Blade Master (1991)

 

There's not a lot of information available on Blade Master, but it was released by Irem in 1991, and was known as Cross Blades! in Japan. 

It's a beat-em-up game in which players can control either the dual-sword-wielding Roy or the spear-and-flail-wielding Arnold as they battle their way from left to right in pursuit of Roy's girlfriend, Princess Emina, who's been kidnapped by the demon lord because she possesses a spell that can seal him away. Roy has a headband that with his long brown hair kind of makes him resemble Miles O'Keefe in Ator, while the hulking Arnold is kind of obvious, although in both cases the portraits in the upper corners of the screen simply look like a couple of Asian heroes.

Unlike a lot of beat-em-ups, Blade Master's gameplay doesn't involve a lot of combos, but instead it's a countering/parrying system that demands timing during attacks. There are also some simple moves like a downward strike that come in handy. Many of the bosses can be knocked down and then leaped on to start hammering into their chests. Beating people when they're down is always such a satisfying element of this genre. Enemy AI isn't very impressive as enemies will sometimes become immobile depending on the player's approach.

Irem's games around this time were known for lush graphics and this one makes a good first impression. The heroes and the assorted humanoids they fight look good for their relatively modest heights. Bosses are imposingly huge, including a kraken with gorgeously animated tentacles and a biomechanical, Giger-esque giant with a retractable neck. 

The backgrounds feature attractively rendered sights such as cities rising above clouds, a distant sunset, and rocky valleys, but it doesn't take long to notice that there's a lot of repetition, like seeing the backgrounds cycle in old Hanna-Barbera cartoons. The final two of the seven stages disappointingly recycle the same endless bridge graphics, and it's a long game by beat-em-up standards so seeing the same imagery for minutes at a time gets wearisome. There's a section in which the heroes ride on the backs of giant flying bugs, but it's all too brief. The game could have used one or two more imaginative setpieces like that. The game also resorts to recycling the humanoid bosses as it continues - one becomes two or three later in the game.

Not a bad game but one that feels like it could have used some extra care to become a must-play.