Nintendo
Swords and Serpents
| Graphics: Sound: Gameplay: Overall: |
6.61 6.83 8.28 7.28 |
| Votes: | 18 |
| Reviews: | 4 |
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| Reviewer: IceBerg | Date: Jul 14, 2005 |
| I dont see why people these days only review if they were either biased for/against a game. Some games only fall into the middle realm of fun. Most who rant about the creappy NES grafix/sound/gameplay tend to forget that this is how it all started, and yea, compared to 20 years in the future IS crap. (but show me something that DOESN'T get better after maturing for 20 years) For its time, Swords and Serpents is a decent game. There is the element of challenge, the well defined goal, and easy controls. I will rate this game COMPARED TO OTHER NES GAMES, NOT FROM THIS ERA as most people will do.....
Graphics: 7 Monsters have good detail and are ANIMATED! You dont see that too often in NES games... but I rate it only a 7 because the only difference in each level is a pallet swap and BAM you got a new level. Sound: 6 Everything has its own sounds, and each sound is in its place. Granted they are gound SFX and music, but rather repetetive, like most people that hate NES for some reason..... have Winamp or some other music player ready for this one, even if only to end the monotony. Gameplay: 10 Well thought goals, puzzles and mazes combined with smoth controls make this one of the easiest games to play, yet still difficult to win at. Good challenge and pace makes this one a winner! Overall: 8 I believe I have covered all the points on the ranking system, there just is not room to award 1/10ths of a point. To summarize: All people have their favorite types of games. Some people only will play those games. And some of THEM go out of their way to bash what they don't play. It takes a VERY closed mind to not try something new (or in this case old) and bash it for no reason. Sure the grafix SEEM like crap, but imagine having NO games, then poof here's NES. 'Nuff said. |
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| Reviewer: Jay | Date: Aug 10, 2001 |
| This is the beginning to games that got more advanced such as doom and online dungeons and dragons! A decent game if you have the time to work your way through the 16 levels of evil and creepy dungeons... Many different weapons to choose from, and lots of spells for your magicians to cast. This is where RPG's started, and i think it deserves respect. The music is alright, a sort of Irish buzzer mix that goes to a little jazz type hip hop buzzer at the end. I personally like it... i mean, how good of graphics do you expect a Nintendo game to have? It's worth a play. |
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| Reviewer: Jake | Date: Aug 3, 2001 |
| I remember when I used to play this game... I was about 8 years old. I thought it was one of the coolest games in the world. Fast foreward to 9 years later. Looking back at this game, I'm not quite sure what I was thinking. The graphics and sound are completely mediocre. The game is played out in a pseudo 3-D maze, so you can imagine what it looks like given the limitations of the Nintendo. The monsters are well designed, but again, limited by the Nintendo's capabilities. The sound suffers from the same problems. The music, while cool and original the first 5 or 10 loops around, gets pretty annoying after the 5000th time (literally). As for the sound effects, all I can say is that I've heard better, and I've also heard worse. The Gameplay is a difficult topic to cover. Q:What do Ultima III (Exodus), Ultima IV (Quest of the Avitar), Golgo 13, The Bard's Tale, and Swords and Serpants have in common? A:At one point or another, they all contain really difficult 3-D first person mazes that you must navigate in order to advance in the game. In fact, they're so difficult, you will probably end up drawing a map so you don't get lost. Why do I bring this up? Because that's what Swords and Serpants is all about. The entire game is exploring a 3-D, first person POV maze. I suppose the point of the game is to find the Black Crystal, and bring it to that weird-looking guy who asks you for it on the first floor. I don't know for sure, because I haven't beaten this game. So, the basic gameplay is ""Explore, get in random battle, explore some more, another battle, more exploring, pick up cool item, battle, return to the monks to restore your health, explore more..."" It's very slow-paced, because you will eventually get lost in one of the deeper levels unless you make a map (the provided map gets less and less helpful as the levels get bigger). If you're into this sort of thing, this game is a winner. If you're hoping for non-stop action, run away. A few tips: 1)I like to think of this game as a low-rent, 3-D, underground ""Dragon Warrior."" It's all about exploring, but you will be spending a long time battling bad guys to build up your level, or you will pay for it when you venture too deep. 2)Oh, and about multiple players... I never got ANYBODY to play this game with me and stick with it. I don't think this game was tailor-made for four players. Games like this seldom are. 3)Lastly, this game provides no save feature. Back in the cartridge days, you had to write down these long passwords and then go through the tedious process of entering them in when you wanted to come back to your game later. All I can say is thank god for Emulation. You will definately want to take advantage of the ""Save/Load State"" features that are now found in most emulators. ~Jake |
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| Reviewer: Snoogins | Date: Jul 3, 2001 |
| BRING ME THE BLACK CRYSTAL! This is just one of those games.. it really sucks, for no apparent reason. The graphics aren't too bad, the music is slightly repetitive, but not horrible, and the gameplay is okay. The game just sucks for some reason... which gives it a great charm. Sure i'm biased... it sucks but it's fun to gather four people around an old nintendo screaming when the zombie whips out his little flickering dagger and kills our mage... I dunno |
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