Death Sword

The Good
Barbarian (aka Death Sword) is one of the best fighting games for Commodore 64.

In modern days, we have the Street Fighter generation who just can't live without six action buttons and whatnot. The weird thing is, in my opinion, Barbarian's control scheme is even simpler than International Karate's or Exploding Fist's, yet it works wonderfully! In latter eras, C64 fighters tended to get rather simplistic because people forgot the wonderful examples set by these games. Barbarian is simple without being simplistic; normal joystick movement moves the character and button+movement attacks somehow, and there's still plenty of variety in attacks and strategy. The gameplay doesn't devolve into "push the button and the other guy dies" like in many of the latter games.

Barbarian has really a complete arcade feel in it, even when (to my knowledge) no arcade game was actually made. Graphics are top notch (some "visibility" issues though due to limited palette of C64), but that doesn't really hinder the game.

Barbarian's soundtrack is one of my favorite C64 soundtracks of time. The idea was to rip off Conan the Barbarian soundtrack and I think Richard Joseph did, at times, do better work than Basil Poledouris. This is just great stuff. The sound effects are fairly basic, but sound good nevertheless.

The Bad
Mostly, there are some small glitches in graphics (can't always see things perfectly, but, as noted, this isn't much of a problem and is mostly due to C64 limitations). One thing that bugs me is that while the graphics are great, most of the screen is wasted to the logo! Yes, arcade-like, and it's not like it'd been possible to construct bigger sprites anyway, but what's the point?

The Bottom Line
"Between the time when the Ocean drank the market, and the rise of the sons of Aybee-em, there was an age undreamed of. And onto this, Conan®, destined to bear the jeweled crown of A Cloned One upon a troubled brow. It is I, his game librarian, who alone can tell thee of the copycats. Let me tell you of the days of high pixelation!"

Picture this: You have two muscled guys, two really sharp swords, two short pants and only one shirt.

The idea of the game is to use the aforementioned sword to punctuate the other guy.

Two guys hack each other with swords, kick each other, tackle each other, and do other nasty things. Both can take certain amount of damage before dying. Alternatively, it's possible to hack the opponent's head off - quite bloody effect, considering the graphical limitations of the platform. And once the other guy is dead, a goblin comes and carries the body away (and kicks around the head if you ended the battle that way).

There are variety of locales to swordfight in; natural vistas are present in the "practice" mode (where one or two players can play), and medieval/high-fantasy castle scenes are found in the actual game (where there's actually an end boss, but who cares about the plot?).

Barbarian is definitely a to-the-point game. A fighting game can't get much more to-the-point than this.

To me, this is the definitive Conan the Barbarian game - just like Lylat Wars (Starfox 64) remains my definitive Star Wars game.

The Good
Oh, what fun! This game is one of the oldest fighting games ever. Unlike those before it such as the excellent Golden Axe or Double Dragon, in this game is no side scrolling, bash many pitiful enemies. That is NOT the barbarian way. Instead, it is a lot like today's fighting games - two equal opponents have it out, until one of them loses his health or whatever. But Death Sword was way before Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat, or these newfangled Tekken, Virtua Fighter and Soul Calibur, with their fancy hardware assisted 3D graphics and FPU's. No siree, Death Sword was programmed and played the hard way, with CGA graphics and a processor so slow it couldn't run a toaster.
But seriously, Death Sword is a very good fighting game. There are many moves, blocks and cool rolls to knock your enemy off his feet. You have to have quick reflexes and even quick wits if you want to kill off the more advanced enemies (they all look the same, but they fight increasingly better). You cal also block your opponent's sword, but you have to block the sword were it hits - if you parry a head shot, then you are wide open for a stomach thrust, and you better believe your enemy, whether human or AI, will take advantage of it.
But what makes Death Sword even more special is the decapitation strike. One second of not paying attention can mean the end of the game for you, and if you use it well and time it correctly, your enemy.
This game is fun, and I still play it today - since it apparently still runs perfectly under modern hardware and on Win98.

The Bad
The interface has one bad point: the left and right keys are right next to each other, with no other key between them, as was almost the standard back then. Imagine using a slanted keypad, when the left and right arrows are right next to each other, and you will get some idea how frustrating it is.
A larger variety in the game play and graphics would be better - the game is fun, but after half an hour its becomes boring fighting the enemies who look all the same, over the same background.
And has anyone ever suceeded defeating the evil wizard? I don't know anyone who has, and even though I tried quite a lot, I can't even get close to it - it's too hard to finish the game, and now I will never know how it ends and if I get the girl. sniff.

The Bottom Line
A great fighting game, the predecessor in spirit to today's fighting games, and still more fun the some of them.

The Good
Death Sword is a very simple game that doesn't show its true potential until you play it with a friend. The moves are fairly varied; you can drop'n'roll, attack high, kick, etc. Two of the coolest moves are swinging your sword around in one hand ala Schwartzenegger/Conan style, and also doing a reverse-jump-twist with your sword extended. This latter move is a death blow: If it connects, it beheads your opponent.

So what does this have to do with MobyGames? Death Sword was, for a time, a short passion between Brian and myself; the gameplay quickly turned into a cat and mouse game, waiting to see who twitched first. With the exception of Hack (which one of us played while the other looked over his shoulder), Death Sword was probably our most oft-played game together.

The Bad
Beating the end boss is very difficult; since it takes so long to get to him, you get frustrated very quickly when you fail and have to start all over at the beginning.

The framerate is only about 4 to 6 frames a second; all PCs are capable of faster, so it's probably due to the game having been ported from another platform and not having the game logic and sprites adjusted.

The Bottom Line
A very capable early fighting game. Learn the moves, teach them to a friend, and then go crazy.