Masters of the Universe: The Power of He-Man (1983)

Mattel debuted their Masters of the Universe toyline in 1981 and it might be the closest thing to a sword-and-sorcery or sword-and-planet toy franchise to date. As it's known now, thanks mostly to the 1983 Filmation cartoon, the main hero, He-Man, has a secret identity as mild-mannered Prince Adam, son of the king and queen of Eternia. Adam transforms into the super-powerful He-Man by raising his magical sword and yelling "By the power of Grayskull!" 

When the toys first debuted, things were a little different. The mythology of the characters was mostly conveyed through mini-comics included with each action figure, with Don Glut writing and Alfredo Alcala drawing. According to these comics, He-Man was the strongest member of a primitive spear-wielding tribe and after setting out on a mission to share his talents with the world in battling evil he came across a goddess being attacked by a huge, shaggy creature. His reward for helping the goddess was to be given various weapons and magical harnesses that endowed him with superhuman strength or the ability to project force fields. Shortly afterward, He-Man would battle Skeletor and develop friendships with characters like Man at Arms and the "warrior-goddess" Teela. Later comics by Gary Cohn and Mark Texeira modified things slightly, such as splitting Teela into two separate characters, a Sorceress and a warrior woman, and having He-Man hang around a castle in the court of the king and queen who would evolve into his parents on the cartoon.

It's often been reported that the toyline had some degree of influence from Conan and Frazetta's book covers. Aside from He-Man himself, Skeletor's skull-faced visage is similar to Robert E. Howard villains like Thulsa Doom, and there's a certain Stygian vibe to Teela/the Sorceress and her snake-themed garb and cobra-headed staff. This era of He-Man would seem to be the main basis for the first He-Man videogame on Mattel's own Intellivision, although the game is understandably simple and doesn't incorporate much lore one way or another.

There are two stages. In the first He-Man must pilot the Wind Raider airship 30 miles to Castle Grayskull, dodging or shooting meteorites and bombing Skeletor on the ground before running out of fuel. The second stage features He-Man charging Skeletor across fields while Skeletor tries to hurl him backward with balls of lightning. He-Man has only a limited time to make it across three screens of this, including the inside of Castle Grayskull, but he can extend time by grabbing power swords that occasionally float across the screen, and he can use the force fields his harness allows to block Skeletor's spells. At the end of each screen, He-Man and Skeletor will engage in a swordfight that  of course He-Man wins, and after defeating Skeletor in the castle the game begins again with the difficulty ratched up.

The graphics are reasonably good for the time, with a particularly nice view of Castle Grayskull, although the characters are tiny and wouldn't be recognizable as the characters from the toys to one not already familiar. It also has a decent rendition of theme music from the cartoon that was soon to debut at the time.

It doesn't really capture much of the concept of He-Man/MOTU aside from the general He-Man vs. Skeletor aspect and the fact that the characters engage in swordfights the player can't control is disappointing. Perhaps the programmers ran out of memory for an extra stage, but then again, the creators of the Atari 2600's Superman game did a pretty remarkable job of including all of the essential parts of Superman's lore in an even smaller, more primitive game (Clark Kent working at the Daily Planet/Lex Luthor rampaging around/changing into costume in a phone booth/kissing Lois Lane/avoiding kryptonite/saving the day and dropping the crooks in jail/changing back to Kent and finishing the day at the Planet). It could have been worse but it also could have been better.