Rastan Saga found immediate popularity in arcades and soon found its way onto several home computers as well as the Sega Master System and Game Gear. To quickly capitalize on this, Taito developed and manufactured a sequel for the arcades in less than a year. Rastan Saga II (known as Nastar or Nastar Warrior in arcades outside of Japan) features higher quality music, more weapons, and the ability to block both high and low attacks. The character graphics are much larger and the graphics are more colorful.

Several extra power ups are added as well. Rather than the persistent items found in the original Rastan Saga, Rastan Saga II offers items immediately used on pick-up that give your weapons an added lightening attack, one that makes projectiles to rotate around you which damage enemies, and an item that kills every foe on the screen. There are also items that increase the game's timer and refill your life. Of these additions, the most interesting is the ability to block attacks by simply not moving (or crouching to block low attacks). This is a throwback to an early eighties game from Taito called Gladiator, where game progress is based on lining one's shield up against various incoming obstacles and enemy attacks. The game even offers cooperative play, which is typically a huge plus for any action game. Even this feature, however, cannot redeem Rastan Saga II's numerous faults.

While more colorful than its predecessor and possessing more available weapons, Rastan Saga II suffers from hit detection that blatantly favors the computer. Graphically, the sprites are significantly larger than those found in most games of this kind but are very poorly animated, with many enemies having only one or two frames of animation total! To make matters worse, the level design is so banal and linear it makes the original Rastan Saga feel like Elder Scrolls. Rastan Saga is a linear action game, but its levels feature a variety of vertical and horizontal movement, various deathtraps to avoid and a high quality arrangement of platforms to negotiate. Rastan Saga II has no vertical scrolling of any kind, only long flat stretches of land with the occassional bout of pits to jump over and a few hills to surmount.

Rastan Saga II (Arcade)

Everything moves more slowly than in the original game as well. Unlike the semi-intelligent humanoid foes confronted in each palace in Rastan Saga, the sequel's enemies are all completely braindead and follow exactly one form of movement/attack before leaving the screen. Many actually just stand in place and attack when you get within a certain distance, not even turning around if you get behind them!

Rastan Saga II's biggest flaw, however, is in the boss fights. Unlike the quickly paced and intense duels of the original, each boss is confronted in a wide room with no platforms. This combined with most of them being far too large to jump over makes things very difficult. Their patterns are also extremely tedious. It is possible to defeat a boss in Rastan Saga II without getting hit, with absolutely no skill is involved, just by strict adherence to the pattern. This is exacerbated by the fact that while successfully blocking an attack prevents it from damaging you, it has absolutely no affect on the movement/aggression of your assailants.

An obvious example is the Medusa confronted at the end of the second level. Attacking her a few times successfully causes her to lunge at you with her sword, then continue sliding forward with her sword angled downwards. If you block high, the follow up downward attack will hit you, but if you block high and then block low in time to stop this, she'll simply continue to slide through you, killing you not with swordplay but with her character sprite coming into contact with yours. The only way to defeat her is to attack her from as far away as possible, run away as she slides towards you, then jump over her and stab downwards at her not to damage her, but to put your sprite into a crouching position while in mid-air to possibly avoid taking more damage. All of the bosses function in this manner, discouraging reflexes and skill while rewarding using a single convoluted, tedious tactic over and over again until the boss finally expires.

Rastan Saga II (Arcade)

While the game is not a total disaster, it is a huge step down from the tightly focused package offered by the original Rastan Saga. Improvements like the sprite size and higher quality sound samples are welcome, but cannot overshadow the rushed and unfinished feel of the overall game. As a final kick, the game's premise is just plain silly. We know that there is a location called the Rastania, which "used to be a sacred place." We also know that whoever surmounts the tower "Skyscraper" can rule the world. Our hero seeks to stop the Wicked Group (yes, that actually is their name) from doing this.

The ending then speaks of how he will protect this land from any foe. We're given no indication of who we're confronting or why at any point in the game, and in a game with such odd boss designs, this is disappointing. The original game in the series is not Shakespeare, but it sets up a reason for the carnage that's at least coherent. Finally, we're informed that the war of the Rastania is over, and that the one who survived the war is known as a Rastan. Huh?

Rastan Saga II did not gain the same level of popularity as the original, and was only actually ported from the arcades to the Sega Genesis and PC Engine. The PC Engine release stayed in Japan while the Genesis port made it to the US. Oddly, Taito suddenly realized that capitalizing on a name involves using that name, and so the US Genesis game is titled Rastan Saga II.

Rastan Saga II (Arcade)

Both ports surprisingly have very accurate graphics relative to the power of their respective systems, though they suffer from massive downgrades in sound quality and the level of detail in the backgrounds are also reduced in exchange for maintaining the large sprite size. In addition, each level of Rastan Saga II has two distinct "halves" to it, broken up by a stone outcropping about half the height of the screen you need to jump over. In both home ports this point causes the screen to fade out and fade in after loading the second half of the level. Both ports are single player only.

Rastan Saga II was developed for the Genesis by OperaHouse. This developer's resume is small, and consists mostly of remakes and revisions of already existing games (most notably Megami Tensei: Old Testamant for the Super Famicom and Devilish for the Game Gear, along with several ports of Data East arcade games for the Sega Genesis). For the most part this version of Rastan Saga II is solid. It has terrible sound (also all voice overs are gone), but maintains the multi-plane scrolling of the arcade game's backgrounds as well as its speed. Remarkably, the enemy placement and level design is just like the arcade, and the graphics are very close to the arcade original.

The PC Engine port was developed by Taito itself. It has noticeably washed out graphics compared to the Genesis version. It is also plagued with slowdown whenever more than a few sprites are on screen at the same time. That said, the level layout, enemy speed, aggression and placement is exactly the same as the arcade original. Interestingly the game actually has to stop to "load" a new weapon whenever you get one rather than bestowing it upon you instantly as in the arcade and Genesis releases. While the voices and several sound effects are also missing from this version, the music is better arranged on the PC Engine and sounds closer to the original compositions than the Genesis release.

Three final alterations are actually an improvement to the game. First: In the arcade game, holding down and the attack button while in the middle of a jump causes you to rapidly attack downwards repeatedly. This gives you zero margin for error when hitting foes below you as you're vulnerable save for the split second that your weapon is out. In the home versions holding down and attack causes you to keep your weapon held out, making this technique much safer. Second: The combat has been slightly rebalanced. Your invincibility time is longer than the paltry split second you get in the arcade game. In addition, some of the heavier enemy types take less hits to destroy in these home ports than they do in the arcade version. This doesn't alter the game's difficulty (since these are foes that in most cases don't even move), but instead improves its pacing. Third: The half second delay with accompanying sound effect that occurs whenever you jump is gone in the home ports, making for much faster jumping and smoother movement control overall.

The PC Engine version is also available on the Wii Virtual Console.

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.

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 have 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 Saga 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.

Warrior Blade (Arcade)

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 many as fourteen levels.

Warrior Blade (Arcade)

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 is found 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.

Warrior Blade (Arcade)

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, 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 appearance 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.

Warrior Blade (Arcade)