Developer: Cyclone System Publisher: Taito Released: 1991 Genre: Action
I am a sucker for a good fantasy novel or movie. The Dragonlance series of books were some of my favorites so any game that came close to capturing that sense of adventure immediately caught my attention. I loved Rastan on the Master System and looked forward to its sequel. But the less said about that game the better. Taito had already made one of my favorite arcade games with Cadash so a Genesis exclusive game in that same vein should been a slam dunk. But somewhere along the way Saint Sword turned out completely average.
Saint Sword has a few features that set it apart from your typical side scrolling action game. Points function as experience and at set points you level up. Your power will increase twice, turning your armor red then gold and is accompanied by a strength boost. The difference is notable immediately as most standard enemies die in a single hit at full power. If you die however you revert back to your normal state. Even though you can level up fairly quickly in the latter half of the game it becomes harder, especially with a timer forcing you to move forward.
After every level you gain a new item that grant new spells. These produce a number of effects like clearing the screen of all enemies and eventually healing. These use magic points but you have so much MP you can spam them somewhat. The most interesting are the transformations. Macress can morph into three forms for sixty seconds, a centaur, merman, and a bird man. These offer their own obvious benefits: as a centaur you are faster and can back kick enemies. Merman form allows you to swim faster underwater while as a birdman you can freely fly about. Enough of these items drop that you can use them freely and the game more or less expects you to in order to succeed.
Each level in Saint Sword has the same goal, find the enemy that has the key needed to open the way to the end level boss. This is an enemy in a set location but you won’t know that at first. The stages in Saint Sword are massive, full of dead ends, hidden entrances and scroll multiple levels vertically. In a lot of cases you will find the exit first and will eventually have to double back. In the beginning you will come across the key naturally. But soon you can spend upwards of five or ten minutes finding the right enemy. There is a noticeable uptick in complexity at the midpoint and some levels even have multiple parts. To a degree it gives the game a distinct feel. But on the other hand the game does not do much with it.
There are plenty of features in Saint Sword that should make for a compelling adventure. The problem is most of them do not matter. At level three you become so powerful almost all of your spells become useless. You level up so fast there is no build-up; the game might as well have started you at that point. It is a shame that magic plays second fiddle to your basic attack as there are some cool spells such as stopping time. There are so few enemies in each level that combat is a joke, especially since Macress can withstand punishment. It can take close to twenty hits until death and an enemy will drop a life restoring ring long before then.
The large levels are both a strength and a weakness. It can be fun to explore at first and using your different forms to get around. But you will quickly notice that there are three or four enemies in total and the game palette swaps them in each level. Spending so much time looking for the right palette swapped skeleton you have killed thirty times in a row grows old fast. And while you can use your forms to get around they are otherwise underutilized. Swimming plays such a little role in the game they needn’t have bothered. Flight gets the most use but it is obvious the levels were not designed with it in mind. That basically describes the entire game, good ideas in a game that was not designed to support them.
In Closing
Saint Sword could have been a better game. It has decent mechanics but a combination of boring level design and repetitive enemies kill its potential. While it is not in the same genre Cadash is a much better alternative. This one is best left forgotten.
