Three Dirty Dwarves - Hard mode | Sega Saturn Playthrough | Real hardware
0The graphics and animation really stand out in this game. Like metal slug. It also has well animated cut scenes. All three of the dwarves have different abilities but they are mainly just different fighting moves so don’t expect them to be able to solve puzzles like the lost Vikings.
I made the massive mistake of misreading the manual and remembering it saying that you had to play it on hard to see all of the levels. This is incorrect. You just need to do it on normal. The main difference is that you have a you have an energy bar on hard. On Easy and Normal you can get hit as many times as you like, as long as you ‘wake up’ your knocked out companions by hitting them. As long as one dwarf is alive, you won’t die. On Hard, you have to make sure that you don’t get hit that many times in a row. There are health pick ups but you really do get hit a lot. It’s usually just at one point too, so you have to be very careful and learn every enemy pattern and level layout very well.
It made the game a bit infuriating for me at times as I had to retry levels way too many times. These levels are really long too. I would have breezed through on medium difficulty but the hard mode forced me to restart long sections which was really laborious. The whole game took me six and half hours. I cut out the deaths because this video would be very boring.
A particularly hard level is the minecart level. I had to retry this dozens of times because every new piece of track is a hazard which you need at least 1 (if not more) death to figure out what to do next and learn it on your muscle memory. It’s not down to reactions. Just memory.
It also has a very long loading screen in between tries which makes it even more frustrating. Luckily for the viewer, I have cut out all of the super long loading screens.
The minecart level took me 40 minutes, which is long when you consider it’s a 1-minute level. There are a couple of other normal sections which took me over an hour because they go on for so long and you have to do most of it every time before you die. The last boss was really difficult too and it dragged so long. There are no health pick ups so you have your 7 hits for all four forms on hard. It took me a long time because it’s so easy to get hit by accident even when you have your strategy in place. The first 2 forms really drag too. They take a long time each and usually I would get destroyed trying to figure out the third form and have to do the whole thing again.
There are some special moves which are a bit useless on hard and can’t be used if you don’t have full health so you barely get the chance.
I love the fact that they try something different with all of the levels. The enemies are superbly drawn and animated. The bosses are unique. The visual design of the whole thing is outstanding. I enjoyed the game but regret playing it on hard due to myself misremembering what I had read in the manual.
Rating – 8/10
Difficulty - 7/10 (on hard)
Original game played on PAL Sega Saturn.
Picture split between CRT TV for my own viewing and OSCC scan converter with 2x line doubler, upscaled to HDMI for recording
No cheats used
Hard difficulty
Box art from thumbnail is taken from my own collection
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