Sword Master (NES, 1990)

This is a cool little NES game that nobody seems to remember. It's a bit of a Zelda II clone, a side-scroller where you go through seven levels and slash your way through various monsters. Each fight is treated like a miniboss / duel, and your character gets a variety of different sword attacks they can employ. So it's a little different from your average game, and deserves mention.

 

RIP Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa

This game was featured in Nintendo Power Volume 23, that first issue I ever read as a kid. Everything in this issue jumped out at me as worth playing, because it was all so new to me at the time. As of 2025, I've played nearly everything from this issue. And of course, Power Blade is still one of my favorite NES games. So this post/game is mostly about the nostalgia hit for me.

NP's coverage makes this game look incredible, as they were so good at doing. It's a pretty basic/simple game, but it's got an interesting combat system with the blocks and upward slashes and so forth. Ducking down will put your shield up and block attacks from the front, while pressing up will raise it to block attacks that are coming from above (like thrown objects)

Breaking up the swordplay, we've got spells. Every other level you get a new spell. Weirdly enough, using them consumes EXP points (which otherwise increase your level / HP every time you fill the bar) so I'm probably more likely to avoid using these for anything besides a boss I'm struggling with.

Once you max out your HP at 32 (which generally happens by the final level) you're free to just burn EXP on spells.

The game itself is very short and very basic. Every level is a straight line and a series of miniboss duels, sometimes with a few weak regular foes in-between to farm for EXP. As a kid, I remember REALLY liking the monster list. The artwork, the fact that they all had HP, all of it was super cool to 3rd grade me.

Later in the game we get into the real meaty monsters, like the Gargoyle and the Emerald Dragon. The strategies for beating each monster are actually really useful here, since the duel-like structure of the game means each monster is weak to certain types of feints and attacks. Jumping overhead slashes followed by immediately jumping away seems to work really well on most foes, but not all of them.

The end of the game is basically eight bosses in a row. This is a tough game, too, at least until you master the movement and when to do what.

So apparently the Fire Mage here has been using this black mirror to warp in monsters and take over the kingdom. The black mirror is the tool of the dastardly Vishok, the other bad guy.

Your character is a gold knight of the realm, and I guess the only one left, and your task is to save the castle from the clutches of Vishok.

The game is basically a long line of minibosses, and in-between those fights, you fend off Vampire Bats that attack en-masse. These things are basically just there to give you EXP. They've distilled the RPG system down to the bare bones here.

First miniboss is this skeleton. I was hoping that things like this would be regular recurring enemies, but nope. Most of the monsters we see in the NP coverage are just minibosses that show up once or twice. The only real recurring abundant enemies are BATS. You spend like half the game whacking BATS.

Next boss is this troll, and it only appears once in the game. The combat is pretty basic, and consists mainly of using feints to catch the enemy. For example, do a jumping slash and then a quick kneeling stab to catch them low.

These wizards are ass and a half, with their long-range spells and meteor AOEs. Either way, the game is pretty easy so far, and the first level does a good job teaching you how to play.

Between levels, there's a pan-over of the kingdom, just like Ghosts n' Goblins. I always liked this, and how there's a town before the castle. When I was a kid I was obsessed with castles and their construction for a while.

Continues are very limited, and you essentially only get five lives to finish the game. Dying once sends you back to the beginning of the current level.

HOWEVER, there's a very simple code you can enter on the title screen: Hold Down and Select, then press Start. This gives you unlimited continues and turns it into a much more normal game. You can actually grind levels if you need to now (by repeating a stage several times) and the game itself is much less stressful / more fun.

The game's most annoying foes are these flying eyeballs that move up and down and can't be killed for some reason. They make platforming sections way more of a hassle than they needed to be. Once you've got that unlimited continues code entered, it's all good, given how short these levels are.

Next boss is the Knight of the Serpent, who is gold in the NP artwork and grey here. As a kid, this was my favorite foe on the monster list.

Level 3 is where things suddenly get difficult, and is probably the biggest challenge the game offers outside of the final level (because of how much of a spike it is). It's just a line of minibosses. Mini-Godzilla here can be defeated with the "jump in and slash, then jump out" method, which works on most of these fights.

However, things get nasty when I have to fight another wizard. This guy continues to be the bane of my existence, with his near-unavoidable comet rain spells.

And he's not even the boss, the Grim Reaper (seen here) is. He's got an axe instead of a scythe for some reason, and he's a challenging duel. Winning is a matter of getting close, ducking (to avoid his overhead bomb-lobs), and exchanging strikes with him. When you're not attacking, you're blocking, so you just have to not get greedy.

I'm saving my spells for the final level (once my HP is maxed out) but here's a look at them. They're pretty generic projectile attacks, and for whatever reason you turn into this white-robed figure when you switch to "casting mode".

Fireball: Shoots a direct fireball, seen here.

Bomb: Lobs an exploding fireball in an overhead arc.

Lightning: Fires a bolt of electricity straight across, basically the same as the fireball.

You can charge up and unleash a more powerful version of any given spell, at the cost of more EXP. All of these are basically screen-clearing moves that do a lot of damage.

Fireball: Sends out several large fireballs to circle around, seen here.

Bomb: Bigger explosion lob.

Lightning: Sends an unavoidable screen-high line of lightning across the screen. Does the most damage.

Level 4 is waaaaay easier than Level 3, and consists only of a bunch of platforming (which this game is horrible at) rather than minibosses. They should have left the platforming out entirely.

Level 4 boss is the gargoyle, which is a monster I was into as a kid because of the board game HeroQuest. The big boss in that game was a gargoyle and it had an awesome figurine. Yeah, HeroQuest was rad but also a bit of an unknown in the board game universe, wonder if anyone still remembers it.

Level 5 is back to being a straight line with a bunch of minibosses, like the Ball and Chain Trooper here.

Level 5 boss is the Emerald Dragon, which is sadly the only dragon in the game. Winning is a simple matter of jumping in and out to avoid the short-range fire breath retaliation.

When you defeat bosses that drop the spells (at the end of level 1, 3, and 5), you have only a few seconds to pick them up before the level automatically ends. This is super weird because they don't give you much time at all, and it's easy to completely miss out on a spell. Miss the Lightning spell here and the game will be significantly harder to finish.

At last, our unnamed hero arrives at the castle keep. You'd think the game is just about over, but nope, the last level is ROUGH and will probably take more time for the average player than the rest of the game combined.

But first, Level 6 is The Dungeon, and it's another platformer level like Level 4. The platforming is still a bad idea. Here it's even more annoying because you have to contend with falling blocks that knock you out of jumps.

The Barbarian is the boss here, and he's interesting because he can throw his axe like a boomerang. This one is a matter of staying in a crouch (blocking) and doing quick jump attacks as his boomerang returns to him (since he's a sitting duck for a second there).

Here's a shot of the fully-charged Lightning spell, which absolutely wrecks. I'm still saving EXP for the final level though.

Speaking of EXP, my HP's maxed now at 32 as Level 7 begins. This is the last level, and the toughest thing the game does by far. It's got a total of eight boss fights in a row, and the first six have to be done in one go (meaning there's no checkpoint until the last two).

First is a rematch with the skeleton, then there's a rematch with the lizardman (which I never got a shot of, which is too bad because he can JUMP KICK)

Third is a rematch with the Barbarian, which is no problem if you've got the method down for him. If they were really mean they would have thrown in a rematch with the Grim Reaper, probably the game's toughest foe outside of this last level.

The last five bosses are all entirely-new foes. Here's the Gold Knight, which looks awesome, kinda resembles a Dark Souls black knight. It's an easy battle, just need to trade hits with him and keep your block up unless you have time to hit back.

Silver Knight is the next one and he's more of a problem. His leaping knife-throws are difficult to avoid, and he can sap quite a bit of HP that you'd need for the next fight. This is the first time in the game where lobbing some spells might be called-for. However, he has a rubber-banding effect when hit, so trap him against the right side of the screen and you can jab away to get a quick win.

Third-to-last boss is the Dark Sorcerer, who can lob the same spells you can. This is a fight that definitely calls for unloading spells, but you don't want to use up ALL of your available EXP because it's good to have a couple charged shots for the final boss. I'd say use up to half of your EXP (a little less if you used magic against the Silver Knight at all). Then close the gap and wail away to finish the fight quick.

This guy is probably the biggest threat in the last level because he's the last fight before the checkpoint and your character is probably going to be worn-down by now.

The key to surviving this level is to replay the first few fights until your EXP is like 90% to max. Once the meter fills up, it'll roll over back to zero, and that's bad (since I'm done leveling, I won't get an HP increase out of it, so it's just completely pointless). Then play through the level normally but very carefully, use one charged Lightning on the Silver Knight, then two on the Dark Sorcerer, then save your last two for the final boss.

Fire Mage is the second-to-last fight and it's...super easy. You get a checkpoint beforehand, and none of his attacks can damage you if you stay crouched in the corner. I take Nintendo Power's advice and just let him take damage from bumping into my shield whenever he swoops in.

After this fight is another checkpoint (where were all these checkpoints during the rest of the game?) and then...

The dastardly Vishok and his black mirror! Whatever EXP you have going into this fight for spells, that's what you'll have every time you lose and reload. Which is why it's so important to conserve EXP in the fights before this.

I blast him with two charged Lightnings to knock off like half his HP, then close in and strike away at the black mirror. It's a very tough fight normally, but not when he's starting from like half health.

With the defeat of Vishok, the kingdom is saved! Also this princess apparently? I didn't even realize there was a princess involved. I mean, of course there was. Great knightly heroes don't just save the realm out of the kindness of their heart, they do it for the poon.

That's another Volume 23 game knocked off. Not much left now. There's Totally Rad and the aptly-named SCAT: Special Cybernetic Attack Team to check out. Of course I'll have the issue handy and read the articles before playing them, in an effort to transport back to 1990 or so. Will it work? Well, it didn't with this game, but Sword Master was a pretty basic game. Not a ton of imagination to it. I give it a rating of "worth taking a look at if it for a few minutes out of curiosity". The NP coverage of it is still a bit of a joy to read, at least.