Sabrewulf GBA

This Christmas I received various presents. DVD box sets, books, gift cards to stores I thought had gone bankrupt several years ago, but one of my favorites was Sabrewulf for the Gameboy Advance. I am a big fan of Rare, you see. If Rare was a person, I’d be arrested for going through its trash, sniffing its discarded, dirty laundry. I have a deep problem obsession interest with the studio (I’ll touch on that topic later, when I no longer worry about its survival daily). Which is why its odd I never really played any of its Gameboy Advance games. Originally, the handheld division just ported over the Donkey Kong Country games, but from 2003-2005, the division started doing original titles. They were “original” in the sense that the titles were not ports of older games but also in the sense that they were unlike many other games out there.

The title that popped out the most to me was “It’s Mr. Pants” (which was responsible for the name of a little game I made). However, I have not completed that game quite yet, so instead, I’m going to review my second choice: Sabrewulf!

But I can’t just talk about the game, can I? There’s so much history about the franchise you probably don’t care about! Back in the 1980’s, back when Rare was known as Ultimate Play the Game, they had a string of successful titles, but their most successful franchise was the Sabreman trilogy. You played as Sabreman, an older British traveller, exploring mazes in a jungle environment. The trilogy consisted of “Sabreman”, then Underwurlde”, and finally “Knight Lore”.  Knight Lore was very special because not only was it one of the first games from an isometric perspective, it was actually completed before the first game in the trilogy! The studio heads, however, held the title back for the end of the trilogy, because if they released it first, it would make Sabreman and Underwurlde look obsolete by comparison.

There was also a very unusual game in development known as “Sabreman Stampede”, which was supposed to be Sabreman’s big comeback. The game was unfortunately canceled (MundoRare does a wonderful job explaining that sad story) and since Microsoft will not allow Rare to return to any of their franchises (*sob*), it seems to be the end of this great franchise.

Point is, Sabreman was always about innovation, and Sabrewulf for the Gameboy Advance fits in that tradition. Sabrewulf was a 2d platformer with puzzle elements and a 3d hub world. The story is that Sabreman winds up at the small village of Blackwyche, where a plot point has occurred: the evil Dr. Dolittle-Goode has destroyed a magical amulet that kept the fabled Sabrewulf sealed in stone, and now that the wolf is freed, the evil duo is off stealing priceless heirlooms and causing problems. The town asks of Sabreman to go into all of the wolf lairs, stop Dr. Dolittle-Goode, and reseal Sabrewulf (oddly enough, they let you keep the treasure). In each town, there are about six or so lairs that Sabreman must enter. Once the player has conquered all of the lairs in an area, Dr. Dolittle-Goode’s lab opens up, and once the player gets through that, they acquire part of the broken amulet. The exploration of the 3d hub world is fine, but it’s the wolf lairs where the fun starts.

The wolf lairs are 2d platforming sections, where the player can summon good creatures at specific locations to overcome various problems. For example, say there’s a ledge you cannot jump onto. You could spawn a creature you could bounce off of, or a creature that acts like a floating platform. The player only has so many of each kind of creature, so the player has to strategize and figure out when to use what creature. There are numerous obstacles standing in your way, and there are numerous ways to solve each one, giving the 2d platforming genre a nice puzzle twist.

At the end of each level, the player arrives at the sleeping Sabrewulf, with a valuable artifact before him that’s slowly degrading in worth, from gold, to silver, to bronze. The more quickly the player reaches the end, the more valuable the prize is. Once you pick up said prize, the game changes. Sabrewulf awakens, all the creatures transform into bouncing gold coins, and he begins to chase you. Your new goal is to backtrack and reach the start of the level before he mauls you. Rinse, repeat, and that’s pretty much the game. Here are my thoughts on it.

Good:

·      Brilliant 2d level design: going to the end of the level, the game is more of a puzzle platformer, figuring out how to overcome obstacles and which creatures to use. Returning to the start of the level, the game is more of a racing platformer, sprinting back to the entrance and avoiding being eaten. The level is designed for both those gameplay types: going in, it’s about strategy, going out, it’s about holding the left d-pad down and jumping with precision. It also rewards exploration with prizes like additional creatures.

·      Ultimate love: If you’re a fan of Ultimate Play the Game, Sabrewulf is just filled with little nods to the old days. Like how there’s a Atic Atac carpet in the town hall. It’s nice to know they remembered their old fans.

Mixed:

·      The art direction: Some of the creature designs are inspired and unusual. At times, I felt like Rare froze their artists right after Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy Kong Quest and thawed them out for this game. But some of the creatures are just shitty. They’re not bad. They’re not lazy. They’re just shitty. Like, for example, there is a tornado with eyes, and angry eyebrows. They’re not even Rare’s typical Googly Eyes^TM! It just sticks out when compared to the other monsters and brings the great art down.

·      The 3d hubworld: It isn’t really necessary to the game. Granted, it allows us to travel from area to area to find more wolf lairs, and I did enjoy the Banjo-Kazooie style mumble talk, but the hub world is just filled with pointless side quests. It doesn’t help that the people offering the side quests aren’t (visually) memorable, so by the point I finished the game, I didn’t really care they needed a bouquet of flowers.

Bad:

·      Little strategy challenge: The game is only difficult when you’re running away from Sabreulf, but the other aspects of the game, which I expected would be more challenging, are not. Money was never a problem. At the end of the game, I still had 1800 Gold (additional creatures cost a few hundred Gold), and I never sold any of the 50+ treasure I acquired. Another issue was the creature selection. Sure, there’s a lot of different kinds of creatures with a lot of different abilities, but I pretty much just used the same dozen or so the whole game through, stocking up on copies of them.

The only real negative to me was poor money and creature balance, resulting in a game that should have been more difficult, but besides that little scratch, Sabrewulf is an innovative title that did not get the critical and commercial success it really deserved. It’s a shame it did not get ported over to Xbox Live Arcade, but if you happen to find a copy somewhere, I’d suggest picking it up.