Is there any more archetypical a set-up than a knight, a wizard, a princess, and a whole mess of foul beasties? It provides an instant hook – the princess has been captured (oh, will wonders never cease?) and you (both brave AND chivalrous) must rescue fair damsel (for kissy time and perhaps more).
Such a set-up is at once galvanizing and polarizing to a potential user base. It’s the kind of setting that – even back then – we had seen so many times that some craved new set-ups. But at the same time, it’s a familiar theme and one that promises any number of ferocious creatures to test your mettle.
Ultimately, the set-up provides a hook for the player, and then he or she uses it as rationale for getting to the end. With games like this, all we really needed was this hook to get started, there was no need for a long-winded tutorial. But when you lay anything bare it needs to be good to continue through it. To see it to the end. The game needs to play well, because in the end that’s what the player truly remembers.
Wizards & Warriors, as a series, succeeds and fails in this regard. It’s just so disparate. Every title is vastly different from the prior. They range from difficult to tedious, from great to… not so great. But it’s a series that I have seen through to the end due to my personal attachment to it. I loved certain entries so I had to complete certain other entries.
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