This quote brought from the few Nemedian scrolls that have survived the passage of time opens an entry and tribute to more than just a game, the playable pixel setting of an icon of the sword and witchcraft! Give them elves, wizards with cassocks and creatures that live in holes and smoke pipes! Hyrkanium steel in one hand, the heart always beating reminding us that we are alive in the other, loincloths at the ready and muscles even in the eyelashes.
There is always a shallow introduction that guides but does not exhaust the reader: Conan the Barbarian is a creation of the Texan writer Robert Ervin Howard, born king in his first 1932 story, The Phoenix in the Sword, because it was a remodeling of another story rejected, starring King Kull of Valusia, and the original account, For this Ax and I Government That is strength, boy, that is power! Within the enormous amount of stories Howard wrote, Conan was his star character, his unifying element. He had more heroes, of course, like someone following in the footsteps of Edgar Rice Burroughs. There is the 16th century Puritan, Solomon Kane, or the picto who fought against the Romans, Bran Mak Morn. But Conan would be his star character and who would focus his imagination and production the most during the four years of his life, from the publication of his first story, to the author's suicide due to the illness that plagued his mother. Howard was then only thirty years old.
Conan's stories are pure adventure, a simple and gimmicky style of prose, full of action, rawness and gloom. Very well known is the friendship with Howard Phillips Lovecraft, maintained by correspondence since they never met in person, and the stories of the Cimmerian –Cimmeria is the birthplace of the character, full of ice and perpetual fight- contain a supernaturality that justly remembers powerfully to that of the Providence writer, against the general image we have of a half-naked barbarian killing bugs like the one that kills weasels, with presences from other eras, from other spheres, gods and worse things than gods waiting to enter our world. Magicians of dark beliefs and disgusting practices, and humanity with the constant threat of returning to the darkness from which men emerged a few thousand years ago.
And as I promised not to bore, I conclude this introduction by explaining that Conan's life is contained in dozens of stories and a long novel, The Hour of the Dragon, which later writers such as Lyon Sprague de Camp or Lin Carter increased, enriched, but also, They contaminated, and that the name of Roy Thomas must be joined to the legend of the character, because without him, surely nothing that would come later would have happened, starting with those who would know the character today. And yes ... the 2010 movie will also have to be thanked for his work as a scriptwriter and editor in chief of Marvel Comics, with monetary anecdotes and clashes of opinion with Stan Lee, who would only lengthen this entry unnecessarily compared to what you have come to read .
Mindscape would develop and publish. That this project rode between three countries - France, the United States and Great Britain - and also leaned on another developer, System 3, shows the ambition and means that the game had. Because the idea started in the year 83 after the success of the first film by John Milius's Conan, but the technology of that moment did not offer the adequate power to transfer not only a visual part at the height of the film, but the enormous and multi-current game concept. Because here the enormous work of leading the character's life through different phases, situations, concepts and mechanics is intended. And the NES would offer the necessary quality to be able to get the project afloat, improving even the original ideas, in the words of its director and visible head, Joseph Joanovici.
For example, the idea was to offer a Conan almost indistinguishable from Arnold Schwarzenegger and waiting and technological advancements made that feat possible. Even the actor, immersed in the middle of filming Terminator 2, would praise the effort. But he acknowledged not adequately understanding the game, since it is limited to the most Howardian stories, compared to the freest interpretations of comics and movies. Likewise, he was delighted with it and bought it from his children, who joked that they could control their own father with a pad.
Delving into the legend, we are not tied to a simple system or basic mechanics, but we have an adventure that adapts and controls depending on the setting, action and time within the chronology of the character. Thus, we started in the very youth of our barbarian fighting against a Vanir fortress with arcade mechanics, and strategy, siege, unit and supply management. The Cimmerian leads the line of attack against the ancestral enemies of his people.
Then we have his passage through Hyperborea, that stage of slavery and dehumanization, barbarism within barbarism, suffering and defeat, followed by overcoming and the taste of freedom. On this occasion, the necessary action is combined with a conversational and graphic adventure, taking the plot in different directions, although coming together at the end at the same point, since Joanovici wanted the player to faithfully follow the chronicle of the character, but with his own games and details. for each player and his way of acting.
With a more seasoned and older character behind him, Conan will go down to the profitable kingdoms of the south, living all kinds of adventures as a road marauder, mercenary and thief. The game currently adapts a more arcade and platformer tone given the more hectic and dynamic context in the barbarian stage. There will be no lack of damsels in distress, or classic and well-known characters such as Thugra Khotan, Thosa-Lanti or Natohk the Veiled.
And one of the great moments of Conan's life is the love affair with the pirate Belit, the Queen of the Black Coast, the most intense and passionate love the character has ever had. Together, they lived through enormous piracy adventures, treasure hunts and visits to exotic and remote places aboard the Tigress. Naval strategy, hand-to-hand fighting, and direct handling of the ship, decades ahead of what he would later do - or vilely copy - Assassins Creed: Black Flag.
But things have an end, and sometimes this is hard and sad. Conan will lose his Pirate Queen, he will wander sad and desolate, he will seek new energy, that the fire of his heart will burn again. And so he ends up in the pyramids of Styx, searching for treasures and fighting justly against black magic and the intelligence that was taken from his love. Here we have a more leisurely search layout, trap detection, hidden paths, mapping, and the inevitable battles against Seth's spawn and the wizards of the Black Ring. Toth Amon will show his statuesque face, but we will not end him this time. Years go by for that to happen.
The game ends by adapting Howard's only long novel, The Dragon Hour, being here the vital plot and although known, I prefer not to reveal much. Simply to say that it is in this last -but long- stretch where the game explodes in the audiovisual and the conceptual, with a final fight against something more than a being of legend, Conan fights against himself and from there, he will be reborn purified, in a new path that will lead you to get the crown of the Kingdom of Aquilonia
Inexplicably there was never a continuation for this game, and there was a lot to keep adapting and dreaming about. But the proximity of the movie Conan: Rey has inspired Joseph Joanovici to prepare this desired project. And although there is nothing official, Schwarzenegger himself seems to have commented that it would be interesting to have another game that marks generations as the first one did, relying on the sure success of the imminent film. Even Gupta wants to work on the project, even though Poledouris has not been with us for years.
