Sword of Sodan. I decided to play it, and I have determined that this game is an insult not to beat-em-ups, not to sidescrollers, not even to the Genesis itself. This game is an insult to humanity, that someone could program something so putrid. I quite literally enjoyed playing Action 52 more than I enjoyed playing this.

Graphics:Cheap and generic.
This game doesn't even try for anything really new. The only thing it even attempts is blood. And the blood effects look cheap and fake, as well. If you don't believe me, go watch Generic Reviews: Sword of Sodan on Youtube(warning:mature content in the video). There is one part of the sixth level, where you're supposed to cross two pools of lava. The lava looks more like spaghetti, and is so badly animated and drawn it's funny.
-Characters have stiff animation, and aren't too well modeled.
-Blood effects look cheap.
-"Lava" in level 6 looks like spaghetti.

Sound:Birds chirping +men and women groaning=ear rape
The music is, quite literally, birds chirping. Throughout the entire game. The sound effects are sword swings, groans of pain and death from enemies and your character, sound effects stolen from Road Rash, you get the picture. This game is not only an eyesore, it's also an earache.
-Birds chirping? That's not music.
-Generic sound effects at best, terrible sound effects at worst
-Taking a sound effect from Road Rash? Why?

Addictiveness:You won't want to play again if you play at all.
I tried to play this game, and have fun with it, but this game is just truly awful, to the point of being impossible to enjoy. If you were able to enjoy this game, then please reply to this review, or send me a personal message. Just...tell me how you find this game to have any fun or addictiveness at all.
-Absolutely no fun at all

Story:Tries to be slightly different, and is slightly different. At best.
This game's story is that you play as one of two barbarians(male or female), to journey to castle Craggamoor and destroy the evil wizard Zoras. At least it isn't a cliché "save the princess" story.
+At least the story tried to be decent.
-Story is still somewhat generic
-Why aren't the main characters named? The wizard is, so why not name them, too?

Gameplay:Everyone who said this game is terrible is right.
In this game, you get to go through seven levels of torture. At the first level, you get to fight pikemen, who have an extremely long range and decent amounts of health. Now, take a guess what you're supposed to do. Hell, take 3 guesses.

You're supposed to crouch and stab them in the crotch. Am I kidding? I wish I were. As you kill them, you'll notice that they drop potions. These potions are the best thing to be found in this entire game, as it turns out. You can use the potions by themselves to get things like increases in attack strength, partial healing, and a magic zapper that's only useful it you're fighting a boss, as it only affects one enemy. You can also mix the potions, for things like invulnerability shields, a temporary flaming sword, and free lives. But, this is a double-edged sword, as mixing the wrong potions will give you the message "POISON!" and damage you, along with wasting the potions. By the way, if you mix all four types of potions, the game will give you the message "WINNERS DON'T DO DRUGS" and kill you. No, I'm not joking.

You will also notice the clunky controls and the slow walk speed. Your characters walk about as fast as Dr.Jekyll from Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde, there's no way to block attacks, enemies come from both sides at once, and guess how you turn around? Press the opposite direction and B(or C) at the same time to turn around. Oh, and turning around takes a full second. Isn't this just delightful?

At the second level, you have to maneuver around spikes coming out of holes in the ground, as well as fight the pikemen from the first level. Did I mention that some of these spikes kill you instantly and they don't have any effect on the enemies at all? So, after going through that...

You go on to the third level, where this...huge...gray...thing...comes and goes within about 10 seconds, along with a giant-mutant-insect-thing enemy. Now, if you didn't lose your lunch and turn the game off, you get to fight axemen. They have less range than the pikemen, for some reason, so they're easier then the pikemen(though there is one pikeman in the level). At the end of the level, you will hear the stolen sound effect from Road Rash, as two giants come and bash your face in. Since they surround you, you have to try to get over them to the other side, jump over to them, and chop at them. Then, when one of them kneels down, back away about one step, and chop his head off. And, by the way, to chop, you must hold Up and press the C button. If the giants don't bash your head in, you'll wish they had when you get to the fourth level.

The fourth level is a graveyard, and I'm convinced that this level is near-impossible to get through without either losing about 3 or 4 lives, at least, if you know the trick(which I don't know). The zombies swarm you in groups of four, they have enough endurance to take more than one hit, they spit goop at you to whittle down your health, they damage you by touching you, and when you kill one, it melts into a magic attack which you have to jump over. And whenever you kill them, they respawn about 4 seconds later. I'm not kidding. Oh, and they can damage you through a shield potion, just by touching you.

You can choose between a male or female barbarian at the beginning, but there's more of a difference than just cosmetic. The man can take more damage, while the woman does more damage. If you know what kind of game this is, you'll know that you want to deal more damage rather than be able to take more damage. So, the man is useless.

If it hasn't become readily apparent, the difficulty is through the roof. In fact, the difficulty deserves a 13, for being so immensely difficult. That's right, it's so hard it broke the rating scale. And, if it's hard to believe, the later levels get even HARDER.

So, let's recap:

Pros:
+They at least tried something different with the story
+Potion mixing is somewhat creative
+This review is not as short and as uninformative as a NAVGTR review.

Cons:
-Basically everything in the game is a con.

Overall Rating:Hellish Punishment

Bottom Line:There is no way that this game isn't a masterful torture device made in the depths of Hell by Satan. It's so great at torturing people, so masterful at capturing every flaw a video game can have, that it must have been made in Hell.

Last Comment:I bet that at least one person who bought this game at $50 took an actual sword, and fell on it, to commit suicide. They did it so they would not live in the same place which houses Sword of Sodan.