Topic: Zyclunt/Blade Warrior

[Crying Freeman]

Searching for the most obscure of obscure on eBay, picked up a Windows 95 game called Zyclunt (renamed Blade Warrior for the US). First game from Phantagram (Kingdom Under Fire series), and it's fucking awesome! It's an arcade style 2D platform-hack n slasher set in the future.

You wield a light sword and cut the shit out of robots, and it's extremely satisfying! Aside from gameplay, the graphics and music are also top notch(soundtrack is easily accessed and ripped with iTunes)! It feels like Strider, Splatterhouse, Final Fight and Contra had a baby. It's a tough SOB, didn't get very far yet, but stage 6... Castlevania

(click to show/hide)

Stage 6 is a castle, and it has Castlevania esque music, with skull enemies, creepy paintings on the wall, and amazingly Simon Belmont as a boss battle... I'm not kidding lol. You fight an armoured man with long hair who attacks using a whip (which has a tip very reminiscent of Rygar's weapon). He even jumps and diagonally attacks you with it. I do wanna beat the game soon and hopefully find some more cool shit like that

[TheTextGuy]

Decided to look it up
From the video I saw, it reminds me of the Genocide games for the X68000.  Also the devs are Korean too. Interesting, since Korean retrogaming isn't as widely known or talked about.  I want to try this game.

[Crying Freeman]

Forgot about Genocide. That game looked rockin! As for Korean retro gaming, extremely obscure. They're charming games, too. Hardcore Gaming 101 is a great place to learn about games like this. They have a whole thing on the history of Korean gaming: http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/korea/korea.htm

The game's also on DOS, replacing the bad CG cutscenes with 2D art that looks much better. The PC version was released only in the US and Japan, the US version coming in a bundle with Samurai Showdown of all games. So random.

[zangetsu468]

This game looks sick and from the darkness and the style of artwork on the cover it feels cyberpunkish in context.

[toborprime]

Whaaat? Zyclunt looks crazy awesome! Definitely getting a Strider vibe off of the videos I'm watching. Love that old chunky mecha art style (also reminds me of Alien Warrior in that respect). Something about it also makes me want to go back and track down Ninja Warriors on SNES (a regular rental of mine back in the day).

Aaand I had NO IDEA about all of those older Korean made games.

[Crying Freeman]

Always wanted to try Ninja Warriors, might give it a go soon. I can definitely see the similarities with NW and Zyclunt. Still haven't beaten Zyclunt: the lack of saves and the fact you have to restart the entire level after game over can make the game feel a little tedious, but hey, it's old school arcade difficulty. I just hate playing the entire game again whenever I wanna play, because the levels get pretty long the further you go

[zangetsu468]

Always wanted to try Ninja Warriors, might give it a go soon. I can definitely see the similarities with NW and Zyclunt. Still haven't beaten Zyclunt: the lack of saves and the fact you have to restart the entire level after game over can make the game feel a little tedious, but hey, it's old school arcade difficulty. I just hate playing the entire game again whenever I wanna play, because the levels get pretty long the further you go

Tell me about it. I'm playing Gargoyle's Quest II at the moment and it's frustrating to not have save points, but in the spirit of gaming I'm doing it oldschool

[Crying Freeman]

Another great game! I do prefer GQ1 and Demon's Crest, but GQ2 is another awesome game! Correct me if I'm wrong but GQ2 at least has a password system?

[zangetsu468]

Another great game! I do prefer GQ1 and Demon's Crest, but GQ2 is another awesome game! Correct me if I'm wrong but GQ2 at least has a password system?

Yes it did, and I thought the first one did also? I don't think you could save many if any GB games way back when.

I've reached a third village now, so not sure if the password giver is also the spawn point or whether there will only be one spawn point for the entire game. Guess we shall suck it and see.

GQ1 > GQ2 Definitely. Although I believe GQ2 is more difficult but it also suffers from more slowdown and for some reason they felt the need to reinvent the controls when GQ1's controls were actually perfect.

DC was really good for its time but a few things frustrated me, that game where you have to jump and headbutt statues (delayed controls annoyed me), and the fact that you need 100% Completion and to complete the game and enter some password to fight the real boss and get the real ending which was very Simon's Quest of the creators. I got about 95% of the items, beat the game, got the second best ending and was quite satisfied with my performance. 

[Crying Freeman]

The first did. The jumping on walls change for GQ2 annoys me, feels slower and clunkier. Fighting enemies isn't as satisfying, but the soundtrack and atmosphere are still great.

DC needed a bit more polish when it came to it's completion for sure. Everything else is so well done that it's disappointing to see the delayed headbutt control as well as the bad item location and unfairly hard bosses to complete the game.

[zangetsu468]

The first did. The jumping on walls change for GQ2 annoys me, feels slower and clunkier. Fighting enemies isn't as satisfying, but the soundtrack and atmosphere are still great.

DC needed a bit more polish when it came to it's completion for sure. Everything else is so well done that it's disappointing to see the delayed headbutt control as well as the bad item location and unfairly hard bosses to complete the game.

You're right that GQ2 isn't as satisfying in pretty much every aspect. Even the map screen is crappier and the fights aren't randomised anymore, it's just one static Zelda II style enemy stuck on the map the entire time and the enemies never get more difficult, pure laziness on the developers' behalf. Although the dungeons were still good I feel that the game lost a lot of verticality compared to its predecessor, and it became overly reliant on doing extended flying across spiked pits. It's a good game by its own right, but not as good as GQ or DC for that matter.

I don't think the bosses in DC were overly difficult but they definitely were more of a challenge than GQ1&2. The item locations were just tedious, it's like the game is trolling you sometimes. There's always a couple that escape your senses and then you can never be bothered finding them. The "final boss" also had a sweet spot so he wasn't overly hard, and I do appreciate the gothic style ambience and ost, which was integrated well with the fact the Ghoul Realm is a completely different place to the world we know. Giving an unknown place familiar associations is not an easy thing to do.