I remember playing this game many years ago, and then many years later, when Dark Souls came out, I thought it was a sequel or that they were happening in the same universe, because I thought the scenarios and aesthetics of these two games were similar. However, logically they are two different videogames, from different companies, but you could say that Dark Souls, took inspiration in this game (and also Demon Souls would do it). I think very few people know the game I'm going to tell you about today, and even though it has aged a bit over the years, I remember spending many hours of entertainment playing it.
Well, the story of this game is one of the simplest I've written in a review and it's just an excuse for our protagonist to go out and spread violence towards his enemies. The story focuses solely on the rescue of our protagonist's wife, who is a warrior, equipped with armor and a sword, and to rescue her he must go deep into the dungeons of the universe that this game has created. A universe with a lot of darkness, but with medieval and fantastic touches. And basically this is the story, simple and straightforward.
Die by the Sword is a game that is not afraid to show a dark and gloomy world, with a dark colour palette, with many black, brown and grey colours. However, it's a video game that has aged badly over the years, since in terms of texture it leaves a lot to be desired, but in 1998, which was the year when Die by the Sword was released, it looked really good, with good, quite varied animations and very appropriate character designs.
The set designs are regular, but they are varied, however they don't have big details in sight, due to the low quality in the textures nowadays it look bad. I remembered that this game looked better, but I guess there are some things that memory and nostalgia make you believe. As I said before, Die by the Sword is a game that uses a lot of dark colors and I think it's part of the developers to do this to show us a desolate world full of dangers and although it's logical its graphic defects, I must say that Die by the Sword, is a game that knows how to make you immerse yourself in its world. However, as I also mentioned, this game looked really good when it came out a few years ago.
In terms of sound in Die by the Sword is very good, quite consistent with the atmosphere of the game, music usually accompanies very well and decorates each stage, however I do not think this game has a melody that stands out much, this does not mean that the soundtrack of Die by the Sword is bad, but I do not remember that it has a memorable melody, but it is a soundtrack that serves its purpose quite well. The sound effects are also very good and our protagonist is saying phrases during the fights, which despite being simple, are quite funny to listen to.
Its gameplay has mechanics that today we could consider old-fashioned and this is a game that in terms of mechanics has aged quite a bit, since in addition to having the classic "tank" system similar to games like the old Resident Evil or Devil May Cry 3, the character control is a bit rough and uncomfortable. This is something that you only get when you play it again many years later, exactly the same thing that happened to me when I played it again.
Although of course for the time when this video game came out they were really good mechanics, the game has several levels that we have to overcome, in them we can find enemies or skill challenges to overcome, there are many platforming areas and due to bad control that we have in front of our character they will be quite difficult to overcome.
Die by the Sword has several game systems, in one of them we will be able to control the sword of the main character through movements with the mouse and the other is the typical of action games. Something that is quite striking in this game is that we can attack our enemies in different areas of the body, therefore, if we can cut an arm this will limit the movement of that enemy and therefore it will be easier to defeat him, likewise if you cut a leg and if you cut the head is logically an insta-kill.
It also has several game modes, one of them is the classic story mode in which we must overcome certain stages to reach the end of the game. The other mode is a fight with several other characters, a deathmatch, in short. And the other game mode is a kind of tournament where for every round that we have survived the enemy horde the difficulty gets higher and higher.
Die by the Sword is a game that was undoubtedly better than I remember, nostalgia makes us believe that there are things that were better than they really were, however this was a game from which I spent many hours of fun and entertainment.
