Blog:Stormlord (Genesis/Mega Drive)

CRV (talk) 04:20, 18 June 2014 (CEST) [permalink] [comments]

Scantily-clad fairy princesses have been entombed and strewn about a God-forsaken hellscape. It's up to you to rescue them in the action/puzzle game Stormlord, a conversion of a British computer game.

I own the Japanese Mega Drive version and recently dug it out. While it's not raved about by Sega fans, it's really not that bad, but there's lots of trial and error. You'll have to play it over and over again until you know the levels backwards and forwards. (Which I did. I finally beat it!)

As you progress, you'll find items such as keys, honey, and umbrellas to overcome obstacles. You'll need to figure out how and where to use or swap these items. The game will be an ass at times and, for example, throw in an extra door, thereby giving you an opportunity to waste a key, thereby leaving you unable to complete a level. That said, I don't feel the designers were as obnoxious as they could have been, at least as far as delibrately tricking the player is concerned. There are some tricky jumps and obnoxious enemies, though.

The graphics are pretty good and look pretty close to the Amiga from which they were ported. The music (by Lars Norpchen), while not quite as good as some of the computer versions, fits the game. All sound effects are samples.

As stated earlier, Stormlord originated in the UK and was released on several computer platforms. The Genesis/Mega Drive version was developed in the US by Punk Development, product development arm of publisher RazorSoft.

The fairies in Stormlord were originally naked in the computer versions, but they were covered up in the Genesis/Mega Drive version. Kevin Seghetti, who programmed the game for Punk under contract, has stated RazorSoft censored them voluntarily. However, another source of mine alleged Al Nilsen, Sega of America's Director of Marketing, was the only one who took issue with the nudity, according to a memo. As a result, Sega would not put their name on the game.

Said source also revealed that Genesis Stormlord was one of RazorSoft's worst-selling titles, and about 25,000 units were produced. That didn't stop them from announcing a Genesis version of the sequel, with the name Keeper of the Gates to disassociate it from the original. Development was being handled by 21st Century Entertainment, the successor of Stormlord's original publisher Hewson, but apparently the team wasn't organized enough to bring the game to completion.

Telenet Japan published the Mega Drive version in Japan through their Micro World subsidiary, which specialized in publishing games from the West. According to my source, they did so under the condition that the difficulty was toned down. You can take more hits, and you may have more continues. (I counted about five. The US manual says two.) Maybe that's why I enjoyed it. If you want to play Stormlord and it sounds a little daunting, this may be the version to try.

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