Barbarian II: The Dungeon of Drax Longplay (C64) [50 FPS]
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- Опубліковано 7 вер 2024
- Developed and published by Palace Software in 1988.
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This video was requested by rego023.
The original Barbarian is a genuine classic and favourite of many gamers. Palace saw fit to develop a sequel, but instead of expanding on the gameplay of the original, they decided to turn it into a horrid flip-screen affair, full of some of the most annoying enemies ever devised, as well as some extremely annoying controls.
The story follows on from the original game, which finds the titular Barbarian and Princess Mariana on a hunt for the evil wizard, Drax, in a bid to stop his reign of terror once and for all. The player can select to play as the Barbarian or Mariana, but the difference is purely cosmetic.
The game is set across four levels, each consisting of many interconnected screens. Each screen contains a number of exists, including doorways set into the background that can be entered. Each level contains two objects that must be collected in order to finish the game, but these are hidden randomly at the start of each play session. The maze-like nature of the game makes finding your way around one of the biggest challenges in the game and it's very easy to get lost.
To confound matters, enemies constantly spawn to block your path. The design of the creatures is quite good and they're nicely drawn, but they are all extremely aggravating to fight. The principle reason for frustration comes from the fact that their combat animations only contain two frames of animation (on average) and are executed far quicker than the player's animations. This makes the combat more about timing than any real need for tactics.
The biggest issue I had with the game was the sluggish, poorly considered controls. Firstly, the number of combat moves in this sequel has been reduced in a bid to make way for running, jumping and turning around. Depressing the fire button and moving the joystick in a direction will execute a combat move, whilst moving the stick and then pressing fire will do something completely different. For example, pressing fire and down will execute a crouching attack, while pressing down by itself with cause the character to turn around. This means that it's very common to do things that you didn't want right in the middle of combat, the most frequent of which is trying to crouch and attack, but ending up turning around to face away from your opponent and getting hit from behind as a result.
Further frustration abounds from the existence of screens that contain bottomless pits that must be jumped across. The jumping is not the issue, so much as the fact that enemies will typically appear and walk right up to the edge of the pit, preventing you from ever reaching the other side. Should you try to jump over, the creature will hit you immediately on landing, forcing you backwards into the pit and losing a life. I had to concede a life in this fashion at least once so that I could play the rest of the game since the monster simply wouldn't leave the edge of the pit.
The game graphics and artwork are reasonable and the monsters are nicely drawn, but there's nothing breathtaking here. Similarly, the game's audio is fairly basic and uninspired, especially when the original contained the fantastic and dramatic score in the style of Conan the Barbarian.
The fact that Palace took everything that made the original game great and threw it away is bad enough, but Zzap! 64 mgazine awarded it a ridiculous 96%. They clearly didn't play the tape version with it's spirit-crushing multi-load.
I didn't like it back then and I like it even less now. Those who want to swing big swords and pretend that they're Conan should play the original as it's a far better game.
#retrogaming
I like the way Drax puts his head on, and then gives him a WANKER gesture when he leaves.
Only a real commodore player of that time knows how hard these kind of games were...
Those tight responsive controls... Still was a hoot! :)
You have to love that it ends with the wizard shaking his fist through the portal. Hilarious ending.
Flying neck chop on them purple things and the cavemen was the funniest thing ever when I was a kid.
I never understood how to keep the orientation. After 20 years I finally see the end
I don't think I ever completed Level 1. It was too hard, too slow and too repetitive as compared to other games at my disposal. At least I had the boxed copy with a half naked lady on it!
The sword under the gaming area is a compass.
@@thechaosengineer yes I know, but I was too silly to know how to use it to not get lost 🙂
@@TheJanDahl It came with the poster if I recall right. But yes was slow and hard game to play. Little bit disappointment.
After abot 30 years I can finally watch the ending of this awesome but incredibly hard game! How many good memories!!! 👍👍👍
I really like the bi-color lighting in the caverns that makes it look like there's red light on the left and blue light on the right. It's a bit artistic. I can see how the difficulty would be very frustrating, though. And I love how the evil wizard picks up his head and puts it back on!
It’s really impressive, I agree.
I haven’t made it to the end, yet, though.
Thanks for sharing this! A little tip for Level 3. When you jump over the hole with the 'tongue like' monster, try to click 'hit' and pull the joystick down. You will cut and kill che monster :)
Thanks for playing this! Remember this as a 13yr old and being so chuffed to complete it. Took a lot longer than 20mins though.I'm currently in the process of dragging down around 500+ games for the c64 from the attic. Reliving the love.
rego023 You're welcome ;) Even though the video is only 20 minutes long, I spent a good 5 hours playing it to find the bloody items; what you see is the direct route once I've learned where they are. Good luck with those games!
Al82 Hey. If you are taking more requests, can I ask for Tai-Pan?? It was another game that drove me mad.
I remember the cover and how a magazine (Zapp 64) showed how the photo shoot and montage was done with the red demon model.
It was very enlightening to learn how it was done.
memories of long ago watching this.
Princess Mariana was a sex symbol for gamers of the 80es! Just like Red Sonja (Brigitte Nielsen) in the movie with Schwarzenegger! 😁😁😁
I love this game :)
Its 100 % playable even today....
That must be the most dramatic ending I've ever seen on any computer game.
Finally i saw full game!!! Thank you.
the graphics were so good at that time
The original was indeed quite something. decapitation! the box art for both was quite nice also ;)
***** Yeah, that's one fantastic body. Maria Whittaker isn't bad either ;D
Definitely had that Karateka feel to it.
My heart goes out to the poor man decapitated at the very end, clearly establishing the supposed protagonist to be the villain
00:00:00 Loading theme
00:01:15 Selecting player
00:01:19 Level 1
00:06:10 Level 2
00:11:36 Level 3
00:16:44 Level 4
This game is soooo hard dammit. LOL Played it 29 years ago. I just picked up to play it agian. Any tips on fighting? Because enemies can counter pretty much everything. Also, is there any trick to behead the dinosaur and that caveman? I know it's a spinning axe smash... but they rarely decapitate.
I had only the vaguest recollection of this game. I was terrible at it but thought it was cool ah.
No decapitations pulled off on big guys? A little bummer ;)
Nice memories ❤
Hard game but good fun to complete.
I dont know this version,but the Amiga version is IMPOSIBLE to beat,IMHO is one of the most HARD and frustating games ever made,this looks slow and more affordable.
I play this on my amiga 500 1990 😃
Perhaps you should do that longplay with Princess Mariana.
I agree with the issues you've said about here, yet I still enjoyed this game. Never completed it though. Maybe it helps we had it on disk :L it was fun when you managed to decapitate/maim the few things you c could do it to (the chicken thing, the purple Dragon,I think...)
And gamers today think Dark Souls is hard lol
What does that sword do in the middle of the screen? I thought it was pointing towards where you had to go as a kid, and i still do but i dont understand how to navigate this game
The sword is a compass.
It is an ok-ish game I guess, but getting lost and respawning enemies are a real pain.
was there a way to attack the pit monster / tentacle things on level 3? i never understood how it had it's own energy bar if you couldn't actually harm it... 😁
Pull down on joystick and hit the fire button at the same time to do a low chop
I choose the princess all the time.
The description says these graphics weren't impressive 30 years ago on a Commodore 64 :/
did this come with only one casette ot two? The one I got only got one
The big box copy i have has 2. There's also the smaller plastic cased version with 1 cassette.
Well done! This time ;)
Kamilz Yeah, it's a silly ending message ;) I think Palace intended to make a third game, but it got cancelled when the company was sold to Titus Software.
I think it's because you haven't cut off his head properly.
Are you sure about that (the reason) ?
Kamilz I'm not at all sure, it's pure speculation.
Heheh, you are good at this :)
I've never played the game :-( Do I need to make up time on a emu. Babarian Part 1 I have always played with my brother. The original game is still stored in the basement.
Paul Nick It's definitely worth a play just to see how it differs from the original. It's a shame they removed the 2-player option from this game as well.
grałbym :)
Dark Souls is a easy as a piece of cake in comparison to this game...
Too bad there was never a 3rd game of it.
This was total ass compared to the first game! No idea where to go as a 10 year old kid, was so confusing and i hated the monsters
The girl was hot. 😂
Maria Whittaker
What a pretty bad game.......