Game:

Wizards & Warriors (1987)

Duration: 6:13

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Being the third of four games in the popular "Wizards & Warriors" series (though story-wise, it's Chapter "X", which is later alluded to in the ending of W&W3 for the NES; it can be interpreted as ten or simply as "X"), it is kinda irritating, but so were basically all the games in the W&W series. I remember playing all the NES games as a kid and wondering why I put up with them, but as I got older, I realized that I like to be challenged every now and then. While not as full-featured as the NES titles, this game basically attempted to do what all the prior games did, and I think it got a bit of a bad rep.

It has pretty good graphics for when it was made and the soundtrack is pretty awesome. The gameplay is certainly not free of problems (you actually need to know this game to beat it, but that was the case with a fair deal of oldies) and this game takes the platforming elements of the other titles to extremes (where you may be screwed completely if you make a mistake and have to start the game over), but the game is pretty short (five stages with a few sub-levels and bonus stages) and our lad Kuros has two main slashes which suit his purposes. While not hugely important, the thing that irritates me most is that Kuros loses a slight bit of health from even tiny falls and he has little invulnerability between hits (though it wouldve been a lot worse if he got knocked around when hit... nothing like standing on a platform less than an inch wide and getting pushed around by endless obstacles).

The story deals with "Kuros the Knight" going on a quest to save a princess from the wicked Malkil, and must travel through the five main areas within the "Fortress of Fear" to reach them. There are plenty of secrets, branching pathes, traps, enemies, and items. In order to open chests, you need to find keys, and some chests actually have items you may need to progress, which can be lost if you die. The game has many devious platform segments as well, some which seem almost impossibly far or enter areas of the screen you can't see (though in some cases, you can ride them to the bottom without fear of death). This is a video of the first world. The glitching on the screen appears to actually be a result of the Game Boy Player; I have two copies of FoF and they both exhibit the same problem, so that's something I felt is worth noting. Enjoy.