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.

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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)

Amiga's best friend.

The Good
As far as I can remember, Barbarian is the first game that created some sort of gaming community and sent the Amiga 500 to real stardom. First the packaging is luxurious: a hard box with beautiful artwork which had to be the model of all Psygnosis games for many years to come. Introduction seems basic today, but at the time the lighting bolt FX and sound of the first screen was truly astonishing. Most important, and what made the success and legend of Barbarian is its atmosphere: diversity of monsters and available weapons, beauty of the graphics, originality with sounds and original gameplay with great response with the not-that-precise Amiga's mouse are the many ingredients that make the game a must have for an Amiga fan. In my opinion, only Prince of Persia was able to enhance such originality.

The Bad
Though the game presents a great range of characters and graphics, it is a bit short for a top of the joy player.

The Bottom Line
A platform game with all the details of a D&D adventure... as a barbarian. Great graphics, beautiful sprites, good gameplay, incomparable atmosphere.

Amiga · by Alexandre Adjadj (2) · 2003

An idiotic control system.

The Good
The digitized speech at the title screen is... cute. The sprite graphics are done well, if a bit cartoony.

The Bad
Gameplay is done with "icons", which can be selected with the joystick, mouse, or function keys. For example: To move your character to the right, you press/select the right arrow icon. To swing your sword, you select the sword icon. This would be appropriate if the game were a turn-based strategy game or something--but it's not! It's a weak action game. You'd think that you could simply move left, right, etc. and hit a button to swing your sword, but you can't. You have to use the "icons" for everything.

It's the stupidest control system I've ever seen for an action game.

The Bottom Line
It's a sheep in wolf's clothing. Avoid it.

DOS · by Trixter (8952) · 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

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Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 253
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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.