Warrior Blade: Rastan Saga Episode III - Arcade / Playstation 2 (1991)
The premise again has no relation to the previous game. This time Rastan and his two companions travel to the land of Depon in search of treasures. Warrior Blade: Rastan Saga III is something of a paradox. It has many advanced features from a mechanical standpoint, the most obvious of which being that it makes use of two arcade monitors set next to each other (just like the Darius II and Uncanny X-Men arcade games) to create a very large play area. It also features exceptionally crisp background graphics for a 1991 game as well as sprites that a large variety of smooth animations. Like most beat'em ups, the number of different types of enemies is low, but Warrior Blade takes a cue from the original Rastan and has various combinations of armor and weapons that a single type of enemy may appear with to keep things interesting.
Warrior Blade is no slouch in the gameplay department either. You have three playable characters (Rastan himself, a female warrior named Sofia, and an agile character named Dewey) with different attributes. The game moves relatively fast for a 1991 beat'em up and is one of the few games of its kind of include some successful basic platforming. Your characters can run and also have a few special moves to get you out of a tight situation (including the ability to hit enemies that are already knocked down). Taito has even added in some fast auto-scrolling levels where you may be flying upwards on a dragon or sliding down a mountain range.
The most interesting of these new features is that the character's can pick up and use magic attacks similar to the Golden Axe series. Rather than just picking up and using potions, these attacks take the form of Rastan's mysterious new ally, an ancient wizard named Mahadidekaradi. When you find him (by picking up a crystal ball from the ubiquitous breakable objects in the game's levels), he follows you throughout the given level and a gauge representing his magic power is added to the bottom of the screen. Whenever you want, you can hit him, and he'll use up some of his magic power to damage or defeat every enemy on the screen via a variety of very powerful spells. An impressive amount of detail is paid to these, as each one has not only a different animation but a lengthy text incantation that flashes on the screen as your enemies are destroyed.
The paradox comes from the fact that, despite these advancements and the game's obvious attempt to cash in on Final Fight, Warrior Blade's overall gameplay is firmly grounded in the old Technos beat'em ups of the mid to late eighties. Instead of having pre-canned attack combos that result from hitting the attack button repeatedly, each character has a sizable number of context sensitive moves that happen based on what position the enemy is in in relation to your character's sprite. These attacks can also be altered in some cases depending on what direction you're holding on the controller as you attack. This makes your characters rather versatile despite only having a single attack button. It also discourages brainless button mashing, since you need to wait for the right time to deal the ideal specialized attack to a given enemy to prevent from being overwhelmed. If you're cowardly though, you can outright run past many of the confrontations, though you'll usually take quite a bit of damage this way.
On top of all this, the game even lets you choose which order you tackle its levels in, this seems irrelevant at first, however the game contains many bonus levels you can access based on your overall skill. Doing well in these levels bestows Rastan and his friends with items that permanently increase their abilities or weaken their foes for the rest of the game. Depending on your skill you can beat Rastan Saga III by playing through as few as many as fourteen levels.
Finally, the game's overall presentation successfully evokes an atmosphere more interesting than most games of this kind. True to the nature of Robert E. Howard's Conan stories, the bosses appear to be unstoppable demons but all crumble and die very anti-climatically, with just a single scream as they become lifeless and fall apart. Rastan himself is not much of a hero either, as he confronts these horrors solely to find all the treasures in the land. In an extra nod to this sort of build up, your character's stance and move set changes slightly during boss fights, adopting a more ready look.
The selectable stage order only contributes to this, as it shows that Rastan cares not for the lands themselves or the people that populate them. His only interest is what money he can take from each region. In addition, the ending is something of a downer, hinting at the possibility of missed treasures and even a better ending, but these things aren't meant to be. Rastan simply travels onward to further adventures. Much like the story of the first game, Rastan's motivations are purely mercenary, looking for wealth to satisfy immediate personal needs over all other things. So again, we have a Rastan ending that completely goes against the tone set by the previous release's ending (Rastan defending the lands of "Rastania"). One interesting bit of the ending is that it shows the old wizard Mahadidekaradi back in his tower, a level you fight through during the game. The game's attract demo says he is an evil magician who is one of the most powerful beings alive. Why he allies himself with Rastan here, as well as why he apparently needed Rastan to eliminate the enemies infesting his own tower, remains a mystery.
The final unexplained element is the last boss of the game. A large armored knight confronted in an area called the Tower of Gulestopalis. When confronted, he has an English voice over: "I'm sad, you want to be a hero too. You'll suffer the same fate as I." After saying this he transforms into a large red demon. Is this some kind of reference to Taito's other big 1993 game, Estopolis Denki (released in the US as Lufia)? Is the "Gule" prefix supposed to imply that we're confronting Gulian, protagonist of Taito's much older fighting game Gladiator? Given the game's ending, it's possible. Perhaps it's just a coincidence, but only Taito knows for sure.
Despite being a massive improvement over Rastan Saga II in every way. Warrior Blade: Rastan Saga III apparently did not get too popular in arcades. This is possibly because of the specialized monitor setup. Darius as an example involves multiple arcade boards stacked onto each other connected by some ribbon to function across multiple monitors. Compared to the kit-only release of the original Rastan Saga (which could be placed into almost any cabinet at the time easily) one can see why coin-op vendors would not take too kindly to Taito's multi-monitor efforts.
Sadly, the game was never ported to a console until its release amongst several other unsung gems on the Taito Memories series released in Japan from 2005 to 2007. Warrior Blade: Rastan Saga III itself appears on Taito Memories II Gekan. This appears to be its final resting place, and the game has never been officially released in any form outside of Japan.
Barbarian / Warrior Blade: Rastan vs Barbarian Saga - Playstation 2 / Gamecube / Xbox (2003)
For reasons unkown, Taito picked up the game for publication in Japan. Perhaps realizing the game would not sell on its own qualities, they quickly renamed the most generic barbarian-like of the characters (Dagan) to Rastan, and changed the title of the game to Warrior Blade: Rastan vs. Barbarian Saga. No attempt to alter any of the other characters or change the game in any other way to link it to the Rastan Saga was made. Other characters include Keela, a blonde female warrior; Corath, a masked fighter; 21, a giant; Phade, a clawed female warrior; Mongo, a huge beast; Eyara, a scantily clad girl with green skin; Stitch, a reanimated skeleton; Jinn, a fire breathing demon; and Magnus, a floating spirit wearing a horned helmet.
Barbarian takes place in various 3D arenas where you and your opponent's characters can move about freely. Similar to the Dead or Alive games, the arenas are pretty huge, and you can be knocked down to different parts of the level, where the fights will resume. While the controls are responsive enough, combat is noticeably lacking the visceral punch of other Rastan games as well as most other fighting games. While your character can run around the arena in a three dimensional space (as opposed to more restrictive sidestepping and dodging systems seen in Sapphire's previous 3D fighters games) the lack of impact when damaging an opponent or being damaged really hurts the proceedings.
The greatest flaw of Barbarian, however, is its lack of personality. This is especially damning when stacked up against any other Rastan product, as even the lowliest of home computer ports made an attempt to keep the controls responsive. In Barbarian, combat both feels and looks like you're blindly wailing away in the general direction of your opponent no matter what combinations you attempt. The arenas themselves are also very bland, both lacking in artistic detail and general polish. The game is an unrefined mess. It's disheartening to see a series that began with such a tightly focused and fun game end (even if indirectly) with such a broken and unenjoyable product. The game was released on both the Playstation 2 and Gamecube platforms. The Gamecube versions supports four player simultaneous play, but the Playstation 2 version only supports two. An Xbox version was only released in Europe.
Barbarian (PS2)
Barbarian (PS2)
Barbarian (PS2)
Barbarian (PS2)
Barbarian (PS2)
Rastan Saga even inspired a clone on the TRS-80 called Warrior King. The protagonist of this clone is brilliantly renamed Rastann, though the game itself is decent and was actually programmed by Glen Dahlgren (Death Gate!!). It features digital sound effects and good use of color, though the jumping controls are very unforgiving. The actual hit detection is sadly (or impressively) superior to many of the official computer ports of the game.
Warrior King
Rastan Saga became very popular in arcades due to its perfect combination of constant action, fun level design, and focused art direction. Many home computer ports followed and Rastan was even made a playable character in Taito's later arcade game Champion Wrestler (wrestling under the name Miracle Rastan).
Champion Wrestler
Rastan (Arcade)
While Rastan Saga II did not achieve the same success as the original, a few years later Taito took another stab at the franchise, this time turning it into a sidescrolling beat'em up to capitalize on the success brought to the genre by home ports of Double Dragon and the then recently released Capcom game Final Fight.
American PS2 Cover
Japanese PS2 Cover
Japanese Artwork
Sapphire, after cutting their teeth with a few projects for Midway like the home ports of War Gods and the ultra-violent 3D fighter Bio-Freaks, began work on an oft-delayed arena fighter called Barbarian. The game was heavily anticipated when first announced, but by the time it came out its exceedingly average presentation and controls caused any positive buzz surrounding the game to die with a wimper. Barbarian quickly became more notable for being one of the last games published by Titus. As such, it's just another sub-par game in a long list of sub-par entries from the publishers of Superman 64 and other infamously terrible products.
Rip Offs - Warrior King
Cameos
In the years since Warrior Blade: Rastan Saga III's release, the Rastan character and game series has remained stagnant. Taito's Japanese localization of Barbarian did nothing to rekindle its popularity, but the original game remains a cult favorite. Players can revisit the excellent Rastan Saga thanks to Taito's arcade game compilations receiving international releases, but it seems Warrior Blade: Rastan Saga III will forever remain exclusive to Japan.
