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Spiritual Warfare - Retro Review; Bible Zelda
Topic Started: Oct 15 2015, 06:43 PM (140 Views)
Greymon57
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Year: 1992
Platform: NES (unlicensed)

Last year I said I would play and review all the Wisdom Tree games for NES. Well life got in the way and I was unable to do so. But this week I decided to tackle their most unique game.

Spiritual Warfare

Gameplay: 7/10 Yes you saw that right. I'm giving an NES Bible game a decently high rating. Spiritual Warfare copies the formula from the first Zelda game, and it works. That's not to say this game is better than Zelda 1, but it's not a bad clone. Honestly I must say this game is pretty impressive considering the fact WisdomTree developed it. Like in Zelda you have a big open world to explore and search for a set of Mystic items that you require to defeat the final boss. The land is hidden with cryptic puzzles, and the advice of the people isn't all that helpful. But isn't that the fun of NES games? While the game is a downgrade of zelda 1, I feel many things were improved. The raft actually allows you to explore the sea. When you die in the overworld you respawn at the beggining of the district, a train system allows you to easily traverse the land, many hidden tunnels give you shortcuts, and best of all there is a church that gives specific hints as to what do next and where to go. So yes, it's a good game.

Story: 0/10 Uhm what story? Zelda was smart enough to include their story on the title screen. But this game, I'm not sure what exactly is going on. All I know is that i need to find the 5 pieces of "The Armor of God".

Level Design: 5/10 Unlike Zelda, this game does not have dungeons. Instead each district has enough secret areas to get you your weapons, items, and armor piece. And yes there is a Boss fight before each Armor Piece. The Armor pieces also grant you abilities to help you reach the next district.

Characters: 1/10 Can you say 1 dimensional? These characters don't give you much to work with. Heck even our protagonist doesn't have a name, or age description. Then again Zelda1 wasn't any better at this either.

Music: -2/10 MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP! OH PLEASE MAKE IT STOP!!! Luckily they were kind enough to give players the option of silencing the music. It's like they knew or something.

Bosses: 6/10 Once again I'm pleasantly surprised. The bosses were both original and challenging. But they were also very cryptic. I mean I eventually figured out how to defeat them. But not before dying many times and grinding my teeth. Also with exception of the final boss, the bosses were not giant monsters. Instead they were standard enemies in a puzzle-ly battlefield.

Abilities: 8/10 For a zelda clone the abilities were not bad. Your main method of attacking is Fruit. Depending on the fruit is how fast you can throw them and how far.
You also have "Jars of God's wrath" which work just like bombs in Zelda1, except they can't harm you.
You obtain a "Jawbone" that works like a boomerang that doesn't stun opponents.
A raft to freely explore the water.
And a throwing sword that explodes on contact and collects any item it touches along the way. aka OP Sword.
You can also push objects, walk on water, obtain fire protection, and other random stuff.

Replay Value: 0/10 Ehrrr, thanks but once was enough. It's a good game and all, but I don't see myself replaying it any time soon.

Overall: 7/10 In the end, the game was good. Despite it's lackluster graphics, flickering screens, Terrible music, and limited game development skill, they actually managed to make a game that was good for it's time. Most of the problems with this game were common in the NES era. So I imagine that had I gotten this game as a child, I would have enjoyed it. If religion doesn't offend you, and you love Zelda, I recommend you give this game a chance.

Did it age well? Unfortunately, it did not. You really have to be into NES games to enjoy this one.

Where Can I play this today? You can play the entire game for free, and legally, at www.wisdomtreegames.com/arcadesw.html

-Edit- The WisdomTree arcade is no more. You can play Spiritual Warfare by going to http://wisdomtreegames.com/store.html and purchasing either the Arkade Plug&Play ($45), Wisdom Tree NES Collection ($49.99), or Wisdom Tree Genesis Collection ($39.99).

Edited by Greymon57, Apr 9 2017, 08:41 AM.
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