"Thou hast discovered Platforming of Mediocrity."

Fortress of Fear, sometimes referred to as the black sheep of the Wizards and Warriors franchise, is one of those games that fail to gain any type of notoriety. It's not a very good game, but it's also far from a disaster. It's a game that simply is, and that's also the very reason why I decided to spend a couple of evenings in its company just to get to give it an honest shot and write this review. A game like this still represents quite an effort along with some competent craftsmanship and thus deserves its fifteen seconds in the spotlight, even if those seconds are merely the time it takes to read this review. Of course, the main reason to dig out a seemingly average game is the prospect of hopefully discovering something special that others may have either overlooked or simply not bothered to tell others about. Unfortunately, that is not the case with Wizards and Warriors X.

A simple 2D platformer, Fortress of Fear is a quite straight-forward affair. Unlike the Wizards and Warriors games on the NES that gave you fetch quests to endure and large areas to explore, FoF offers little beyond simple obstacle course type levels with a few hidden rooms. Seeing that these hidden rooms are all accessed by jumping over the wall at the beginning or end of a level, they only serve to reinforce the parkouresque feeling of the game flow and add very little to the heroic Kuros' quest to save the maiden from the titular fortress. A sad consequence of the different design compared to the NES games is the lack of inventive treasures. Where chests in the nes games informs you that “thou hast discovered” some hilariously named item like the Boots of Lava Walk or Dagger of Throwing, items which are often required to pass certain areas, Fortress of Fear offers generic junk like extra lives, life refills and a mere two real power ups. The Boots of Jumping will unsurprisingly make you jump higher and are thus necessary to pass certain parts of levels while The Shield of Protection (not to be confused with the shield of taking more damage or the shield of offering no protection) manages to win the award for most obvious power up name without making much of a difference to the game.

Now, despite the lack of hilarious loot, a simple left to right flow doesn't have to be a problem if the game offers some variety along the way. Unfortunately, “variety” in the world of Fortress of Fear is nothing more than different backdrops and the bizarre fact that every other level scrolls from right to left instead of left to right. While this will may possibly please Arabs (who read from right to left), I have a hard time believing that an ambition to reach out to a demographic group potentially alienated by the conventional left to right scrolling has anything to do with Rare's odd design choice. I also have a hard time believing that anybody would be very pleased with this or any of the other strange quirks at hand. Autofire on the jump button? Odd, but not useful. The fact that several doors doesn't have any graphical representation, meaning that the level suddenly ends when you touch a wall? Dumb, but offset by the fact that anybody who has ever played a video game before will know exactly where the door is supposed to be since the game basically shepherds the player into the proper part of the wall. The fact that you can't jump and attack at the same time? Awkward, but not much of a problem since the game is designed with this in mind, thus making this break of convention a no-issue as soon as you get used to it.

More problematic is the horrible attempts at combat displayed by Kuros. One would think that a knight would be able to swing a sword at his foes with some degree of success, but that's not the case here. Your frequent attempts to slash or stab at a foe will generally meet with failure as Kuros seems to be trying to hit an invisible pinata with his sword while blindfolded. These awkward seizures are compensated by some overly generous collision detection, meaning that a clumsy stab in the general direction of the nearest bat/giant snake/generic piece of fantasy cannon fodder will usually count as a hit. However, visually identical enemies will take anything from one to four hits before they go down, making sure that you'll face more than your fair share of cheap deaths before giving up fighting as anything but a last resort. Due to the unpredictable nature of your enemies hit points, foes will simply take a hit and proceed to walk or fly into you. Since they drain your life bar by merely touching Kuros and there's no temporary invincibility after taking damage, contact with enemies will often spell doom. This is especially true when it comes to the bosses like Bat of Very Predictable Movement Pattern who will simply fly right through you and take most of your life bar as a souvenir from the trip.

Trying to avoid enemies makes the game much more playable, and some levels are actually pretty fun using this approach. That you will take damage if you fall from a too high ledge forces you to proceed with care, but seeing that the height you can fall from without taking damage varies greatly for no apparent reason, you will often discover the Embarrassing Jump of Falling Flat on Your Butt without any warning or clue as to what went wrong. Complementing the randomness of the jumping and fighting, the fortress seems to be full of archers, cannons and fireball tossing beasts. Various projectiles (all behaving the same) will fly at you on select locations, making memorizing the levels a necessity. A nice touch is that you will actually get to see the cannons or archer behind the projectile assault towards the end of some of the levels, although realizing the the cunning Robin Hood wannabe has set up shop behind a level-ending exit wall and thus avoided a just beating after haunting you throughout the game is quite frustrating.

Presentation-wise, Fortress of Fear is nothing special. The graphics are a bit sparse but functional while the music is hit and miss. The first few levels are gifted with some horribly chirpy carnival music that you can't turn off since the only way to tell if you actually hit an enemy is from the bleeping fart sound that indicates that the foe has taken damage. Preserve though, and you will be rewarded as later levels feature excellent tunes that are completely overlooked thanks to the mediocrity of the game they are wasted on.

All in all, Fortress of Fear is a passable game that, despite its flaws can entertain you for an hour or two. It's a quite easy game to beat once you get to grips with the various quirks mentioned above and the simplicity of the game play means that it's ideal to pick up for a quick go whenever you for some reason don't feel like playing one of the many truly great Game Boy games. However, the same can be said of literally hundreds of games for the system. It's fitting, because for a game that simply is, being lost in the crowd is pretty much the very definition of its existence.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 01/03/11, Updated 01/20/11

Game Release: Fortress of Fear: Wizards & Warriors X (EU, 1990)