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As popular as swords and
sorcery seems to be among video game developers, there is a surprising lack of
Conan the Barbarian-style thematics. There are a few games that
flirt with it, but other than the early fighter Barbarian, Rastan, and a couple
of others, it's few and far between. Weaponlord is a strong exception. If it
wasn't made with a fondness for Conan, then it certainly was made with a
commitment to faithfully replicating the movie's atmosphere.
So expect plenty of roided-to-the-gills muscle men (to an even greater
extent than most other video games) with huge swords, scantily clad females, and
loin cloths. There is no lack of overly dramatic wording that seems like those
narrations from Conan the Barbarian. This would be embarrassing in any other game, but given the theme, it works quite well and genuinely benefits the game's presentation.
Weaponlord was published
by Namco, but was actually developed by Visual Concepts. If that name seems
familiar, they were formerly part of Sega and are now under Take Two,
who are responsible for the 2K Sports series. It's vaguely ironic that they'd be competing with Madden, considering they developed the 16-bit Desert Strike series for Electronic Arts several years earlier. Amazingly, they also made Clay Fighter, which plays nothing like Weaponlord. Namco went the extra mile to make this game look nice, so they commissioned British comic book illustrator Simon Bisley to draw the cover and provide other artwork.
Weaponlord's plot goes like this: Decades into his rule, the DemonLord Zarak is
told by a seer that there will be a child born that night beneath a eclipse
called the Warrior's Moon. In adulthood this child will defeat Zarak and end his
reign. Rather than simply kill each child born that night and avoid this
potential problem, he opts to wait and face his foreseen death. 25 years later
the Demon, not afraid to meet his destiny, plans a grand tournament of
champions, promising the winner obscene wealth. Six contestants, each born
beneath the Warrior's Moon, emerge to the highest ranks of the tournament, each
on a collision course with destiny.
See? Told you it was overly dramatic.
One of Weaponlord's biggest flaws is that there are only seven characters. They are very
well balanced, which alleviates this to an extent, but most fighters had a
selection of characters in double digits by that time, so it is somewhat
disappointing. There's an astounding amount of story presented when you first start, as well as when you beat the game, which is a nice touch.
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Korr
A Conan-esque swordsman in face paint looking
for his brother. Wields a huge Broad Sword, which catches fire during several of
his specials.
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Divada
A power-hungry sorceress who lives in a desert
castle. She enters this tournament to kill Zarak and take over his kingdom.
Wields a double bladed weapon. As opposed to Weaponlord's other characters, she
actually has a few projectiles.
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Bane
A huge man with a wold mask and horns, who is
cursed to stand watch at a place called "Cursed Path". You figure he
would have better avoided a place with a name like that. Carries a giant stone
hammer and a claw made of bone.
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Jen-Tai
Standing at 6'10", Jen-Tai serves as Arena
Lord for Zarak's arena. She is reputed to be the greatest warrior in the lands
ruled by Zarak and enters his tournament after being challenged by him. Jen-Tai
hauls a huge sword and a spiked shield and wears the most badass helmet ever.
Has great range, but lacks projectiles.
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Talazia
A princess whose tribe believes her to be
prophesied to kill Zarak. Fights
with a bladed disk and a claw for a shield. He has several anti-air moves.
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Zorn
A thief who wishes to kill Zarak. Swings an axe
and has a shield that looks like a skull that' not quite dead yet. Only he
and Zarak have any charge moves.
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Zarak
A demon possessing a mercenary's corpse and
warlord of the world. Wears a living
helmet that looks like a spider. Wields a giant axe/spear. The
only other character besides Zorn with charge moves. He' playable in Vs.
Mode, Arcade Mode, and, via a password (AAC ACB BBC AAA CCB CAA), in Story Mode in
the Genesis port.
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What immediately differentiates Weaponlord from most other fighters is its
controls. Each character has several specials that are executed with standard
Street Fighter II style controller motions, but the devil is in the details. Rather than
moving the arrow pad and following it by pushing a button, this method requires
the opposite: you move the arrow pad while holding a attack button. I am all for
an "onward and upward" attitude in video game design, but it seems
like this is strictly for the sake of having the game control differently, and
it really does nothing to make things any more intuitive or less difficult.
However, it really doesn't make things any worse, and those who strongly
dislike the controls of most fighters might actually prefer this method, whereas
to people who play many fighters it might be nothing but awkward. Regardless,
you are going to have to relearn fighter controls to play Weaponlord properly.
Most failed/forgotten SFII cash-ins lack the complexity, in both gameplay and
presentation, that fighters from Capcom and SNK had at that time. Weaponlord
actually exceeds most of its peers in this regard. Weaponlord has several very
advanced techniques. Most noteworthy of which is "Thrust Blocking", a
form of advanced blocking. While World Heroes 2 is the first fighter to have a form of this, Weaponlord is the
first fighter to allow this as a method of defending against every attack,
predating even Last Blade. To execute this technique hold either of the two
least powerful attack buttons (B & Y for SNES or A & X for Genesis) and
tap a direction corresponding to the level of the attack you are defending (Up
for highs, Forward for mids, Down for lows, and Down to air block). If executed
properly, this will cause your opponent to recoil, allowing you to get an easy
hit in if you're quick. Most other advanced techniques are executed by
attacking with moves that have properties that cause your desired effect. These
techniques are: "Catchers", which freeze your opponent for a fraction
of a second, potentially allowing their weapon to be partially broken;
"Deflects", which essentially overpower your opponent's attack if the
two collide; "Openers", which will cancel your opponent's block;
"Take Downs" and "Knock Downs", which will knock your
opponent on their back or ass, respectively; and "Double Overs", which
cause a opponent to stumble, allowing combos to be extended. You can also attack
opponents while they are on the ground, and there is a limitless juggle combo
system.
Your movesets are also a bit different from most fighters. Weaponlord lacks
conventional throws, instead having command throws. Rather than there being huge
flashy specials, most specials are just multi-hit weapon strikes. However,
rather than two or three specials, like in most fighters, characters have a good
ten specials each.
Many of Weaponlords unconventional gameplay decisions actually stem from it being the first fighting game to be designed with online multiplayer in mind. Weaponlord was optimized for use with Xband, a then new online multiplayer service that made it possible to play Genesis and SNES games via dial-up internet. However, latency made especially playing fast fighting games quite problematic. After all, the games themselves weren't intended to be played online at all. So the developers at Visual Concepts took their experiences with playing Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat through the service, and tried to prevent problems they've encountered, basing decisions on timing and balancing on this criterion.
Like countless fighters from the years immediately after Mortal Kombat's
release, Weaponlord has fatalities. Rather than entering a command to execute
them, you have to defeat your opponent with a specific move, or sometimes combo
into a specific move after defeating them. Each character has about six
fatalities from a shared pool of about eight, with Zarak having an exclusive
character specific fatality. It is even possible to combine multiple fatalities.
For example, you could disembowel your opponent, decapitate them after they fall
to the ground, and then slice open their skull as it flies up in the air to
expose their brain. Needless to say, this game is quite gruesome.
Weaponlord's graphics are extremely rich with detail.
The characters look decent enough if you dig fantasy art, but the backgrounds
are fantastic. Each is very attentively, intricately detailed and well-designed.
Perhaps the best of which is Zarak's level, which takes place on a veritable mountain
range of skulls. The background is composed of multiple layers, and it gives off a great impression of depth. The music is pretty great as well. It is very atmospheric, consisting largely of pounding drums, and does a great job at setting an appropriate tone for Weaponlord's theme.
So Weaponlord definitely feels extraordinarily clumsy at first, which isn't helped by the immensely overbearing computer opponents. It's definitely what you could term a a "bad" fighting game. But it's the best "bad" fighting game ever made. It should have been just as big a disaster as Clay Fighter, but somehow everything came together into a coherent whole. Yes, it's way too complex. Yes, it's totally, utterly, collapsing on itself. The game is being held together with duct tape, and you can see that and "feel" that while you are playing it, but it really does work. If you spend a few minutes with a FAQ (try GameFAQs) to learn the controls, it is pretty enjoyable. It's also fairly decent in its own right, especially considering it was one of the few acceptable 16-bit fighting games made explicitly for the home market.
Weaponlord was originally intended to be a SNES exclusive, but Visual Concepts began porting it to Genesis while they were still working on the SNES version. The Genesis version is aesthetically inferior - it has a black bar behind the status indicators, the backgrounds don't have nearly as many layers, and the colors suffer a bit. Similarly, the music is pretty lousy in comparison to the SNES version, and the voices are staticy. On the other hand, those cutbacks also brought with them a noticeable advantage - on the Genesis, the framerate is less choppy, which improves the overall playability of the game. One also has to wonder if there went additional finetuning into that version, as it got rid of some rather embarassingly simple (semi-)infinite combos. Other than the SNES game, the difficulty spectrum doesn't range from unforgiving to godlike here, instead the easiest level is infact a fairly easy one, at least when compared to its sister version.
Links
Crunchtime Games - Weaponlord A bit of cool behind the scenes info.
Interview with Dave Winstead Interesting statements on Weaponlord's online gameplay (on page 3).
Video Game Museum - Endings All of the endings.
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