Game Information I actually had plans on following up with a sequel to Retro Fighter, who knows, even starting somewhat of a franchise. I wanted to keep the "fighting" theme but take the theme of the game somewhere else. The only logical "else" i could think of was weapons, and once i thought weapons the old-school prince of persia games sprung into mind. It got me thinking of different ways i could tackle the 'hack & slash' elements of most weapon-based games and try to bring some order to the fighting. You could say that i succeeded in bringing the order but was that order fun to play? I'll let you decide. Nothing new in terms of storyline, more like a remix between Prince of Persia and Aladdin. You control Sabre, an adventurer from a distant land that just happened to arrive at Persia as the Sultan mysteriously dies. He meets the Princess, they fall in love but the Sultan's Vizier has plans for the thrown which involves getting married to the Princess. Sabre is promptly framed for the murder and the Princess is given a day to either accept the Vizier's marriage proposal or die. Sabre has a day to make a jail break, defeat the Vizier, Rescue the princess and proove his innocence. Jeez... what does a guy gotta do? The gameplay concept was pretty interesting. You could either be armed or unarmed and if you were armed it would be with either a single sword, double sword or spear. Now attacks were directional; up, mid or down and a finnisher impale move. The blocks were also directional, the whole system was made easy because although the game was 3D, it was displayed in 2D. Attacking was straightforward but blocking required you to watch your opponent and block in the same direction they were attacking and at the right time. You had to make 3 consecutive blocks to perform an impale (an instant kill if not blocked). Being unarmed however meant you could not attack and had to block enough times to make an impale but in this case, your character would snatch your opponents weapon and impale them with it. Only in this situation would you not loose your weapon after an impale, all other situations would mean leaving your weapon behind in your opponent.

Screenshots Some screenshots of the failed concept. The first shows the menu screen with background taken directly from in-game. You can just make out a guard performing a down attack and the main character successfully blocking. The second image is the loading screen and provides a quick explanation of the game mechanics and controls.

Concept Art Not much concept art for this game, like i said i was focussing a lot more on the combat mechanics rather than the look and feel. Most of the characters used in-game were just recycled and decorated old models and textures but the combat system is new.

The Verdict Man did this game have faults. The graphics suffered as a result of more attention being made on the fighting system. The stages were inspired by the retro prince of persia games but seriously lacked the whole dynamics of the original. The fighting system, as creative as it was got really frustrating at times. You had to really concentrate to predict what direction your opponent was going to attack in and so few people have that kind of patience... me excluded! Still, nice execution of initial concept. The game was playable but not as fun as i expected it to be. The game made me acknowledge the futility of bringing true but fun order to computer game combat or was i just looking at the picture from the wrong perspective? Before even completing this game i had plans on further continuing the franchise with a sequel to this game, Retro Fighter III. However after this game was terminated i just didn't see the point. Retro Fighter III would have been based on old school shoot 'em' ups like the popular contra series. You can download some material from the game below.

Downloads Might not be the most fun game, might not even be the most complete game but what the heck, download the gameplay demo and editor and try for yourself. You might learn a thing or two. Name: Retro Fighter II Demo (.exe) Author: Dienye Boham Version: v1.0 Size: 3.06MB Date uploaded: 17/12/05 Download link: Download here Name: Retro Fighter II Editor (.exe) Author: Dienye Boham Version: v1.0 Size: 1.14MB Date uploaded: 17/12/05 Download link: Download here