"Promising beginning marred by lackluster second half."

Magic Sword was at every arcade and most pizza parlors I visited growing up, and many people considered it to be a great game. Back then we had never played the game to the end, no matter how much we liked it; it just ate too many quarters. If we had played it all the way through, I don’t think our opinion of it would have been so high. Though it starts out great, as a kind of excellently executed Rush ‘N Attack for the Dungeons and Dragon crowd, a lackluster later game dulls the entire experience.

So you start out with a Ken/Ryu choice between two Conan types. If you collect keys you can unlock prison cells and release a secondary character. You get one extra guy so some choices need to be made. Each guy has their own kind of attack. Some guys start out pretty good but never really come into their own at later levels. Others are fairly weak but become monstrously powerful after they raise a few levels. There’s even a special character found only once or twice in the game that can give you access to a secret area. No spoilers, though; see a faq.

The first few levels of the game have an excellent variety of enemies to fight, including some D&D and standard fantasy mainstays. Later in the game, though, you’ll find yourself wondering just how many Easter Island Heads you need to destroy. I’m sure the answer would surprise you. The item interactions are fairly complicated and interesting. If your local cabinet has the instructions scratched off you may need to consult a faq to see just what every item you pick up will do.

I think that Magic Sword suffers overall for its lack of creativity in later levels. The first few levels are fantastic, but the uncreative design and repetitive enemies of later levels only serve to bore. It’s almost as if the designers tried to suck you in to this quarter gobbler early on, then stopped trying once they knew that you’d be hooked and continuing to play for no other reason than to see the game end. Some may ask if a poor later game and so-so ending should mar a game so badly, and I’m inclined to say yes. Some arcade games you play because they’re fun to play on a game for game, quarter for quarter basis, like Dance Dance or a fighting game, and others you play to beat. Magic Sword is set up so that your eyes are on the prize the entire time. Keeping track of your progress on the stairs after every level is just a way to give you a slight sense of accomplishment and keep you pushing ever onward and plugging in quarters until the final level. And if that becomes tedious, you start to ask yourself, “why am I doing this? Why don’t I just walk away when the continue screen appears?” If the gameplay isn’t outstanding and the only thing that’s keeping you going is your desire for closure, there’s something wrong with the game.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 10/17/02, Updated 10/17/02