WeaponLord

"Brilliant IF you can find someone to play it against. About as deep as any 2D fighting game can be"

Weaponlord should have been a arcade classic by now. Sadly Namco made two decisions that sank the game. Firstly it was released on the home systems first (The SNES was the better version graphically) and then it was released just before the 32 bit generation of consoles came out. Oops.

That said it was a massive game, both in terms of the size of the cartridge and in ambition. It took what Street Fighter 2 started and added a massive move list and a combo system that'll take you weeks to learn and months to master.

Take two or more special moves into the ring? Not Weaponlord. Every character has more than ten. The combat system includes the usual quarter circles and pulling back moves but also features moves that happen when buttons are released. This fooled many players who never bothered reading the instructions into thinking that the characters were slow to react but it takes time to learn and get used to. The button is pressed, you do the motion for the move, then you let go. If you don't let go, the character won't do the move.

I read a review once that said something along the lines of 'and the move took five to ten seconds to come out!' Just think! That guy spent five to ten seconds holding the button down and waiting. You'd have thought he's have figured it out by accident right?

Well he's not the only one. this is a game with enormous depth. There are counters, parrys, block breakers and a whole host of moves that wouldn't be seen again in a weapon based versus game until the Soul Calibur series.

For a fighter game fan it is superb. I've been coming back to this on and off for years and I still haven't mastered all the moves for every character and there aren't many to start with. They all play very differently and are largely well balanced. Play well and use the weapon parrying system well and you'll be rewarded with opportunities to unleash bursts of combos on your opponent but never to the point where the other player is entirely helpless.

But this complexity and depth is only really in the combat. The story is typical of most of this ilk. It justifies the battle arena setting and the artwork throughout is some of the best of its' time the real 'art' is the combat system and most players will miss it, seeing the game as impenetrable or, worse still, expect a "Street fighter 2 with swords and a Conan theme." It is obviously inspired by the 2D brawlers that went before it but it is too technical for its' own good.

Gameplay:

If you love working through combat systems, learning moves and combos then you will find a near perfect fighting game here. This is not the best 'post pub crawl' beat-em-up though. It's good but this game demands a good play through before you even start to understand how the moves work. The single player campaign is great. Each fight plays very differently and advances a simple but reasonably engaging story. You can't spam your way through, you have the learn the moves and at least be aware of the weapon-to-weapon mechanics in here. (Your weapons will clash against each other and bounce off if timed correctly (or incorrectly if it's your move being parried.) Timing is crucial and button mashing will be punished mercilessly by the AI at times.

The down side is that whereas you might enjoy learning all the moves and honing your skills anyone else you play will have to be able to do the same and there are not many copies of this game around for them to learn from. I've had to train my opponents for a few rounds before I've gotten a decent match. There are also some fantastically complex finishing moves too. they are based around complex combo moves made at the end of a match but most players never learned them. They were just too complicated at times.

8/10

Graphics.

This is where the game really shines, or rather glistens moistly with fresh blood. the back grounds are worth buying the game for. The character sprites are very detailed and though the animation isn't always as smooth as you might want it to be it is still fantastic for its' time. There are death moves in here but they are less of a gimmick than the Mortal Kombat series and tend to be a bit gory. The animation changes, and slows a little during weapon contact, allowing you to time the follow up move but there are other times when the game seems to slow. It's never a game killer but it does throw your timing a bit. The visual style all ties together brilliantly. They are sometimes a bit too well muscled for their own good and there are the odd frames where a bicep looks a bit like a characters' head but this pushes the little SNES very hard. 9/10

Sound.
The theme of the game is a dark, everything is evil sort of world. The bouts take place under a 'blood moon' so the sound naturally follows the dark colours, moody hues of blue and brown and blood reds. This can be a bad thing. The music can be soul crushingly dark and sounds muddy. It lacks depth, even for a 16bit game. The weapon clashes blend into the music a little too. It helps lend weight to the atmosphere but at the same time the muddiness of the music and sounds can make the game look more dull than it plays for somebody watching it. The voice-over very nearly saves it with the match announcements rivalling the iconic Mortal Kombat. Unlike the just plain bonkers Japanese announcers in some games he actually fits in perfectly with the theme. It sounds like he's been gagged with a towel in a bathroom somewhere but good none-the-less. 6/8

Overall.
This is a forgotten classic for those who are really into their fighting games. You don't have many characters to learn but the efforts of the developers were put into building a very deep and complex combat system. They succeeded brilliantly but got caught out by a fading generation of hardware and an already shrinking audience. If you are a fan of 2D fighting games you HAVE to at least play this and learn one character just to see the direction things could have gone in (and in fact did in Soul Calibur) It is not as accessible as the other big brawlers like the SNK series and Capcom's classics.

You have here a work of art. Not the Mono Lisa; everyone knows her. This is that Sunflowers fella' in someones attic that some house clearance guy find and recognises as a Van Gogh and subsequently sells it for 60 million quid. Recognise the genius in this game and you'll have months of gaming pleasure (Sadly not 60 million pounds sterling otherwise I'd be living in the Riviera with my servant typing this so that my freshly manicured nails weren't damaged). Just remember that it is an acquired taste. Even Van Gogh didn't sell a painting in his life time but that doesn't mean his art was no good. His style was way ahead of its' time and WeaponLord shares the same problem. It was too complicated for its' day and yet at the same time the graphics and sound were behind the times too with the Playstation and Saturn just around the corner. A fabulous game made at exactly the wrong time.

8/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 08/31/09

Game Release: WeaponLord (EU, 1995)