WedSNESday: Let's Play Blackthorne
1This week on WedSNESday, Luke & Matt enter a sweaty, denim-covered, meticulously oiled land of shotguns and beefcake as they explore the world of Blizzard's early action platformer: Blackthorne. Prepare to slick back your long, raven black '90s hair and get swole while nonchalantly shotgunning orcs and grenading innocent bystanders.
Blackthorne, also known as Blackhawk in select European countries, is an action platformer made by Blizzard Entertainment for SNES and DOS in 1994, and published by Interplay. It follows the prince of the land of Kadroth on Planet Tuul, Kyle Vlaros, on a quest to avenge his father after their land is taken over by evil orc-like monsters.
It was one of the earliest games released by Blizzard under the new "Blizzard" company name, after changing it from Silicon & Synapse. It was one of many "cinematic platformers" of the era, similar to "Out of This World" and "Prince of Persia" and was described as "Flashback with an attitude" by reviewers of its day.
WedSNESday is the Level 0 NPCs weekly series where we play one older game for one episode, just to relive the nostalgia and maybe make your hump day just a little bit more fun.