Delved into this cliche-storm of a game after a friend's recommendation piqued my curiosity. Many games from this era have their share of frustrating gameplay elements, and this one is particularly egregious in a few ways: the limited color palette means that some enemies tend to blend in with the background, and combined with the screen crunch means you rarely get enough time to react to them. Worse still, nearly every enemy is a flyer that likes to attack you from above/below while you can only attack left or right. The feel of platforming is quite stiff too, and there are far too many extended climbing sequences with tiny platforms where one single miscalculation means falling to the bottom of the screen and losing a minute or two of progress.

What really saves this game is how forgiving it is - infinite continues, and you respawn right where you died. In a more linear game, I would chalk this off as an uncreative band-aid over a poorly-balanced and poorly-designed experience. However, the infinite continues do work with the spirit of exploration the game seems to be encouraging. The stages are large, nonlinear, and full of neat little secrets and items to discover, and taking away the penalty for death means that the game - despite its difficulty - becomes a relaxed little playground where you're likely to find something new every time you play it.

Of course it'd be nice if the game was more polished, but it's a decent enough experience as is. Said friend who recommended me this game was insane dedicated enough to be able to 1cc it, and while I don't share in his enthusiasm, I do think one could do a lot worse than Wizards and Warriors if you were looking for a fun distraction from the NES era.

Rare is well known for being one of the most prevalent video game powerhouses that ever hailed from Europe for the NES. We are provided by them an action-adventure game that one might consider by its high-fantasy themes to be a very distant ancestor of the likes of Elder Scrolls or even the Legend-in-the-making of Zelda, however this is 1987 we are talking about here, and frankly the ambitions of what a video game could become were still highly experimental, so users would make-do with this release.

Is it good? It's... something.

Wizards & Warriors is a very stiffly controlled game, equipped with a sword of very short range, awkward jumps, a completely chaotic battle flow, and map exploration that is all bounded to a single character-following screen. It seems like our hero Kuros is in a very tight situation here, but at least the game happens to be really forgiving with unlimited continues, so progression may not be as painful as one could expect, especially from a relatively early NES game. I have not mentioned the power-ups our hero encounters on the way, over time there are acquirable upgrades that can give you an upper hand in different situations, such as getting an extra boost for your jumps, or a very handy boomerang-like axe that makes attacking far more bearable.

Aesthetically speaking, Rare's signature cartoony essence is actually pretty strong here. While the box art may invite a heavy metal escapade of the era, it really tastes like a closer predecessor to Banjo-Kazooie, we're talking about a goofy looking knight fighting pretty Halloweenie enemies like purple bats, jittery skeletons, and hanging spiders; indeed it is carrying some of the essence from their days finding success making ZX Spectrum games. And I have not even mentioned how visually speaking, while it is not the finest painting in the gallery, there is plenty of ambition going on with some of the animation and drawn assets.

All things considered, I find Wizards & Warriors to be a game that is very difficult to recommend unless you're a die-hard Rare enthusiast or want to see the Western involvement on this celebrated console. I think you could do far worse.

Rare's early years are similar to many 1980s development studios, insofar as they published games in completely different styles, experimenting in a very unrestricted way. This is the case for Wizards & Warriors, which seems to be loosely based on the formula of Ghosts 'N Goblins (1985), both in the player's progression through the world map and in the gameplay loop. However, Rare innovates by providing a much less linear adventure whose ambitions are broader.

The player acts as Kuros, whose goal is to defeat the wizard Malkil, who has gone mad, and to free the various princesses of the kingdom – all of whom are dressed in lingerie, a characteristic feature of western fantasy pulp. The title features different levels, massive in scale, to explore. The goal is usually to collect enough jewels to pay the knights guarding the boss room. These jewels are scattered throughout the level, but are mostly placed in large quantities within various chests, that can be opened with keys of the corresponding colour. The gameplay loop thus boils down to searching for the various keys required to open said chests, before exiting the level and confronting the boss. In the meantime, the player has to build up their arsenal, be it by obtaining ranged weapons, which move like boomerangs, as well as various items that permanently upgrade Kuros or are placed in the active slot – and can be used with the Select button.

Such a concept ought to work fine, but the title suffers from particularly poor playability and an aggressive spawn of enemies. The game has a disturbing inertia feel to it and Kuros spends his time sliding around, all the while experiencing severe delays when turning around. The platforming suffers greatly, especially as some sections require precise jumps. As for the fighting, it is generally chaotic and the hitboxes seem somewhat abusive. Most of the time, the player will just attack frantically, hoping that it will overcome the adversity. But whereas The Legend of Zelda (1986) has a childish and playful side to its swordplay, Wizards & Warriors is mostly muddy.

To compensate for this artificial difficulty, the game guarantees unlimited continues without any negative counterpart. Contrary to other opinions, I see this as a failure of game design. iyellatcloud regards this decision as one that allows for a more serene approach to exploration, but I think it is a fortunate coincidence. The title has a cruel DNA in its enemy spawn and if deaths are considered unnecessary, there is little point in creating such unconstructive opposition. This feature seems directly inspired by the logic that governs arcade games, but Wizards & Warriors would have probably benefited from a more contemplative exploration approach, with fixed numbers of enemies, even if it meant making them more resistant to create encounters that put greater emphasis on movement and the ability to keep enemies at bay: it's a pity that the game's best sequences are the rare ones where enemies are not too present.

For all that, the title is not without interest. The construction of the levels is rather efficient, even if a little too simplistic in some aspects: it is pleasant to collect the keys to open the different passages and some sequences are rather well staged: this is the case with the tree climbing or the castle ascension. With the latter, the emphasis is effectively on platforming, as the enemies are relatively static: the challenge mainly comes from the blocks that retract into the wall and require proper jump timing. The variety of sceneries is also appreciable, but it remains rather limited, especially since the game does not shine by its technical production. Some sequences definitely seem cheap: for example, the princesses are only drawn with a few miserable pixels and two different colours. They only serve to highlight the player's progression through the sexist representation framework of traditional Western fantasy. The fact that their names only refer to well-known female characters from the Western cultural canon – and mostly through the lens of damsels in distress – underlines the lack of interest Rare has in them.

Wizards & Warriors is thus an interesting title in its proposal, but its overall execution remains mediocre, so much so that it is hard to get genuine entertainment from it. The infinite continues are a convenient device to not completely alienate the audience, but they illustrate the shortcomings of the game design. IronSword: Wizards & Warriors II (1989) is its sequel, but the failure to question the structural problems of the original game probably explains its inferior quality.

for an early game made by rare, this one's extremely forgiving. infinite continues! you pick up right where you died! only your score resets upon death, but like... who cares. it's a bit awkward, with your attack button making kuros just kind of... waggle his sword around? but enemies will take damage from it even just by touching it without your input, and more importantly your damage output will instead quickly fall to the various weapons thou hath discovered - like the throwing dagger that acts like a boomerang. you'll get magic you can cast with the select button, too. and you'll be mashing that attack button almost constantly, with enemies flying at you from offscreen, from every direction... relentlessly. there's a weird, arcade-y slip n slide feel to the platforming and progression with smooth scrolling in four directions, doors leading into caves leading to doors emerging in previously inaccessible places - these levels are big! - and there's just a really fun loosey-goosey feel to the exploration and discovery. no knight has ups like this knight.

I had a surprising amount of fun collecting treasures and scouring the levels for gems. Rare were already into the whole collect-a-thon concept pretty early, weren't they? I never thought I'd wish for an NES platformer to be more difficult, but the fact that you start exactly from where you left off with your score reset after a game over makes me feel like I don't have to try that hard to avoid damage. I like that there are infinite continues, but a game over should at least set you back to the beginning of the level. The only time I felt like dying mattered was in the last two boss fights, the latter of which is admittedly challenging until you figure out how to cheese it. The graphics are decent for this era with some cool enemies and a funny death animation for the knight, and the music is awesome. It's a decent NES game, I wonder if the sequels are better.