Wardner

Wardner

released on Dec 31, 1987

Wardner

released on Dec 31, 1987

In Wardner, you take on the roll of a short, chubby guy whose name I am not aware of. The game starts when you and a girl are approached by a wizard promising a "fantasia" of sorts. You follow the wizard, and he kidnaps the girl, commenting that she will make a nice gift for Mr. Wardner. We can't have that, can we?On your quest to save your friend, you have to travel across 5 levels, to reach the evil Mr. Wardner. You will have to destroy monsters, jump over and duck under various traps, and collect gold and orbs to help you with your journey.You have a weapon meter on the bottom of the screen, which shows your current weapon, and weapon power (1 to 8). All weapons use the same power, so if you change weapons, you won't lose the power. The power, rather than making your weapon stronger, lets you fire it faster.


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A very basic platformer that borrows the same jumping mechanics from games like Kid Niki and Hammerin' Harry (as in you can control your direction in the air but not the height) but is nowhere near as good as either game, unfortunately. It has a handful of linear and non linear levels, and both are lined with what I'd consider trollish design. There are pulleys that launch you straight into spikes without warning, rocks that will drop on your head (keep in mind this is a one-hit kill game unless you've got the cape) on ladders with no time to escape among others. Even so, it's not impossible to get through. I think even the developers knew the level design was obnoxious because you're alloted a whopping seven continues and only lose your gold when you inevitably start burning through continues.

At the very least, it doesn't outstay its welcome and the main character looks like Eric Cartman cosplaying as some fantasy character. That's worth at least half a point.

Protips: hit down to get off those aforementioned pulleys- it's the only way to get off of them without jumping into the spikes in a particular stage where you have to zip around on them. Don't waste your gold on anything in the shops but capes, needles (to "repair" the cape and let you keep it for two hits) and the power of the sun. The other items are basically fucking useless and I'm pretty sure you can't even beat the game with the other projectile types.

Short, no-frills platformer. Thought it felt kind of odd and lacking for one on the Genesis honestly, until I realized it was a port of a game originally released in arcades and on the FDS four years prior. Explains it I suppose?? It definitely feels like something from around then.

Addendum
Man was this seriously 400th marked as played lol what a lame milestone my bad