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Sword Master
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Console: Nintendo NES
Region:U
Year: 1992
RFG ID #: U-027-S-06430-A
Part #: NES-8S-USA
UPC: 047875700079
Developer: Athena
Publisher: Activision
Rating:
Genre: Action/Adventure
Sub-genre:
Players: 1
Controller: Standard Controller
Media Format: Cartridge 2 Meg
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Collection Stats:

  • 76 of 7620 collectors (0.9%) have this game in their collection
  • 16 of 7620 collectors (0.2%) have this game in their wishlist.
  • 1 of 7620 collectors (0%) have this game for sale or trade.
Review:

Ahh, Sword Master. Back in the day I convinced myself this was a good game. I mean, it had the graphics, the action, decent looking cutscene type moments. Back then I would have claimed this game was underrated. That simply is not the case though. Sword Master is mediocrity at its finest form.

Considering it is an NES game, I won't delve too deeply into the story of the game. Hell, I'm not even too sure of it myself. From the openining cinematic thing I believe a knight is going no a quest through a castle type town to kill something. A wolf or something I dunno. As I said, the story is far from important.

The game is set up like Castlevania, except it isn't all that much fun. The levels are simple. You go right. There is no variety in the levels, no ledges or platforming elements whatsoever. In fact the only real platforming type part I can think of is a gap in the second level which is guarded by floating balls that consistantly kill you and won't die. Moving on, as you progress right you kill loads of enemies. That's essentially it. The combat isn't bad, in fact it is better than that of most games. You can use your shield to guard multiple direction attacks and you have two different stab types which adds a bit of variety to the typical NES action game.

The lack of variety in the game is the game's achille's tendon. It is monotonous and quite boring. The main character will gain the ability at some point to change into different forms for some reason; like a wizard and things of that sort which are pretty useless. If the game were only the first level, I would be saying this game was fun but hella short. However, since it drags out for so many levels, and all of them are essentially the same with harder enemies, I can't justify giving this game a good score.

RF Generation Review Score


60%

Variations:

Console Reg. Type Title Publisher Year Genre
Nintendo NES A S Sword Master Activision Action/Adventure
Nintendo NES DK, FI, NO, SE S Sword Master Activision 1993 Action/Adventure
Nintendo NES Spain S Sword Master Activision 1992 Action/Adventure
Nintendo NES IT, GB S Sword Master Activision 1993 Action/Adventure
Nintendo NES AT, DE, CH S Sword Master Activision 1993 Action/Adventure
Nintendo Famicom J S Sword Master Athena 1990 Action/Adventure
FAQ's/External Links:

Page Credits:

Michael Collins: Page design, HTML code, screenshots, external links.
Eddie Herrmann: Perl script.
wrldstrman: scans
Scott Williams: scans
Shimra: revoew. overview, review
Keith Brown (Tan): Part, UPC, Players
Shadow Kisuragi: Variation Tie-In
ApolloBoy: Cart size, removed subjective overview, removed incorrect instructions

Last Updated: 2014-07-19 04:37:22
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