 Ssssssssss That's drunk! When you think of SNK and Neo Geo, you're usually gonna think of fighting games like King of Fighters, Beat-'em-Ups like King of the Monsters, or running guns like Metal Slug, but they did crank out a couple of quality action platformers like Magician Lord, made for arcades by Alpha Denshi in partner with SNK in April 1990, before it was ported to the Neo Geo AES home console in July 1991 and Neo Geo CD in October 1996. On the surface, this is a very simple game with only two buttons, one to jump and one to attack, and you run to the right and kill everything that moves, but there's some cool extra stuff here that makes this one worth playing. One token gives you a health meter and two lives to get through eight levels, making this about a 30 to 40 minute playthrough, and this game gets hard right away. The first level is pretty simple, but at the beginning of the second level, you've got these spikes coming down that you can't see until you walk under them. Then you've got more spikes dropping down as enemies surround you. Later on, you've got these floating eyes and squid snails that randomly fire slow-moving projectiles at you. Eventually, you've got some tough platforming to get through with enemies popping up all over. It's one of those classic arcade pick-up-and-die kind of games. You move forward, you get killed by something, you learn from your mistake, and you try to make it a little further the next time. What helps you out are all the different transformations your character can do. You start out as just a regular dude with a regular projectile, but as you destroy enemies, you'll pick up weapon upgrades, and most importantly, you'll find these orbs that will have you change form. There's three different colors, red, blue, and green, and you can carry two at once to combine forms and weapons, a little bit like how weapons work in Gunstar Heroes. For example, if you have two red orbs, you'll take a dragon form that breathes fire. If you combine red and green orbs, you'll take the form of a ninja that throws magic in a circular pattern. Red and blue gives you a water projectile attack, green and blue makes you a samurai. It's pretty cool. The weirdest transformation is this transparent-looking dude that just flexes his bicep and lightning bolts come out of him. Okay, that seriously seems like a low-ranking superhero from One Punch Man. But in this game, it's pretty effective, and it helps that in most forms you take, you can fire in four directions, including downward, in midair. Another nice thing about this game is that there's plenty of hidden areas you can find, and there's no time limit here, so you can take your time and explore, which is cool if you're someone that wants to get the highest possible score, or you're just into 100% runs. If you want more of a challenge, you can also just ignore all the transformation orbs and try and finish the game as the default character, but beware, it's really freaking tough. I also got to point out some truly weird boss designs, like what in the hell is this thing? Or this thing that busts through a giant ceramic face. As you can see, the graphics here are top-notch, and the game does a great job making each of the eight levels unique and distinct, and the music holds up its end of the bargain as well. Adding to the fun of the game is the story. You play as Elta, one of the last remating Magician Lords, and you must defeat the dark wizard Gal Agais, because he plans on summoning the evil god of destruction as a torus. But most importantly, Magician Lord features a truly terrible translation. Dale of Evil Gods? Wow, Dale Gribble was really into some weird conspiracies back then. Oh yeah, if you want an evil intimidating villain, just make sure the voice samples make him sound like Lorenzo music. I'm destined to die. I'm just destined to die. Mondays just kill me. So yeah, Magician Lord was made during a time when SNK was still trying to find its footing. This game was made well before King of Fighters or Samurai Showdown or Metal Slug, so it's a pretty interesting playthrough from that standpoint alone. This game is a lot of fun. It's regularly made lists from publications like Electronics Gaming Monthly, ranking among its top 200 games ever made. But it is a tough playthrough. There's tons of arcade cheapness here, sections designed to gobble up corridors, and there's a brutal boss gauntlet at the end of the game. But hey, it's a 90s arcade game. It goes with the territory. What I find interesting is that if you play either of the home versions of Magician Lord, it's pretty much the exact same game. But unlike playing this one on an arcade emulator, you can't just pump in fake quarters. You're stuck with a finite number of lives to get through the whole game. So if you're looking for a really tough challenge, try playing it that way. But ultimately, Magician Lord is a quality playthrough any way you play it, and you should play it any way you can. Alright, I want to thank you for watching, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.