Barbarian

Moby ID: 253
Amiga Specs
Included in See Also

Description official descriptions

In this game you play the role of a barbarian who must navigate his way through dangerous dungeons. The game is played from a third person side scrolling perspective and also has platform jumping parts to it. The barbarian is controlled by using left and right on the joystick to move and up and down is used to scroll through the various commands at the bottom of the screen. When a command is highlighted pressing fire will perform that action thus saving on extra buttons being needed to play. There are two weapons at your disposal. A sword which you start the game with and later a bow which is handy for long range attacks. There are many traps to avoid and various monsters who have different attack patterns.

Groups +

Screenshots

Credits (Amiga version)

9 People

Program design by
Coding by
Animation by
Graphics by
Title/End sequence coding by
Title/End sequence design by
Title/End sequence graphics by
Story written by
General disruption
Cover Illustration by

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 75% (based on 17 ratings)

Players

Average score: 2.8 out of 5 (based on 77 ratings with 6 reviews)

Nostalgia, but not much else.

The Good
To begin with, this is a little bit biased on my part, because this game, like other games like Airborne ranger, Eye of Horus, Aaargh, and the others, is one of the first I ever played, and naturally this would give a slight favor towards it from any person. I actually thought this game was pretty good when I was kid, hearing the really badly digitalized voice say 'barbarian' at the start was, from what I believe the very first voice I heard from a video game.

The game featured you as Hegor, the inevitable Conan the Barbarian clone, going on an adventure to kill the wizard Necron (who's easier to knock down than glass bottle with a machinegun) for some mysterious reason... seriously, what DO barbarians have against wizards? Maybe I should be hitting the old Conan the Barbarian novels to figure that one out.

The graphics were OK, and there's actually quite a variety of enemies for you to go at even if they're not exactly the hardest enemies in the history of video gaming. There are some death traps in the game that would require you to constantly be on guard making sure that you won't be finishing the game in the first run through. Some the animation is mildly amusing, too, such as the one to make your character run away, it never fails to put a smile on my face to see a supposedly 'tough' barbarian run away in a comically cartoonish manner.

Even the unusual control feature of the game, wild bewildering at first, isn't as bad as some people make it out to be. It's only if you've never seen it before or you haven't played the game in a long time does it get confusing. It's actually very easy to learn and does add a unique touch to the game.

The Bad
OK, with the minor good stuff that has been said about the game, here comes the negative... first of all, there's really no story given at all. In the manual of the game (the only place where you learn the barbarian and the wizard's names) they mention that you have to destroy the crystal that he drops... but make no mention as to why you're fighting him to begin with. Seriously, the story seemed more like a justification for existence than an actual story. They could have at least put something in like revenge or freeing the country from his tyranny or something like that in there to explain exactly what was going on.

Also the game itself is not too terribly hard to finish. Except for some parts about the old 'dropping stone' traps from the ceilings (which can be avoided easily once you know where they are), and the enemies are just too pathetic to really be of any threat. I was only killed once by them, and that was an accident on my part, too. Adding some kind of combat system in the game would have made for a great addition and made the game a lot more enjoyable than just 'don't let the enemy come too close and then thwack them with your sword!'. In fact, they were so easy to beat that they were more of an annoyance than a challenge.

To make matters worse, the final wizard in the end game was no stronger than a regular wizard enemy that you meet in the screen before him. Only difference is, he can't be killed with arrows, you have to be very clever with him... using the magic 'shield' to reflect his own magic upon him. It's a task so hard you might actually want to put your coffee cup down to make sure you concentrate enough and not on whatever music video you might have on the side from youtube.

The sound in the game is another problem. Other than Hegor's death cries, the sound in the game sounded suspiciously like that PC speaker tunes of Airborne ranger and a myriad of other games that were out at the time. They were really annoying and didn't add much atmosphere.

The Bottom Line
Well, are you very first conscious memories from the late 80's? Then you might have played this game and as such, you might have experienced some of it and just the nostalgia factor might want you to come back and play it every now and then for old times sake.

For all other people, however, this game doesn't hold much appeal. If you're a collector of old games, as I am, you might want to download it, test play it for a few minutes, then just quietly forget about it. It's a nice classic that few people know about, but maybe that's what makes it have that teeny tiny bit of charm.

DOS · by Salim Farhat (69) · 2009

It really sucks.

The Good
The only truly cool thing about this game is the nice "barbarian!" digital sample at the beginning, which baffled me at the time.

The Bad
Everything, starting with the horrible, horrible control system, the completely ridicilous sound effects and on top of it all, the graphics suck. This game simply is NO FUN AT ALL!

The Bottom Line
Stay away from it!

DOS · by Tomer Gabel (4539) · 1999

Genuinely fantastic.. if you play it while on acid.

The Good
I remember that the sampled sound effects sounded really impressive when I first heard them (I had just upgraded my XT to 512 kb ram).

The Bad
A control system designed by a sick mind - this has to be the only sidescrolling action game using nothing but the function keys (!) to control the main character.

The Bottom Line
A Conan-esque character walks around slaying his enemies in the traditional sidescrolling beat-em-up style. You know the drill - except for the control system, which is alien.

DOS · by mobster_lobster (24) · 2001

[ View all 6 player reviews ]

Trivia

Cover art

The box cover artwork and Barbarian/Psygnosis logos were created by Roger Dean. The painting used for the cover, called Red Dragon III, was later used again as a cover for Steve Howe on the 1994 album Not Necessarily Acoustic. At the back of the CD booklet under the artwork credits you can find the message "Hello Psygnosis".

Debugger

In the PC version, the developers apparently forgot to remove a debugger of sorts from the game. When you are asked to select the control method ("Press 1, 2 or 3"), press 4. Then start the game as usual, and...

Speech

Barbarian features speech through the PC Speaker, but was done using the technically inferior 1-bit method as opposed to the more sophisticated 6- and 8-bit methods employed by other games. As a result, the speech is quite loud and distorted.

Information also contributed by Blood, Jaromir Krol, Servo

Analytics

MobyPro Early Access

Upgrade to MobyPro to view research rankings!

Related Games

Barbarian+
Released 2018 on Amiga
Barbarian Brawl
Released 2015 on Windows
Comar Barbarian
Released 2001 on Windows
Barbarian II
Released 1991 on Amiga, Atari ST
Muse & Barbarian
Released 2022 on Windows
Barbarian Roller Rally
Released 2005 on Windows
Jack the Barbarian
Released 2018 on Windows
Krakrox the Barbarian
Released 2001 on Browser
Tomarc the Barbarian
Released 1983 on Atari 2600, Commodore 64, 1984 on ColecoVision

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 253
  • [ Please login / register to view all identifiers ]

Contribute

Are you familiar with this game? Help document and preserve this entry in video game history! If your contribution is approved, you will earn points and be credited as a contributor.

Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Donny K..

iPad, iPhone added by Sciere. ZX Spectrum added by Martin Smith. MSX added by koffiepad. Amiga added by MAT. Atari ST added by Belboz. Amstrad CPC added by Belgarath_UK. Commodore 64 added by Rantanplan.

Additional contributors: festershinetop, Patrick Bregger.

Game added August 27, 1999. Last modified January 23, 2024.