Was having a bad day, was my birthday, difficult customers... bad day... but seeing this video brought back memories... thank you... made my day... or night... morning? whichever... thanks...
You know, I've played Blackthrone for like a decade and a half on-and-off on the PC and SNES and the grid system of movement never even occurred to me. The game always tricked me into thinking that it was more fluid than it really was, mostly because the platforming sprites aren't as rigidly standardized as, say, Super Mario Bros or Prince of Persia for that matter. This is both a good and a bad thing. LGR, I love it when your reviews do this kind of deconstruction of gameplay elements. :)
Even with all of its flaws, I LOVE this game. Own the Mac, PC and GBA versions to this day. Comic Nerd Note: the cover art and enemy designs were done by the legendary JIM LEE! Also, if you have the MacPlay CD version, pop it into a music CD player and check out not only the soundtrack, but a few extra awesome heavy metal tunes! (tracks 10 and 11) ;-)
You know, I THOUGHT I recognized the style! I would have thought it was Marc Silvestri though, since I would have figured Jim Lee would have been too expensive for then-Blizzard, lol!
Maybe you would know the answer to this question. When I was a kid I played Blackthorne on a Mac G3 and the sound track was different. I have looked up multiple versions of the game and haven't been able to find the right one. The intro music was different than the DOS or Snes versions I have seen on here and the first level had a guitar riff in the music. Do you have any idea where I could find that sound track?
Blackthorne served as a primary inspiration behind an episode of Community in which the study group must band together in a specially designed RPG game in order to help Pierce Hawthorne(Chevy Chase) claim his inheritance.
A friend gave me an SNES console as he was moving away when I was in high school. No controllers or games... just the console. Next time I made it to the nearest game store (which was about 5 hours away) I used my hard earned cash to buy some controllers and only had cash for one game. I asked the owner which game he'd recommend and he pulled out this beauty. I thought, looks weird but I'll try it. We started playing it and thought it was crazy awesome! My brothers and I still quote the enemy grunts when they laugh. "hu hu hu hu, oh!"
I remember finishing this game in co-op. By co-op, I mean that a friend would come to my place and we would take turns in playing though the screens, or through lives. We had a small notebook for the progression passwords. I was fun to play, but also fun to watch, especially alternating between the two.
Sometimes I just go back and re-watch old LGR. It’s never a surprise how much I like listening to you talk about the games I used to play (or wish I had).
Discovered this game in around '95, A friend had rented it for the SNES and I can remember being instantly sucked in. The ability to execute the other prisoners and the ability to shoot behind you were a huge deal to my then 15 year old mind.. Had never seen a side scrolling game like this before, and honestly it was kinda new concept. nearly 23 years later I still haven't beaten it or found a 'real' snes cart while thrifting or otherwise. Ive introduced this game to a lot of people who had never heard of or played it, once they do they are typically stoked and addicted and cant believe they had never played it . finally though the Magic of my C/L Gamedoctor Sf copier I am able to play and share this game on real SNES hardware. Excellent game, Excellent review. Thanks LGR. Password to level 8 is TJ1F.
The music is different on SNES version. I like music on SNES version. It sound more darker. Hey LGR, please review other early Blizzard title such The Lost Viking and Rock n Roll Racing!
Firing backwards feature was higly entertaining when I was a kid. I remenber how I talked to a friendly fellow who happened to gave me a grenade. I thanked him and walked forth few steps, fired my gun backwards executing him and walked away never looking back. Total badassness or assholeness.
Aww man, I did that all the time as a kid too :P Funny how that was the coolest shit ever for me back then. Blizzard games were/are always pretty metal ahah
it looks like a magnificent game, and it strikes a big resemblance to Flashback like you mentioned due to the terrain and the motion is very Prince of Persia-like. thanks for the video!
:D - immediate thoughts were that this is a cross between Flashback and Prince Of Persia, as you said. Always makes me think of the amount of times those games were unforgivingly annoying with the moving of characters - as you said. So many times there was a fall onto spikes or into pits and simply dying due to the characters not quite being on the ledges, so annoying to have to keep on restarting. Great review, as always though!
Didn't know about this one. The grid-based movement reminds me of the old Tomb Raider games. Also, the pixels in this video in particular look great--super sharp. I'm curious if you're playing this through dosbox, or battlenet or an old dos system. If it's a modern system, are you doing something special to retain the sharpness of the pixels when you scale the footage to HD for editing?
remember playing a demo version off this from a CD with lots of shareware/freeware games I bought back in the 1990's, having a similar experience as you of being impressed by the graphics and worldbuilding while finding the difficult yet repetitive gameplay more than a little frustrating
This game blew me away when I was a kid. I think I found it a lot more fun then you did lol but I had never played Prince of Persia or anything like it at the time. Great vid!
Back when I was 11/12 years old someone installed this game in the computer lab of my school. Of course one of our favorite pastimes was to play through it during the classes, alongside other games. I always thought this game had some very great graphics for its time, but I also thought the gameplay to be harder (in a not good way) compared to Prince of Persia (that was also available there in our old computer lab), which was a kind of letdown for me personally.
Oh, the first level password in Blackthrone is STRT like in Lost Vikings, thats pretty cool. We used to play a ton LV on our school's 486, and I still remember many of the passwords. I was the only kid to finish the game (insert a smug smiley with sunglasses on here.)
Are you going to make a review of Oddworld games? I frequently see Abe's Oddysee lying on your shelf in the background when you're showing the game box.
Lol I see Sonic R in the background allot in your videos, does that have a reason? Also what game is that 5th gen prelude from? I flipping love those cars (prefer 4th gen tho) :o Neverless another awesome video :)
Didn't realise that Fatman made music for this game. He sure did some awesome music for games back in the day, like Wing Commander-series, Ultima Underworld and The 7th Guest.
Prince of persia with a shotgun sums it up perfectly. Thanks LGR, had forgotten the name of this game since I first played it a few years ago. I had a lot of fun playing this
One video away from your 100th DOS Game reviewed (according to your MS-DOS Games Playlist)! I actually have seen this game before, but I had no idea it was made by Blizzard.
I still love this game and revisit it often. The inventory reset is a necessity for the levels complexity and puzzles. Without it the game would get way too easy much too fast providing no challenge and sucking interest. As for the combat, yes, most of the enemies fight using the same mechanics however, each enemy has their own distinctive pattern which gets progressively more complex as you move forward through the various stages. My only issue with this game: it's the only one. There are no follow ups and Blizzard scoffs at the idea. Even going so far as to throw up and April fools joke a few years ago teasing some ridiculous badassery that will go unrealized.
Another one of my childhood loved games, the music, atmosphere etc, everything aboout this game is amazing & every now and then I come back to it never getting bored of it .
That's a hot tip about Blizzard offering a bunch of classic games for free... I never knew that existed. I cant wait to get off work and see what they got.
Ah yes, Blackthorne. In between sessions of Jazz Jackrabbt and Prince of Persia I had this game. It was hard but after a while I could play at least couple of the first levels. I still have codes written somwhere in the notebook. I never got to the Sarlac in my younuger days though. I managed to do that a few years ago. I like this game it has a cool style and your shotgun becomes more and more effective and fast after a while. Blizzard got cool ideas back then :D
I think that Blackthorne for the SNES is the best Blizzard game evah. Superb gameplay (once you learn how to do everything, that is), a great atmosphere and the checkpoints are just at the right intervals to give it the right challenge. This version looks like a good port, but the GBA version is horrific.
It definately reminds me more of Flashback than Prince of Persia, with its "open world" platforming and lush backgrounds. Blackthorne even falls in the exact same way as in Flashback when he gets shot.
