Barbarian

The evil sorcerer Drax has taken Princess Mariana as hostage, but has agreed to let her go free if a warrior can defeat his guardians. And that's where your barbarian comes in. Barbarian (known as Death Sword in the USA) is a one-on-one sword fighting game. Each character (a sword-wielding barbarian) has six life blocks and can survive twelve blows before biting the dust. The action takes place against two backdrops: a forest clearing and a pit of death. Fight against the warriors of Drax and rescue Princess Mariana. The fighters' moves are impressive: they can slice and dice with the sword, chop away, duck, jump, roll, and then there's the lethal chop which takes the opponent's head clean off. The game also features a two-player mode, in which players fight their characters against each other. Not to be confused with "Barbarian", a MelbourneHouse/Psygnosis game from 1988!

Technically speaking, this is a great release for the BBC Micro computers, indeed. The game features top notch graphics for its time though the sound is adequate here. The backgrounds are very well detailed while sprite are nicely animated and move really fast on screen. In general graphics here are superior to the ZX Spectrum release! Note that, the CPC version is certainly the best 8 bit version concerning the level design but all other 8bit versions are great too. There's no music here during gameplay nor the few catchy small themes when battle starts and... ends found on the CPC and Commodore systems, but still the sound effects are enough to keep you interested in battle. A truly great effort all in all!