Blades of Vengeance is an amazing game. Fantasy and medieval things are some of my favorite themes and settings, so the game's theme makes it really interesting to me... and the actual game beneath that is, if anything, even better. First, it's got fantastic graphics and great music. The music's far better than your average Genesis music, and each stage's music fits the area well and sounds good. Sound effects are equally well done. The graphics are just great, with a lot of variety, interesting enemies, nice use of parallax backgrounds, little cutscenes between levels where your master tells you where to go next and a little about the next area, and just generally a fantastic use of the Genesis' color palette. This game covers up the Genesis' deficient color palette quite well (that is, the fact that the system can only display 64 colors on screen at once). It does a better job of dealing with that than many titles.
The gameplay is extremely well designed as well. The game is a somewhat slow-paced, methodical game where learning what to do at each point is the key. You can't just walk forward swinging your sword, you will die, and the game is NOT forgiving in that regard -- you only get continues if you get enough points to earn one, and you need to do well in order to get enough points. You take damage when you fall too far and enemies can drain your health quickly if you're not paying attention or mess up. There are a variety of items to collect to help, though. Also, while it's got lots of challenge, as you play it more you will learn what to do in each area and get progressively better. The game's very much pattern-based, enemies will all attack in memorizable patterns which you have to learn. Blocking (done by holding Down) makes you invulnerable from all attacks coming at your front; your back is still vulnerable, though, and enemies sometimes come from both sides so you can't always rely on it. It's a great mechanic. The items also help, when you're in a fix you can do something like use an invincibility potion or something. You do get points for unused items at the end of a level, but don't hold onto them just because of that... if you need to use them, do so! Oh yes, you can switch items while paused. A uses items, while B and C attack and jump. The controls are simple but effective.
There are also many hidden areas in the stages full of items to collect, so exploration is strongly encouraged. Try to jump through walls, go through every door, etc. You'll need all the money you can get, items in the shop (which you visit between levels) are expensive, and money isn't common... get all of it you can!
Also, the armor powerup, available in the shop before the fourth level, is HIGHLY recommended. It can be tricky to get though, because it costs 20 gold but I've only found about 8-10 gold in level 3, so you've got to keep 10+ gold from levels 1-2 and then spend it later... unless there are big hidden areas in level 3 I haven't found yet, that is. This is tough because the game is very hard and generally I feel like I need to spend all my money on lives and health potions, not spending some will make it hard to beat the level...
And indeed, I haven't beaten level 4 yet. I can get through the first three levels, but the fourth one is really quite hard... I need that armor, but as I said it's tough to get there with enough money.I'll keep trying though, this game is far too good to give up on halfway.
Oh yeah, and the game has a two player simultaneous mode as well. I just played that a little a few days ago, and it's pretty cool. It is really hard though, both people really need to know what they're doing -- play with someone who doesn't know the game or who isn't good at this kind of thing and you'll get nowhere. You have to be on the same screen and can't move too far apart unless one person pauses (when one person has paused the other can move away from them), so for things like tricky jumping puzzles, which the game has a lot of, you either need to pause and take turns or carefully do it at the same time and hope neither person messes up. So yeah, platforming is harder with two people.
Fighting enemies, however, is obviously a little easier with two people, because you have two people to fight with, so it kind of makes up for it that way... but anyway, single player or multi player, Blades of Vengeance is a fantastic game, almost definitely my favorite game published by EA on the Genesis and definitely one of the better action-platformers on the system.
Oh yeah, and yeah, the female barbarian probably is the best character. The game's hard enough, don't make it harder by chosing one of the other, worse characters...she's the most balanced character, and in this case that actually makes her best. I know balanced characters sometimes are the worst, but that's not true here.
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