Although the third game in the Sabreman series, it was the first completed and withheld due to fears that sales of Sabre Wulf would be affected. The player, as Sabreman, has forty days to collect objects throughout a castle and brew a cure to his werewolf curse. He turns into a werewolf at night, as indicated by an onscreen timer, and returns to human form during the day. Each room is depicted in monochrome on its own screen and consists of blocks to climb and obstacles to avoid while the player solves puzzles and retrieves items for the cure.
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This is a novel idea with solid visual presentation, but it feels 5-10 years too early as far as something actually playable or fun goes. It has a 3D fan remake that I imagine addresses its performance and communication issues, maybe I'll try that some day. It's another maze game, but a much slower one.
At least with this one I can see why it was praised so highly when it came out, unlike the first game in the series Sabre Wulf.
At least with this one I can see why it was praised so highly when it came out, unlike the first game in the series Sabre Wulf.
A bunch of small isometric rooms with puzzles. I've always hated the monochromatic visuals of this game.
For a Spectrum game, the third in the series of Sabreman games looks lovely due to its isometric graphics. Objects are lovingly chunky and there’s a real charm to how it looks. The core idea is also great: Sabreman is cursed, and each night turns into a Werewulf. If the curse isn’t fixed within 40 days, then he will permanently become a werewulf and you will lose the game. To fix the curse, you need to find items and throw them into a cauldron.
Unfortunately, those are the main good things about the game. It’s a slow, boring affair. The map isn’t as bad as the previous two games, and is a size you can learn, but walking is extremely slow and platforming is tedious. The isometric view makes it extremely difficult to judge jumps, especially when some platforms are higher than you’d expect.
You have to dodge obstacles (which again, due to the view, can be difficult to judge) and sometimes you have multiple moving objects on one screen, but they aren’t in sync with each other, so you may have to wait a while for an opportunity to appear. What doesn’t help this is that every 30 seconds, you transform, which has a long animation while everything else still moves, so you can miss opportunities due to this. Some rooms also require you to be in a certain form to bypass the obstacle.
You’ll need to find items based on what the cauldron in the centre of the map wants. It shows you them one at a time (although it works on a loop, so a guide can show you what is coming up).You will also need to find extra items in order to bypass some rooms, as you will need to drop items to use as additional platforms.
Everything just makes Knight Lore a fairly tedious experience, although nowhere near as frustrating as Underwurlde.
For completion, I cured Sabreman and completed the snapshots. The snapshots were quite difficult, but the quick replayability makes them quite fun.
Unfortunately, those are the main good things about the game. It’s a slow, boring affair. The map isn’t as bad as the previous two games, and is a size you can learn, but walking is extremely slow and platforming is tedious. The isometric view makes it extremely difficult to judge jumps, especially when some platforms are higher than you’d expect.
You have to dodge obstacles (which again, due to the view, can be difficult to judge) and sometimes you have multiple moving objects on one screen, but they aren’t in sync with each other, so you may have to wait a while for an opportunity to appear. What doesn’t help this is that every 30 seconds, you transform, which has a long animation while everything else still moves, so you can miss opportunities due to this. Some rooms also require you to be in a certain form to bypass the obstacle.
You’ll need to find items based on what the cauldron in the centre of the map wants. It shows you them one at a time (although it works on a loop, so a guide can show you what is coming up).You will also need to find extra items in order to bypass some rooms, as you will need to drop items to use as additional platforms.
Everything just makes Knight Lore a fairly tedious experience, although nowhere near as frustrating as Underwurlde.
For completion, I cured Sabreman and completed the snapshots. The snapshots were quite difficult, but the quick replayability makes them quite fun.
Knight Lore is most well known for being the first game on the filmation engine which was for 3D isometric games and was capable of much more impressive graphics than previous isometric games like Q*bert, it was also capable of (brace yourself) having images go behind and on top of other images without colliding.
It really is amazing how much games changed so much in such a short period of time, look at gameplay from this compared to something like Golden Axe or Castlevania 3. It feels like from the beginning of video games to the games of the early 80s was the stage of gaming where the boulder was being pushed up the hill. New technological advancements were slow and very incramental, then around the release date of the NES suddenly the boulder goes over the top and starts rolling faster and faster, classic games that are still iconic to this day were coming out constantly, and I think Knight Lore was one of the last games to come out before this change.
It really is amazing how much games changed so much in such a short period of time, look at gameplay from this compared to something like Golden Axe or Castlevania 3. It feels like from the beginning of video games to the games of the early 80s was the stage of gaming where the boulder was being pushed up the hill. New technological advancements were slow and very incramental, then around the release date of the NES suddenly the boulder goes over the top and starts rolling faster and faster, classic games that are still iconic to this day were coming out constantly, and I think Knight Lore was one of the last games to come out before this change.
Tem uma premissa boa, mas não é divertido. O jogo até que tem uma uma história de background legalzinha e inovações legais (tipo o protagonista ir se transformando em Lobisomem) mas Knight Lore simplesmente é um horror devido a sua jogabilidade totalmente travada e dura.
(Curiosidade aleatória é que esse game foi lançado 10 meses antes do Super Mario Bros)
(Curiosidade aleatória é que esse game foi lançado 10 meses antes do Super Mario Bros)
A clunky isometric exploration game with massive performance issues. Running around the castle feels super stiff and the isometric perspective, while impressive for its day, gets in a way a bit when you can't tell where an obstacle you need to jump past actually is. Plus some rooms just perform super poorly, slowing down the game to an absurd degree. It's rough! Very, very rough.