I played this back in the day on N64, 4 player coop. I was the wizard, my sister was the valkyrie, and 2 cousins as the other 2. It was a blast though I can't remember if we beat it. Now playing the playstation version and beat as the wizard. I did not realize I could change his appearance; all look cool but the yellow one has nostalgia for what I played back in the day. The game was fairly easy. I powered through most situations with ranged attacks, mowing down the hordes and attempting to snipe the generators off screen. The small enemies (rats, scorpions, wolves etc) were a bit annoying because my ranged attacks missed them when they got into melee range. I mostly got into trouble if I let myself get flanked, which meant I had to use a turbo attack, potion, or powerup. I always used a turbo attack and powerup for golems, and sometimes to get annoying archers or bombers who were too high to otherwise hit. I occasionally used powerups to power through tricky areas, especially in the cathedral and 4 bonus stages. I tried to make use of the ones that I had already full. I mostly used offensive ones to boost my ranged attacks: triple shot, rapid shot, familiar boost, and elemental damage. The breath attacks were good for golems but I never had much of them. The damage shields could help when surrounded but did not last long. I didn't feel I needed any defensive boosts, despite the wizard's low armor. I wrecked every boss with triple shot, and rapid shot on top of that for Skorne. I beat the treasure levels to unlock every secret character except the falconess. I switched to the Jackal. I had to replay the first 2 stages due to missing obelisks and rune stones, but after that I made sure to keep apprised of where stuff was by talking the the npc. I also used online maps after clearing most of each stage, since the worst aspect of this game by far was the lack of any kind of in game map. Some of the stages and camera angle changes were confusing! The only other trouble I had was having to abandon the first battlefield stage due to lack of keys. I had not realized that chests required keys to open and that I had used them all in the cathedral. That was the only time I bought keys. I also bought food just before the final boss since I was at about 900/9000 hp. Even though I generally made a slight hp profit on each stage, the first fight with Skorne and his unavoidable shockwave damage put me so low.

Finished at level 97 with 8000/9999 hp 19k gold, and a ton of powerups.

Then I played through as the blue valkyrie. She had the best outfit and most beautiful face, even though I prefer blonde hair. I found melee to be the way to go because despite her having only slightly more melee power, her melee attack speed was significantly faster than ranged. So I would usually charge generators and use her speed to avoid the enemies. Once she got a familiar, ranged attacking became more viable and I used both. Ranged was great for dealing with a single generator and killing large groups of enemies that were not supported by geverarors, but she needed powerups or melee to take out multiple generators at once. Invisibility was the best way to take out generators in the hardest stages. Despite having the highest armor she took far more damage than the wizard. Much of that was just how many more hits I took going into melee, and the rest was from the bosses as her lower ranged damage made the fights drag on longer. Skorne bugged out on both fights though and could not hit me. I had to buy health 2 or 3 times. I only beat half of the bonus levels and burned through all my powerups to make it easier. She ended at level 88.

Next I played as the red archer long enough to kill the first 2 bosses. Her high speed was great for shooting the rat style enemies, but her lack of power made her less effective than the wizard at powering through groups to get at the generators. Sometimes she could and othertimes she needed to run past enemies. Her melee sucked and seemed to be even worse than the wizard. She also struggled with enemy ranged because she could not kill them in 1 hit like the other classes. Her speed made it very easy to avoid boss attacks and kite golems, but she struggled when surrounded. She was good on health and ended at level 27. I prefer the wizard.

I repeated until level 27 as the red warrior. His melee attack was devastating, and he could wade through hordes and wreck generators like nothing. His melee even seemed to have a reliable small area effect, and he overall got hit much less than the valkyrie. His ranged attack was powerful too but incredibly slow. It was really only good to smoke archers and bombers, and could sometimes pierce (or miss) enemies to 1 shot a weak generator. He could 1 shot golems with a turbo attack but struggled to kite them with regular attacks. He was the most likely to need the help of powerups to defeat golems and bosses. He was doing excellent on health until a turbo attack missed a golem and I decided to see how well he would fare meleeing it without powerups. Then he got hit a bunch by the bosses, but was much better off than the valkyrie.

This was a very well made and fun game. Kind of like a spiritual successor to King of Dragons. The rpg elements were light but the action was intense, even if the game was more on easy side. The biggest flaw was the lack of any kind of map, which made it more difficult than necessary to navigate. The camera was overall very good but in a few places it did very quick disorienting snaps that caused me to completely lose my bearing. If not a map then at least a compass would have helped. The game was also very samey, with there only being a few types of enemies mechanically despite the big differences in appearance. All bosses were pretty much the same, and all characters had mechanically similar turbo attacks. Still the small differences in how the characters played encouraged replaying. The playstation version was dumbed down with simpler stages, only 2 players and worse audio. The music was excellent but the voices were bad. I distinctly remember "food is good" from the N64 and was disappointed not to hear it here.

8.5/10 for N64

8.0 for playstation