Sword of Vermilion Review by: janus - 8.5/10
Sword of Vermilion: an OK Game with Lots of ActionLong ago, King Tsarkon of Cartathena unleashed his evil hordes upon the peaceful land of Excalabria. Though the people of Excalabria fought bravely, in the end they were overwhelmed. As his castle collapsed around him, King Erik V of Excalabria summoned Blade, his most trusted servant. Erik commanded Blade to escape with Erik's infant son and the Ring of Wisdom, and ancient family heirloom. Blade slipped out a secret passage as the castle was engulfed in flames. He fled with the babe to a distant village and raised the child as his own. Tsarkon vowed to devote all of Cartathena's power to searching for the Prince. Eighteen years have passed since Tsarkon began his search...(From the introduction scene of the game).
Graphics: 9/10
For 1990, the graphs are excellent. All the humans you see in this game, although they ultimately look the same, are very well drawn and have human proportions very few games on the Super Nintendo can brag about. The houses and shops al have reasonable perspectives - you don't enter a 1m
3 house to see a 10 m
3 interior - and you can actually walk behind buildings. Such advancement was done only starting with Final Fantasy V.
The overworld map (and dungeons) are fully 3D. Although the elements are very few (a large cylinder and trees), they are very well drawn. Inside dungeons, you need a candle (or better, a lantern) if you want to make your way through them.
Regular battles are well-drawn and depend on the environment you're in - it's wooded if there are trees around you, desert-like when the "mountain" cylinders surround you, etc. It's in a 2D environment but you can move 360 degrees and not "in squares" like most Super Nintendo RPGs. All enemies are pallet swaps but are more finely detailed, both in their designs and actions, than Final Fantasy VI - you can actually see the magicians shoot their magic and some poisonous mushrooms spit their poisonous balls.
Finally, boss battles push the Genesis capacity to its limits. The archenemies are huge and well-detailed, their movement is fluid and you can see them attack you. The hero, too, moves smoothly although he can only move left and right (but he can duck)
Music: 5/10
This is not the most memorable feature in this game. Oh, there are good tracks like the village music (very calm) and the town music (more lively). The dungeon music is varied and is adopted to the mood of the dungeon, ranging from lullaby-like music in the very first dungeon to a more dramatic one in the second dungeon to an epic one inside the last dungeon and a few others.
However, despite some good synchronization with the mood of the moment, most of the music is very heavily synthesized and doesn't sound very interesting. The town shop music is just unbearable, and although the overworld music loops after almost one minute, the heavy synth makes you want to shut off the music.
Story: 8/10
The storyline is very interesting. The game starts when your "father" spills the beans over your true origins and your mission. After getting the Ring of Wisdom, you move on to the next village, where you can get the Ring of Sky if you fetch the King the Treasure of Troy. But when you do, he insists that you remain in the village. After walking around a little, he loses patience and becomes a monster! You then find out that the real king of Parma was captured by Cartathena and that an impostor
replaced him. Will you be able to collect all the rings before Tsarkon gets them?
Addictiveness: 7/10
The story did catch my attention. There are many plot twists - someone who seem like a foe is actually an invaluable ally, and vice versa. Treasures may lie at every dead end, making you explore thoroughly everywhere in hopes of getting a better weapon or some money. Also, villagers change what they are saying depending on the triggers you cause, so you need to keep up-to-date.
Depth: 8/10
This game has a lot of sidequests, i.e. adventures you take that you don't actually need in order to finish the game. Nevertheless, completing them is valuable as you fight archenemies that give you a lot of experience and money; you sometimes gain valuable weapons and armors to either raise your stats or make you invincible (see the game description).
Also, towards the end, you learn the truth about what happened 18 years ago. It's not so black-and-white as traditional stories usually are...
Difficulty: 5/10
This score is an average of the easy and hard way of playing this game. The easy way is to do the super/ultra strength trick, where you equip/unequip a cursed sword in order to boost your strength to 1500 or higher. This way, you kill most enemies (and sometimes archenemies) with only one stroke of your sword. Hell, you can even keep the Bronze Sword and skip getting the ultimate sword! There's a point where you can even raise your armor class and receive only one damage from
every enemy, including the final boss.
However, without these tricks, the game is very, very difficult. You can take at most 20 moves (moving/turning) before you get into a fight. The farther you are into the game, the more quick and difficult enemies become - it's annoying with scorpions, who can poison you when you touch them. Sometimes, they even appear right where you are, damaging you instantly. Fortunately, running away is fairly easy, and even if you don't kill an enemy instantly, you can still make it change its course.
Also, there is no way to know when an enemy or archenemy will die as they have no hit point bar. This can get stressful, as you can't use healing magics/items during battles (and no magic at all against archenemies).
Finally, if like me you prefer turn-base RPGs like Final Fantasy, you will find yourselves pushing furiously your keyboard in order to keep enemies from killing you.
Nevertheless, I recommend this game warmly. It has an elaborate storyline, is visually appealing and has lots to keep you busy for tens of hours.
Graphics
9 Sound
5 Addictive
7 Depth
8 Story
8 Difficulty
5
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