively prominent in the boom years that got virtually no representation in games was the sword-and-planet genre. No games based on ERB's Mars or Venus books (not even to tie in with the Disney John Carter movie), nor anything particularly similar to them. Aside from a Flash Gordon game published on 8-bit computers, there's virtually nothing. Most likely a major factor was another late 70s development: the 1977 release of Star Wars. The gaming industry went crazy for Star Wars and the late 70s through mid-80s featured numerous games, most unauthorized, recreating TIE fighter battles in space or the Death Star trench run, plus licensed adaptations of movies that followed in the wake of the Star Wars trilogy. And just as Star Wars's influence waned slightly, the release of Aliens in 1986 opened a still-ongoing deluge of games featuring space marines mowing down hordes of Giger-esque creatures.

Much as how sword-and-sorcery eventually regrouped through small press and independent publishing, traditional representations of the genre in modern video games have mostly been found in the indie scene, although the major success and influence of the Witcher and Dark Souls series might be making the mainstream more accepting of the genre. But there's always the threat that the pressures of AAA game development could derail things as quickly as they catch on. CD Projekt Red was on top of the world after the release of The Witcher 3, but the difficult release of Cyberpunk 2077 caused the announcement of The Witcher 4 to be greeted with as much skepticism as anticipation. And it remains to be seen if the Elric game in development will even be released or get cancelled as previous attempts at Elric games have. There still isn't a definitive Conan game, and seemingly no reason to expect games inspired by Howard's other stories, Wagner or Saunders's fiction, or David Gemmell's Druss, to name a few classics. The gaming industry's impulse to revert to elves and space marines is deeply ingrained.

Amid Evil (2018)

 

A happy effect of the rise of digital distribution and the return of a sort of video game midlist is that it made genres that had been decreed dead and buried by blockbuster-minded publishers viable again. Turn-based RPGs, 8- and 16-bit-style pixel art games, point-and-click adventures...and mid-90s-style FPSs that prioritize labyrinthine level design and pure frenetic gameplay over linear cinematic experiences. Amid Evil is among the leaders of a retro FPS movement that also includes games such as Dusk and Ion Fury. It's the product of Indefatigable, a studio formed by two guys that previously contributed to the 2013 remake of Rise of the Triad, and it takes heavily after Quake and the Heretic/Hexen series.

There is a story underpinning the game, but it's so basic that it would almost be better if it wasn't included at all. The player controls the Champion, who claimed the axe of the Black Labyrinth that allows him to travel among dimensions. The Champion is directed by a pantheon of fallen gods to exterminate the "Evil Force" that is corrupting reality. And mercifully that's about it. The Champion begins in a hub world and travels to several different worlds, arriving with only his axe to begin but accumulating six other magical weapons with which to cleanse the worlds before challenging the Evil Force in a final Lovecraftian dimension. So it takes after the more cosmic, dimension-hopping side of the genre, as in Moorcock's Eternal Champion works, or perhaps Zelazny's Amber books or Adrian Cole's Voidal stories, among others.

As with the classic games it emulates, the only things to worry about are slaughtering everything in your path and finding keys that unlock doors. Despite the comparisons to Heretic, it lacks the inventory management aspects of that game, and the barebones style and 3D visuals better evoke Quake. On the other hand, it's much more colorful than Quake's notorious brown and grey aesthetic. 

The weapons generally fall into the traditional FPS pattern but each has a particular twist. The first ranged weapon acquired is a water magic staff that spews homing projectiles at enemies. The "shotgun" is a jeweled sword that when swung sends out a broad green wave that can hit multiple enemies at once. The "rocket launcher", known as the Celestial Claw, is a gnarled staff that literally yanks planets out of orbit and hurls them at enemies. Killing enemies causes them to drop their souls, and when the player collects enough, the player can temporarily activate a more powerful, alternate fire mode for each weapon; e.g., the Celestial Claw now grabs stars instead of planets.

FPSs in this style are often looked down upon because of their simplicity, but there are arguments that the first person perspective and their terse presentation can be more evocative than games that work harder at conjuring an atmosphere. Many RPGs, for instance, include reams of text and even extensive, fully voiced dialogue among massive casts of characters in trying to develop their settings. Some succeed more than others, but the vast majority can't overcome a tedious flatness. Amid Evil has almost no dialogue or story and yet probably succeeds better than most more complicated games in providing a sense of a desperate struggle in strange lands that sprawl vertically as much as horizontally. Some of the worlds, such as the worlds of the moon or sun worshippers are merely beautiful to look at, with clear skies above high towers that might not be too out of place in the real world. Others get weird with colossal structures that serve no discernible purpose but which need traversal regardless. The Forges are a world of constantly chugging machines of giant gears and levers, occupied by living machine creatures. The final level, the Void, is as aggressively Lovecraftian in its depiction of non-Euclidean geometry as a game can reasonably get while still remaining navigable. Some parts can be genuinely unnerving to look at, never mind the strange creatures constantly attacking.

Speaking of the creatures, each world has its own unique set. The game's sound design is top level and once you know what to listen for, you can reliably tell when a monster has been roused (and if you hear it, you know it's coming for you at top speed), when you've scored a hit, and when you've defeated it. The graphics are beautiful in their odd combination of looking fine at a distance but revealing chunky pixellation up close.

Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain (1996)

Blood Omen opens with a somewhat baffling scene of a rat-headed vampire storming into a castle and slaughtering several wizards, a guard being resurrected as a living suit of armor, and a series of nine tall white pillars erected in a forest staining and cracking. The game then transitions to gameplay, in which the player assumes control of a nobleman as he's being turned out of a tavern, and is then immediately confronted outside by a mob of assassins who yell "THAT'S HIM!" before killing him. If you're skillful, you can actually fend off a number of the killers, but to progress the game you have to accept that the man will die. Then another cutscene plays in which the man, named Kain, is resurrected as a vampire by another wizard and promised that he can have his revenge. The game properly begins with the vampire Kain awakening in a crypt and wandering out into the world.

The way the game actually plays is as a ponderous, adult-oriented take on The Legend of Zelda, with a top-down view of the action as Kain wanders through forests, towns, snowy fields, swamps, and castles, battling men and monsters. Kain accumulates new abilities that allow him to reach previously unreachable areas, such as the power to transform into a wolf, mist, or even a normal human, which opens the possibility of interacting with people who would normally flee from or attack a vampire. As a vampire, Kain maintains his energy by drinking blood from enemies, or occasionally from helpless victims. Having to clutch and suck blood from a neck like in traditional stories would likely have become tedious, so the game's solution is to allow Kain to raise his hand and simply yank all the blood from a victim out of their mouth, across space, and down his own throat. Sort of an inversion of the projectile vomiting from John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness.

The game is fairly easy to complete, with most of the difficulty coming from enemies that can cast homing projectiles at you. The ability to cast a shield spell trivializes most of the challenge in the latter part of the game as you can simply plow through attacks, chop down enemies, and then recharge your mana before casting the shield again.

In terms of art direction, the game is very classical gothic horror, down to the Germanic towns you visit, and it's full of colored lighting effects. If a person was ever curious as to what Mario Bava's interpretation of Zelda might look like, this game probably comes as close as any to fulfilling that.

Blood Omen is uncommonly good in terms of how it tells a complex story through a video game. Although there are some crudely rendered, poorly aged CGI cutscenes, a lot of the game's story and lore is imparted to the player simply through narration that occurs during gameplay. Whereas many games fall to the temptation to inflict many minutes if not hours of non-interactive cutscenes on the player, Blood Omen is admirably restrained and adheres to brevity. It doesn't hurt that the cast, with actors like Simon Templeman and Tony Jay, give very good voice performances. Characters are quickly established, there are a couple of interesting plot twists, and the next goal on the map and in the plot is always clearly explained. The story itself involves Kain being manipulated by greater forces of his world to perform a mission of assassinating the wizards appointed as the guardians of the Pillars of Nosgoth. For reasons explained throughout the game, the guardians have fallen into paranoia and infighting and must be eliminated so that the magical pillars they represent can be cleansed and forces of chaos expunged from the world.

It's hard not to look at Kain with his white mane of hair and chalky complexion and not think of Elric, although their personalities are rather different, and of course Elric merely wielded a vampiric sword while Kain is the vampire himself. There are also some similarities in terms of their stories' concerns with free will. For his part, director Denis Dyack said the storyline was influenced by Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series and the Necroscope books by Tarra Khash writer Brian Lumley, with the idea of the Pillars of Nosgoth coming from his seeing a copy of Ken Follett's Pillars of the Earth and thinking the title sounded evocative.

Supplemental reading: Bloodstone, by Karl Edward Wagner

COVER ART: Blade Warrior (1991)

Cover by Simon Bisley, best known as a comics artist but he's done a few game covers. He's never made a secret of Frazetta's influence on him.