Magic Sword

At the beginning of the 90’s Capcom released Magic Sword, a side-scrolling hack-n-slash fantasy game. While the game was pretty straight forward it was fun to play just because of the sheer number of items, monsters and allies there were in the game. Magic Sword was truly an arcade classic that became a hit on the Super Nintendo.

You played as the hero named the Brave One and your mission was to scale a massive tower to slay the dark lord, Drokmar who is in position of an evil crystal called the Black Orb. Obviously with a name like that it has to be destroyed, so you head off on your adventure.

You start off with a sword and shield and as your progress will obtain new swords after you beat a boss. There are fifty-one floors of the tower with a boss after each eight, but along the way is a horde of enemies from skeletons, to Orcs to Bears that shoot magic at you.

As your slash your way through the tower of terror you will come across several different types of treasure chests some of the chests contain power-ups, food, coins and keys. When you come across a key you can use it to free prisoners who in turn will help you fight along your way. There are a total of eight allies including:

• Big Man – Who looks like Zangief’s long lost cousin. The big man is slow but swings a mean axe.
• Ninja – This is what makes Magic Sword so cool, it has ninja’s and we all know ninja’s rock. This ninja is super fast and fires off three shurikens that ricochet off walls and hit enemies.
• Amazon – No not the online discount store the Zena warrior princess kind. This is the only woman in the game and I am sure I saw the Brave One duck into an empty cell with her while I was A.F.K.
• Priest – Strangely enough this priest does not heal (like some in World of Warcraft am I right folks?) He casts a shield on you and fires orbs of light which totally own undead enemies.
• Thief – Well we know why he was in jail. The thief throws bombs and tosses knifes and can find hidden treasure and traps.
• Wizard – Lighting Bolt, Sleep, Magic Missile, yeah he does all that.
• Knight – The knight owns which is why you don’t get him till later in the game. His is the strongest and yet he throws spears which is kind of weird, but oh well.
• Lizardman – If you find a diamond ring the lizardman will fight alongside you, if not he will leave you. This kind of reminds me of my ex which also looked like a lizard and not one of the sexy ones from

The level design is simple but it works. Each floor is a little bit different from the last and you can go left or right depending on the floor. Sometimes it pays to go past the exit door to find more treasure and trapped allies.

As stated most of the game is just hitting the attack button while jumping over pits and ducking under traps, but mowing down hordes of monsters is fun in itself. The bosses are also pretty easy with many having simple patterns to follow to avoid their attacks.

Magic Sword also had seven hidden floors which required you do to certain things to unlock them. That and all the various items and power-ups keep you interested as you make your way up all those floors.

I was actually pretty good at this game and once beat it with only a dollar. Magic Sword was ported to the SNES and is coming to the 360 and PS3. A release date is set to April 14, 2010 for Xbox Live Arcade for 800 Microsoft points and April 15, 2010 for PlayStation Network for $9.99.

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