At the risk of turning this into a Dark Souls thread, I’ve also had a Dark Souls playthrough (third one, I think?) going on for about three years now. I was trucking really well last year, and strangely Blighttown and even the Capra Demon didn’t give me much trouble. But I happened to stop in probably the worst possible spot imaginable – Ornstein and Smough. I know the internet’s out there, but I wanna hear from the best: any good cheese or tips for those jerks to kickstart me again?
Semi-related to both that and this thread, I played through Warrior Blade: Rastan Saga Episode III last night. I say semi-related, because there’s this specific class of western fantasy that I think both it and From Software’s oeuvre fall into, which I’ve talked about before – I call it a sort of under-the-surface, primal fantasy, but I don’t really have a good name for it. Shitty AI grifters just call it “dark fantasy” when they try to make “so and so as a dark '80s fantasy” videos, but it’s more than that. Its DNA is in Robert E. Howard, Frank Frazetta (more specifically, Howard and Frazetta via Milius), Lovecraft (sigh), Boorman’s Excalibur and a touch of metal/prog rock album covers. It’s very much the fantasy of the unknowable, at its most mainstream in post-Conan '80s fantasy films, with even the tackiest sometimes having deeply mysterious moments that felt like whole other worlds untouched (I think of the Vores in Beastmaster) – nowadays, From tends to be the most significant contributor.
Anyways, Rastan Saga III falls into that category, clearly (like many games of its era) taking the most inspiration from Milius’ Conan (the characters you select from are basically Conan’s party: barbarian guy, lady warrior, nimble thief) and doing that really well. I’ve not seen this one talked about much, as it’s a straightforward beat-em-up (a different genre from the first two), was exclusive to Japan, never got a home port until Taito Memories, and followed Rastan II, which was a downer compared to the first.
But it’s a lovely compact beat-em-up that I think is astounding to look at. It does Taito’s two-screen trick, so playing it nowadays, you’ve got this widescreen belt scroller with incredibly dense pixel art – just teeny tiny pixels filling this super wide playfield. Visually, there’s a strange sense of retroactive modernity to it, by total happenstance. The widescreen nature evokes the recent Tengo Project reworks we’ve had, and also makes for tiny fonts that you didn’t see much of in arcades circa 1991. It even displays Japanese and English fonts side by side, which again by happenstance, is trendy in graphic design right now.
As a brawler, it’s not world-changing, but the art, tone, brevity and smoothness make it really enjoyable. There’s a lot of vibey, bassy undertone synths (fantastically chunky insert coin sound), and while there’s not a lot to do other than hit, jump, dash and special, it plays much more fair than its contemporaries – if you were in front of the actual machine, you could clear this with a friend for a few bucks without being pros, which is remarkable for the genre. One interesting mechanic is a wizard companion that joins you to act as a screen-clearing magic special with his own MP meter; to activate him, you just have to kick him in the shins. But other than that goof, it’s all about the tone – gnarburger creatures, undulating tunes, fantastic set pieces, pacing that never overstays its welcome, and bosses that belong airbrushed on the side of a van (my fave is a skeleton king on a throne who doesn’t attack you, but moans “help me” while sending skeletal minions out in balls of light).
Lemme steal some screenshots to illustrate how cool this thing looks:
. Played LttP last year in preparation for an eventual LA playthrough and the time is right. Been meaning to dabble with GB Studio so hoping to get some design ideas and inspo here. More journaling!