WeaponLord

About WeaponLord

WeaponLord (1995) is Visual Concepts' gory weapons-based fighting game for the SNES and Genesis, designed by former Capcom staff for hardcore fans, with a deep counterattack system and early tuning for online play.

WeaponLord in Depth

At its core WeaponLord is a standard 2D fighting game, but its mechanics set it apart. Thrust-blocking is an aggressive block similar to Street Fighter III's parry, every character has Deflect counterattacks, and special moves called "Take Downs" knock opponents onto their backs so the attacker can keep hitting them on the floor. Certain attacks landed on an opponent in mid-swing slice off a piece of clothing or hair, and matches can be finished with "Death Combos", gory Fatality-style combinations. Each fighter has between 9 and 12 special moves, performed with directional sweeps, two-second charges or by holding an attack button through a motion and releasing it. A password at the end of each match lets players return mid-game, a secret password makes the Demonlord Zarak playable in Story Mode, and endings change depending on which opponents were spared or killed with a Death Combo.

The story begins when a demon spirit enters a dying mercenary, who is reborn, defeats twenty rulers and becomes the Demonlord Raith. A shaman foretells that a child born on a violent night will rise to kill him, but Raith refuses his lieutenants' advice to kill that night's children. Years later the demon Zarak overthrows him, and twenty-five years after the prophecy he holds a tournament of champion warriors whose winner will face him in a final battle.

Making WeaponLord

Goddard had co-designed Street Fighter II: Champion Edition and Hyper Fighting and created Dee Jay, and Dave Winstead had worked on Super Street Fighter II Turbo. Both experienced tournament players, they left Capcom for Namco to gain creative control, taking over Ken Lobb's four-player brawler codenamed "Melee" and turning it into a one-on-one fighter designed for home consoles rather than arcades. They timed parry animations and turnaround for the lag of XBAND dial-up play, working closely with XBAND, which made it one of the first fighting games optimised for online play. Visual Concepts worked to a very tight schedule, adding the Genesis version late; chief programmer Steve Chiang wrote a tool called "Hero" to tune collisions frame by frame, the sprites were hand-pixelled and the painted backgrounds retouched in Photoshop. Before release it was tested in an arcade cabinet at Golfland in Sunnyvale, California.

It was not a large commercial success, which Goddard partly blamed on its arrival at the end of the 16-bit era. Reviews were mixed: critics faulted its choppy animation but praised the depth and innovation of its combat, while warning it was daunting for all but experienced players. It has been thought of as a basis for Namco's Soul Edge and Soulcalibur.