Spectrum Analyzer: Sabre Wulf

[Phillyman]

From the Atari 2600 to the NES to the Sega Genesis, you thought you've experienced everything there is to know about retro. Don't get too cocky though, Americans! There's a whole other chapter of classic gaming you've likely missed. Pack your bags... 1UP is taking an extended trip to England to discover:

All right, I’ve held my tongue in the name of objectivity for as long as I can, but I’ve been pushed to the breaking point. Is there any game in the Spectrum library, any at all, that can be finished by an ordinary human being without a fistful of cheats? After all I’ve seen over the last two months, and what I’ve played of Sabre Wulf, I’m starting to doubt it.

Historically, Sabre Wulf is extremely important, helping to establish Rare as a high-profile developer back when the company was known as Ultimate: Play the Game. This release is practically unknown here in the United States, but its influence on Rare’s American software library is obvious. The way the lead character Sabreman frantically flails his blade was recycled in the Wizards and Warriors series, and references to the game would be made in Rare titles long after the Spectrum had been made obsolete. The muscle-bound werewolf from the arcade game Killer Instinct was named Sabrewulf, and the hero’s frozen body can be found tucked away in one of the many nooks and crannies in Banjo-Tooie, released for the Nintendo 64 in the late 1990s. There’s also a sequel to Sabrewulf on the GameBoy Advance (which you'll see on the right), but it has little in common with the original, forcing Sabreman to collect treasure from under the wet nose of his archenemy and race back to camp before he’s caught.

Forget the history lesson, though… how does Sabre Wulf play? Well, if you love frustration, you’re in luck! This labyrinthine action game, best described as the missing link between the Atari oldie Adventure and the first Legend of Zelda, is like breaking a concrete wall with your forehead. As you travel through each of the game’s many, many stages, you’ll be accosted by brightly colored bats, spiders, and… no, I’m not even going to venture a guess as to what that thing is. You can fend them off with deft jabs of your fencing sword, but contact with any of the creatures in the jungle will violently fling you across the screen, costing you a life.

Oh, but it gets better. When the animals appear in a flurry of

, they’re not really picky about where and when they materialize, even if the “where” is right on top of you and the “when” is while your blade is sheathed. Forget about temporary invincibility after a death, too… the moment you stand up is the moment the creatures can knock you right back down.

Rare was, ahem, “kind” enough to scatter items throughout the jungle to aid you in your quest, but the majority of them just add to your point total. There are flowers that give you temporary abilities, but they have a nasty habit of wilting just as you’re about to touch them, denying you their gifts of invulnerability and super speed just when you need them most. Worse yet, some of the orchids will leave you in a psychotropic stupor, or even stunned and helpless. Ah, the wonders of homeopathic medicine!

Sabre Wulf has some things going for it. The jungle is bursting with wild colors, looking like they were peeled from a Jay Ward cartoon. The Wikipedia entry for the game claims that they were more likely inspired by a French artist named Henri Rousseau, but personally, I’m seeing more George of the Jungle than The Snake Charmer here. Also, this must have been an utterly massive game in 1984, far exceeding the size of Adventure and nearly rivaling the overworld in Shigeru Miyamoto’s first Legend of Zelda game. On top of all that, the animation is pretty keen, with Sabreman’s furious fencing looking just as good as Kuros’ swordplay in Wizards and Warriors and the titular wolf striking a defensive pose, then leaping for your throat when you confront it.

Nevertheless, Sabre Wulf is plagued with all the usual shortcomings of early British game design… random enemy placement, a poorly armed lead character, and obscene demands of the player that would make even Hercules scream, “Oh, come ON!” Sure, the game can be beaten with enough perseverance, but with practice, you could also teach yourself how to sleep on a bed of nails or walk barefoot over burning coals and broken glass. You just have to ask yourself if it’s worth all the suffering.

Dave Higgins has a lengthy and less jaundiced review of Sabre Wulf on his web site, Play Old Games. I recommend you check it out, not just because it offers a different perspective on the game without sugarcoating its difficulty, but because it's a damned good read. I've been offering an outsider's view of the Spectrum on 1UP, but he was right there in Great Britain when the system was actively supported, typing on its tiny keyboard and loading games from a cassette recorder. If you want to know what it was like to live in the moment, you'll want to read Dave's own feature.

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