Developer: Publisher: Rare THQ Year of Release: Genre: 2004 Action

Introduction:

It's been a long wait, too long in fact, but this long-awaited GBA title finally hit European stores last week thanks to THQ's publishing agreement to release Rare's much-delayed GBA titles. After the long wait, Rare's last GBA title, Banjo Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge was a little disappointing, and we were all hoping that Sabre Wulf wouldn't follow suit. It's fortunate then that Sabre Wulf is great example of an original and well-developed Game Boy Advance title. From beginning to end Sabre Wulf is full of little surprises, from the amusing humour of the in-game text and voice samples, to the brain-scratching puzzle based level designs. Based on an Ultimate title released on the Spectrum that is now nearly 20 years old, the game still feels every bit as fresh as it did all those years ago.

Story:

Many years ago, Sabrewulf ravaged the village of Blackwyche. Sabreman, the game's hero, used a powerful amulet that allowed the village to imprison Sabrewulf in a stone statue so that the savage beast would never wreak havoc on the village again. The 'Wulf, controlled by the power of the Sabre Wulf amulet, remained imprisoned for many years until a shadowy character who goes by the name of Dr. Dolittle-Goode appeared. Dolittle-Goode is an evil man who has always wanted to seize control of Blackwyche and it's surrounding land, but has always lacked the power to do so. Unfortunately, the doctor found out about Sabrewulf's statue, and managed to release the powerful beast by destroying the amulet. Dr. Dolittle-Goode, together with his new sidekick Sabrewulf now roam the land, raiding villages and taking whatever they please. It's up to Sabreman, asked by the Mayor of Blackwyche, to recover the many items that Sabrewulf has stolen and ultimately collect all eight pieces of the magical amulet to once again banish Sabrewulf and put an end to the terror.

Gameplay:

At first glance, Sabre Wulf appears to be a conglomeration of past Rare titles. The game's overworld looks a lot like Banjo Kazooie whilst the main action stages feature many resemblances to the Donkey Kong Country series. However, just a couple of levels in and it becomes clear that Sabre Wulf is in fact a very original title, offering a mixture of platforming and puzzle solving with a little adventuring that is quite unlike any other Game Boy Advance game out there. Much like Grunty's Revenge, there is a rather large overworld that forms the adventure part of the game. Within this overworld are eight main areas that the wicked Sabrewulf has attacked, and it's up to Sabreman to travel the corners of the map tracking down the Wulf, whilst helping out the local villagers. Within the villages are shops where various items can be bought, as well as a good number of inhabitants, many of which will ask Sabreman to deliver an item to a certain character in another village or area. These sub quests don't detract at all from the gameplay, and fortunately the game never drifts off into a huge collectathon, which many recent Rare titles have suffered from.

Whilst the game's overworld is fairly large, the main bulk of the game is in the action stages. Those who have followed the development of Sabre Wulf over the past two and a half years will be familiar with the concept of these platforming stages. The first part of each stage requires the player to navigate through a maze of platforms, obstacles and enemies in search of a great treasure guarded by Sabrewulf. It'll take a combination of both fast responses and brainpower to make it through the increasingly difficult stages. Sabreman can't actually destroy any enemies or obstacles himself and has to call in the help of many different creature helpers, which is where the puzzle solving aspect of the gameplay comes in. There are fifteen different creatures altogether, each of which has multiple uses. At the very beginning of the game Sabreman has none of these creatures available to help him, but as progress is made more creatures become available, either by finding them during the platform levels, or through buying them from Cookie's Curiosity Creature Emporium. Once a creature has been located it is added to your inventory and is available to use just once in each stage, but multiples of each creature can be found throughout the game. Some of the more common creatures include Blubba, which bounces you high up into the air, Serpent, which can be used as a platform or as a shield to block projectile attacks from enemies and Boomer, which will explode after a few seconds destroying any nearby enemies or obstacles. The creatures get more and more diverse the further you progress through the game, with some granting powerful magic attacks or even temporary invincibility. There isn't one stage where the creature helpers won't be used, and in some of the later stages, it really becomes a puzzle trying to work out which creatures must be used in combination to allow you to reach your goal.

The platform stages take a further twist once the end has been reached. At the end of each stage is a treasure, which once Sabreman has grabbed will wake Sabrewulf, triggering a chase back to the beginning of the level. As soon as the treasure has been touched, all of the enemies, obstacles and creatures placed in that level are destroyed and turned into coins. It's then a frantic rush back to the start whilst avoiding Sabrewulf's pursuit. This part of the game focuses entirely on quick reactions and becomes increasingly difficult as Sabrewulf's speed increases in later areas. Picking up the treasure also acts as a mid-way point to each level, so if Sabreman dies after touching the treasure, the player won't be forced to start the level from the beginning, but instead will start from the end with the treasure in hand. Depending on the amount of time it took the player to reach the treasure in the first place, they will be awarded with a bronze, silver or gold treasure once they have successfully escaped from Sabrewulf. All of these treasures, apart from a few select items that are given to characters in the adventure part of the game, can be sold to Cookie's Curiosity Creature Emporium. The better the treasure, the more money he'll offer you.

A Rare game wouldn't be right without a few minigames, and whilst there are only a couple in Sabre Wulf, they are very entertaining. Hidden in some of the action stages are golden keys, which once collected, can be used to unlock hidden trapdoors. These give access to a minigame that could be compared to a more frantic version of the DKC series 'Collect the Stars' bonus rooms. During these minigames, Sabreman must collect a certain amount of stars whilst avoiding Sabrewulf to earn a cash reward. The other minigame that players will encounter is the hilarious tea-drinking game. During this minigame it's a rush against the clock to drink as many cups as tea as possible. It's a quirky, but quite challenging idea, requiring the player react quickly to drink more cups of tea than the opponent; the aptly named Tom Leaf. Unfortunately, the player only gets one chance to play this minigame throughout the entire adventure, and it would have been nice to have seen some more examples of such crazy, but down right fun minigames to break up the adventure a little more.

There are a couple of things that detract from this otherwise excellent game. The most notable is the control system. Whilst controlling Sabreman is a relatively simple affair, selecting helper creatures often feels overly cumbersome. During some stages, especially those filled with many enemies, it is often preferable to select and use a creature as fast as possible. To select a creature the player must press the B button and then use d-pad to cycle through the twelve different types of creatures. The problem is that the game continues in the background whilst the player spends time searching for the creature they want to use, and with such a large selection of creatures there are frequent moments where the player will die and the level will have to be restarted. The creature selecting difficulties also make speed-runs through levels, required to earn the prestigious gold treasure rewards, a lot more difficult, as the player is often found franticly fumbling through the list wasting those ever so valuable seconds. To further worsen this problem, the controls don't always feel completely responsive, and it's possibly to find yourself easily selecting the wrong creature accidentally. Additionally, the game can feel a little repetitive at times, particularly during the early stages of the game. Most of the levels in the first couple of zones are fairly short and as your creature inventory is on the low side, the levels all play out fairly similarly. Fortunately, later stages are much longer and can involve a much greater variety of different approaches.

Lifespan:

Sabre Wulf features a total of eight main villages each featuring eight stages making a total of 64 levels. Completing the early stages isn't too challenging, but once a few of the villages have been beaten, the difficulty level is really cranked up, and most stages will require a good few tries before they can be mastered. The main game will take around seven to ten hours to complete, depending on if the player chooses to replay previous levels in order to achieve a gold treasure rating. For each stage that a gold reward is achieved, that stage is then unlocked in challenge mode. Here, players can further replay the levels they have completed with even stricter time limits.

Graphics & Sound:

Despite being delayed for nearly two years, Sabre Wulf is right up there with some of the best looking Game Boy Advance titles. Those who are familiar with the Donkey Kong Country series will notice similarities between the graphical style of those games and Sabre Wulf. All of the sprites used within the game have the same pre-rendered 3D look of the DKC titles and are smoothly animated. The adventure sections of the game have a three-dimensional look similar to Banjo Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge, and each area has its own distinct style and atmosphere. All of the action stages feature bold and colourful environments. Use of multiple scrolling background layers, and also foreground fogging and lighting effects help to add depth and really make Sabre Wulf a visual treat.

Like many of Rare's previous titles, Sabre Wulf doesn't disappoint in the audio department. There are plenty of atmospheric pieces of music to accompany the action and adventure stages, each tailored to suit the theme of each zone. In-game text is accompanied by Rare's trademark character voice mumblings. In this case, they work particularly well, with Sabreman having a suitably old-man sounding voice, whilst other characters have similarly amusing sounds. Unfortunately, the audio is let down a little by occasions when the sound is noticeably distorted coming out of the GBA's speaker. Whether this is because the some of the sounds are poorly compressed or the volume is just simply too loud for the GBA's little speaker to cope with, it does detract from the otherwise excellent audio. From the humorous in-game text and accompanying sounds, to the bright and colourful visuals, the adventure to Blackwyche village and its surrounding land won't be forgotten for a long time.

Closing Comments:

Sabre Wulf is a Rare title that focuses on gameplay rather than collecting; something alone that this game should be praised for. The game is a breath of fresh air on a system with a back catalogue full of generic platformers and ports of classic SNES titles. The gameplay never fails to entertain, combining puzzle solving, platforming and even adventure aspects. Fans of platform/puzzle hybrids such as The Lost Vikings and the Wario Land series, as well as those who have enjoyed Rare's past games, should definitely not miss out on this game. Let's hope this isn't the last time we hear from Sabrewulf and Sabreman.