You know, I've played Blackthrone for like a decade and a half on-and-off on the PC and SNES and the grid system of movement never even occurred to me. The game always tricked me into thinking that it was more fluid than it really was, mostly because the platforming sprites aren't as rigidly standardized as, say, Super Mario Bros or Prince of Persia for that matter. This is both a good and a bad thing. LGR, I love it when your reviews do this kind of deconstruction of gameplay elements. :)
Was having a bad day, was my birthday, difficult customers... bad day... but seeing this video brought back memories... thank you... made my day... or night... morning? whichever... thanks...
Even with all of its flaws, I LOVE this game. Own the Mac, PC and GBA versions to this day. Comic Nerd Note: the cover art and enemy designs were done by the legendary JIM LEE! Also, if you have the MacPlay CD version, pop it into a music CD player and check out not only the soundtrack, but a few extra awesome heavy metal tunes! (tracks 10 and 11) ;-)
You know, I THOUGHT I recognized the style! I would have thought it was Marc Silvestri though, since I would have figured Jim Lee would have been too expensive for then-Blizzard, lol!
Maybe you would know the answer to this question. When I was a kid I played Blackthorne on a Mac G3 and the sound track was different. I have looked up multiple versions of the game and haven't been able to find the right one. The intro music was different than the DOS or Snes versions I have seen on here and the first level had a guitar riff in the music. Do you have any idea where I could find that sound track?
Blackthorne served as a primary inspiration behind an episode of Community in which the study group must band together in a specially designed RPG game in order to help Pierce Hawthorne(Chevy Chase) claim his inheritance.
I remember finishing this game in co-op. By co-op, I mean that a friend would come to my place and we would take turns in playing though the screens, or through lives. We had a small notebook for the progression passwords. I was fun to play, but also fun to watch, especially alternating between the two.
A friend gave me an SNES console as he was moving away when I was in high school. No controllers or games... just the console. Next time I made it to the nearest game store (which was about 5 hours away) I used my hard earned cash to buy some controllers and only had cash for one game. I asked the owner which game he'd recommend and he pulled out this beauty. I thought, looks weird but I'll try it. We started playing it and thought it was crazy awesome! My brothers and I still quote the enemy grunts when they laugh. "hu hu hu hu, oh!"
Discovered this game in around '95, A friend had rented it for the SNES and I can remember being instantly sucked in. The ability to execute the other prisoners and the ability to shoot behind you were a huge deal to my then 15 year old mind.. Had never seen a side scrolling game like this before, and honestly it was kinda new concept. nearly 23 years later I still haven't beaten it or found a 'real' snes cart while thrifting or otherwise. Ive introduced this game to a lot of people who had never heard of or played it, once they do they are typically stoked and addicted and cant believe they had never played it . finally though the Magic of my C/L Gamedoctor Sf copier I am able to play and share this game on real SNES hardware. Excellent game, Excellent review. Thanks LGR. Password to level 8 is TJ1F.
Sometimes I just go back and re-watch old LGR. It’s never a surprise how much I like listening to you talk about the games I used to play (or wish I had).
The music is different on SNES version. I like music on SNES version. It sound more darker. Hey LGR, please review other early Blizzard title such The Lost Viking and Rock n Roll Racing!
:D - immediate thoughts were that this is a cross between Flashback and Prince Of Persia, as you said. Always makes me think of the amount of times those games were unforgivingly annoying with the moving of characters - as you said. So many times there was a fall onto spikes or into pits and simply dying due to the characters not quite being on the ledges, so annoying to have to keep on restarting. Great review, as always though!
it looks like a magnificent game, and it strikes a big resemblance to Flashback like you mentioned due to the terrain and the motion is very Prince of Persia-like. thanks for the video!
Firing backwards feature was higly entertaining when I was a kid. I remenber how I talked to a friendly fellow who happened to gave me a grenade. I thanked him and walked forth few steps, fired my gun backwards executing him and walked away never looking back. Total badassness or assholeness.
Aww man, I did that all the time as a kid too :P Funny how that was the coolest shit ever for me back then. Blizzard games were/are always pretty metal ahah
This game blew me away when I was a kid. I think I found it a lot more fun then you did lol but I had never played Prince of Persia or anything like it at the time. Great vid!
Back when I was 11/12 years old someone installed this game in the computer lab of my school. Of course one of our favorite pastimes was to play through it during the classes, alongside other games. I always thought this game had some very great graphics for its time, but I also thought the gameplay to be harder (in a not good way) compared to Prince of Persia (that was also available there in our old computer lab), which was a kind of letdown for me personally.
I still love this game and revisit it often. The inventory reset is a necessity for the levels complexity and puzzles. Without it the game would get way too easy much too fast providing no challenge and sucking interest. As for the combat, yes, most of the enemies fight using the same mechanics however, each enemy has their own distinctive pattern which gets progressively more complex as you move forward through the various stages. My only issue with this game: it's the only one. There are no follow ups and Blizzard scoffs at the idea. Even going so far as to throw up and April fools joke a few years ago teasing some ridiculous badassery that will go unrealized.
remember playing a demo version off this from a CD with lots of shareware/freeware games I bought back in the 1990's, having a similar experience as you of being impressed by the graphics and worldbuilding while finding the difficult yet repetitive gameplay more than a little frustrating
I think that Blackthorne for the SNES is the best Blizzard game evah. Superb gameplay (once you learn how to do everything, that is), a great atmosphere and the checkpoints are just at the right intervals to give it the right challenge. This version looks like a good port, but the GBA version is horrific.
Oh, the first level password in Blackthrone is STRT like in Lost Vikings, thats pretty cool. We used to play a ton LV on our school's 486, and I still remember many of the passwords. I was the only kid to finish the game (insert a smug smiley with sunglasses on here.)
Didn't know about this one. The grid-based movement reminds me of the old Tomb Raider games. Also, the pixels in this video in particular look great--super sharp. I'm curious if you're playing this through dosbox, or battlenet or an old dos system. If it's a modern system, are you doing something special to retain the sharpness of the pixels when you scale the footage to HD for editing?
One video away from your 100th DOS Game reviewed (according to your MS-DOS Games Playlist)! I actually have seen this game before, but I had no idea it was made by Blizzard.
Prince of persia with a shotgun sums it up perfectly. Thanks LGR, had forgotten the name of this game since I first played it a few years ago. I had a lot of fun playing this
Didn't realise that Fatman made music for this game. He sure did some awesome music for games back in the day, like Wing Commander-series, Ultima Underworld and The 7th Guest.
Another one of my childhood loved games, the music, atmosphere etc, everything aboout this game is amazing & every now and then I come back to it never getting bored of it .
Are you going to make a review of Oddworld games? I frequently see Abe's Oddysee lying on your shelf in the background when you're showing the game box.
Lol I see Sonic R in the background allot in your videos, does that have a reason? Also what game is that 5th gen prelude from? I flipping love those cars (prefer 4th gen tho) :o Neverless another awesome video :)
It definately reminds me more of Flashback than Prince of Persia, with its "open world" platforming and lush backgrounds. Blackthorne even falls in the exact same way as in Flashback when he gets shot.
Ah yes, Blackthorne. In between sessions of Jazz Jackrabbt and Prince of Persia I had this game. It was hard but after a while I could play at least couple of the first levels. I still have codes written somwhere in the notebook. I never got to the Sarlac in my younuger days though. I managed to do that a few years ago. I like this game it has a cool style and your shotgun becomes more and more effective and fast after a while. Blizzard got cool ideas back then :D
That's a hot tip about Blizzard offering a bunch of classic games for free... I never knew that existed. I cant wait to get off work and see what they got.
BlackThorne is a great platform puzzle game. Great dark fantasy atmosphere, excellent soundtrack The mentioned password system isn't terrible as you made it look like
The re-release of blackthorne on battle.net seems to replace the password system with an auto save feature. This is good because you won't have to go typing in passwords, but bad because if you want to go to an earlier level for some reason, doing so erases your current progress. At least that version has a cool MIDI version of the soundtrack.
This is a sweet game. Word of warning though: the SNES version (at least some batches of it) is censored and much harder due to trickier (aka, poorly designed) jumps, which were later tweaked to be more accessible. If you're going to play it, I say play the PC version, which has blood in it (and is free, as LGR said).
Played the crap out of the 32x version back in the day it was really sweet.Never liked platformers much but this game looked sweet.Also one of the few bright spots in the 32x library.
I loved this game growing up, I bought it when it came out on the SNES. Still play it sometimes... the last level (area) is SOOO HAAARDD! Never beat it..
You know, I've played Blackthrone for like a decade and a half on-and-off on the PC and SNES and the grid system of movement never even occurred to me. The game always tricked me into thinking that it was more fluid than it really was, mostly because the platforming sprites aren't as rigidly standardized as, say, Super Mario Bros or Prince of Persia for that matter. This is both a good and a bad thing.
LGR, I love it when your reviews do this kind of deconstruction of gameplay elements. :)
Was having a bad day, was my birthday, difficult customers... bad day... but seeing this video brought back memories... thank you... made my day... or night... morning? whichever... thanks...
Hope you feel better now 7 years later 😉
Also hope that you learned adding ellipsis everywhere is not only incorrect, but annoying as all hell.
@@CrAzYpotpie lol
Difficult customers? Sometimes vengeance is the only answer! ;)
Even with all of its flaws, I LOVE this game. Own the Mac, PC and GBA versions to this day.
Comic Nerd Note: the cover art and enemy designs were done by the legendary JIM LEE!
Also, if you have the MacPlay CD version, pop it into a music CD player and check out not only the soundtrack, but a few extra awesome heavy metal tunes! (tracks 10 and 11) ;-)
You know, I THOUGHT I recognized the style! I would have thought it was Marc Silvestri though, since I would have figured Jim Lee would have been too expensive for then-Blizzard, lol!
Maybe you would know the answer to this question. When I was a kid I played Blackthorne on a Mac G3 and the sound track was different. I have looked up multiple versions of the game and haven't been able to find the right one. The intro music was different than the DOS or Snes versions I have seen on here and the first level had a guitar riff in the music. Do you have any idea where I could find that sound track?
Blackthorne for Heroes of the Storm would be pretty ballin'.
Love the mentioning of the Pit of Carkoon, it was inevitable.
Blackthorne served as a primary inspiration behind an episode of Community in which the study group must band together in a specially designed RPG game in order to help Pierce Hawthorne(Chevy Chase) claim his inheritance.
I remember finishing this game in co-op. By co-op, I mean that a friend would come to my place and we would take turns in playing though the screens, or through lives. We had a small notebook for the progression passwords. I was fun to play, but also fun to watch, especially alternating between the two.
A friend gave me an SNES console as he was moving away when I was in high school. No controllers or games... just the console.
Next time I made it to the nearest game store (which was about 5 hours away) I used my hard earned cash to buy some controllers and only had cash for one game. I asked the owner which game he'd recommend and he pulled out this beauty. I thought, looks weird but I'll try it. We started playing it and thought it was crazy awesome!
My brothers and I still quote the enemy grunts when they laugh. "hu hu hu hu, oh!"
Discovered this game in around '95, A friend had rented it for the SNES and I can remember being instantly sucked in. The ability to execute the other prisoners and the ability to shoot behind you were a huge deal to my then 15 year old mind.. Had never seen a side scrolling game like this before, and honestly it was kinda new concept. nearly 23 years later I still haven't beaten it or found a 'real' snes cart while thrifting or otherwise. Ive introduced this game to a lot of people who had never heard of or played it, once they do they are typically stoked and addicted and cant believe they had never played it . finally though the Magic of my C/L Gamedoctor Sf copier I am able to play and share this game on real SNES hardware. Excellent game, Excellent review. Thanks LGR. Password to level 8 is TJ1F.
Years later reminded me of Gears of War the whole cover and shoot concept I just beat it on an emulator for the first time on my phone
Sometimes I just go back and re-watch old LGR. It’s never a surprise how much I like listening to you talk about the games I used to play (or wish I had).
Me too! I miss LGRs random retro game reviews. I mean, the hardware stuff's just...ok..., but the cool old game reviews are my favs.
It's like Prince of Persia with guns. 10/10
then...whre'is the princess?
Huh, yeah you're right. I never thought about it, but you're right.
The music is different on SNES version. I like music on SNES version. It sound more darker. Hey LGR, please review other early Blizzard title such The Lost Viking and Rock n Roll Racing!
Trying out the SNES version, I really did love it. I kind of disagree with it not being great, it's just a game that takes a lot of patience.
:D - immediate thoughts were that this is a cross between Flashback and Prince Of Persia, as you said. Always makes me think of the amount of times those games were unforgivingly annoying with the moving of characters - as you said. So many times there was a fall onto spikes or into pits and simply dying due to the characters not quite being on the ledges, so annoying to have to keep on restarting. Great review, as always though!
it looks like a magnificent game, and it strikes a big resemblance to Flashback like you mentioned due to the terrain and the motion is very Prince of Persia-like. thanks for the video!
idk why dude, but the way you enter frame in the beginning of this cracked me tf up. like just crouching in the corner lmao. love ya LGR
this game is amazing... i played it snes... such a masterpiece
>pixel art Prelude
I GET IT
YAY
Lazy Game Reviews Thank you! YOU ARE AWESOME! I love this game and your channel!
@@LGR CAAAR SHOW
Are you kidding me, minutes and i mean literally less than 30 minutes ago i was checking out images for this damn game. What are you doing LRG
VENGEANCE! RETIRBUTION! BATMAN!
I had forgotten this game existed!!! I played it a long, long time ago... Thanks for making me remember LGR!!
Okay....that bit about "not wanting to hang around the pit of Karkoon" made the video for me. Thank you.
practice modddddde gets me every time
O.o
Why repeat the "d" and not the "o"?
How would you even elongate a "d"? (yeah, I heard it :D)
I saw that lego island box and I exploded with nostalgia.
Loved this game. There is blackthone armor in diablo3, I chuckled when I saw thar
Firing backwards feature was higly entertaining when I was a kid. I remenber how I talked to a friendly fellow who happened to gave me a grenade. I thanked him and walked forth few steps, fired my gun backwards executing him and walked away never looking back. Total badassness or assholeness.
Haha, I did the exact same thing first time I played this. whoops
Lazy Game Reviews
I forgot what they keys did, so I ended up doing that accidentally the first time I played this.
Aww man, I did that all the time as a kid too :P Funny how that was the coolest shit ever for me back then. Blizzard games were/are always pretty metal ahah
keeperxiii
and pretty mental as well
This game blew me away when I was a kid. I think I found it a lot more fun then you did lol but I had never played Prince of Persia or anything like it at the time. Great vid!
Hey lgr I wanted to tell you that you are one of my favorite TH-cam channels. Keep up the great work!
You had me at "shotgun with infinite ammo"
You have a great voice for radio :)
Honda Prelude and Motley Crue, small things like these make your reviews very enjoyable.
Ah, Blackthorne. I loved this game as a kid. Excellent review, sir.
Back when I was 11/12 years old someone installed this game in the computer lab of my school. Of course one of our favorite pastimes was to play through it during the classes, alongside other games.
I always thought this game had some very great graphics for its time, but I also thought the gameplay to be harder (in a not good way) compared to Prince of Persia (that was also available there in our old computer lab), which was a kind of letdown for me personally.
I still love this game and revisit it often. The inventory reset is a necessity for the levels complexity and puzzles. Without it the game would get way too easy much too fast providing no challenge and sucking interest. As for the combat, yes, most of the enemies fight using the same mechanics however, each enemy has their own distinctive pattern which gets progressively more complex as you move forward through the various stages. My only issue with this game: it's the only one. There are no follow ups and Blizzard scoffs at the idea. Even going so far as to throw up and April fools joke a few years ago teasing some ridiculous badassery that will go unrealized.
Yeah I hate that even 6 years later after you made this comment, Blizzard still does not recognize Blackthorne.
I must have rented this several times for the snes when I was a kid. Loved it, definitely one of blizzards gems.
Extreme Rock Climbing guy strikes again!
I can't help but attempt to mimic that guy when I see a practice mode option, best announcer ever.
This game was my childhood!
This game is free on Blizzard's website. It's kind of buried, but it's there, and it runs great.
remember playing a demo version off this from a CD with lots of shareware/freeware games I bought back in the 1990's, having a similar experience as you of being impressed by the graphics and worldbuilding while finding the difficult yet repetitive gameplay more than a little frustrating
I'll never get tired of that "practice mode" voice
Hell yeah! I used to love this game. Glad to see I'm not the only one who kept his game box.
I think that Blackthorne for the SNES is the best Blizzard game evah. Superb gameplay (once you learn how to do everything, that is), a great atmosphere and the checkpoints are just at the right intervals to give it the right challenge. This version looks like a good port, but the GBA version is horrific.
I always liked this game a lot, especially the game music.
A couple of years ago I played this again from start to end.
Rock 'N' Roll Racing is my favourite oldschool Blizzard game. Just writing this makes me want to play it.
I see that. Judging by your profile picture.
The defenitive edition is even better. 6 years later haha 🙈
I spent countless hours playing this game! Man, it was not easy at those advanced levels!
That pixel art Honda Prelude might have made my day, there.
I would love to see this reimagined by Blizzard. It would be interesting to see them try and make a single player game again.
Just got it from Blizzard's site and holy fuck I'm in love with it. Grew up with Lost Vikings 1 and 2 but this is way better IMO
What platform is this available for? Thought I would continue the trend of asinine questions already answered in the video.
ARGH
Is it available on the Vectrex? That is the important question. And does it have a special edition with an El Camino model clar included?
useless1997 classic game room fan?
TheMcdjc1
Lord Carnage approves your comment.
useless1997 Really, i thought there was a port for the Hyperscan.
I really loved this review Clint. Thank you. Black Thorne is a fantastic game though. I loved it as a small kid!
Entertaining, as always. :) Recently played the The DOS version again and it sounds phenomenal on my old Roland SC-88.
I always thought Blackthorne looked like a DOS game, even on Snes. The screen by screen pacing, the intro, the Another World/Flashback vibes, etc.
Oh, the first level password in Blackthrone is STRT like in Lost Vikings, thats pretty cool. We used to play a ton LV on our school's 486, and I still remember many of the passwords. I was the only kid to finish the game (insert a smug smiley with sunglasses on here.)
Didn't know about this one. The grid-based movement reminds me of the old Tomb Raider games. Also, the pixels in this video in particular look great--super sharp. I'm curious if you're playing this through dosbox, or battlenet or an old dos system. If it's a modern system, are you doing something special to retain the sharpness of the pixels when you scale the footage to HD for editing?
One video away from your 100th DOS Game reviewed (according to your MS-DOS Games Playlist)!
I actually have seen this game before, but I had no idea it was made by Blizzard.
You ALWAYS play games from my child hood that I know none of my friends would even remember. Thank you for this! lol
thanks for showing me this clint. you the real MVP
wow i love this channel. brings me back to my childhood.
I also see a box of BIOHAZZARD behind you?? awesome!!!
Prince of persia with a shotgun sums it up perfectly. Thanks LGR, had forgotten the name of this game since I first played it a few years ago. I had a lot of fun playing this
Didn't realise that Fatman made music for this game. He sure did some awesome music for games back in the day, like Wing Commander-series, Ultima Underworld and The 7th Guest.
this game was such a blast back on the SNES. one of my faves for sure!
I always liked how the orc-like soldiers had that laugh - Hoh-hoh-hoh - after they'd nail you with a blaster bolt.
After playing Duke 1 & 2 I'd love to see this get an Evercade release.
Man, I love seeing old, obscure stuff from companies that are popular. It's interesting to see how they went from this to making StarCraft.
I LOVE this game! This is my childhood right there!! I have finished it, when I was maybe 13 years old.. Best platformer ever imho..
Another one of my childhood loved games, the music, atmosphere etc, everything aboout this game is amazing & every now and then I come back to it never getting bored of it .
Played on SNES, it was a game that didn't make it back to the video store anywhere near on time and we ended up buying it.
Damn, how I loved Blackthorne back in the day
maybe the only blizzard game i really appreciate
Are you going to make a review of Oddworld games? I frequently see Abe's Oddysee lying on your shelf in the background when you're showing the game box.
Oh yes.
I actually played this a lot as a teen on the SNES. I loved this game.
The Duke Nukem voice makes me laugh every time.
Lol I see Sonic R in the background allot in your videos, does that have a reason?
Also what game is that 5th gen prelude from? I flipping love those cars (prefer 4th gen tho) :o
Neverless another awesome video :)
I'm watching this while installing DOS and Windows on my Dell 325SX. Aahhh, nostalgia!
It definately reminds me more of Flashback than Prince of Persia, with its "open world" platforming and lush backgrounds. Blackthorne even falls in the exact same way as in Flashback when he gets shot.
3:02 all sources online seem to point to Glenn Stafford doing the music, which would make sense with it bring a Blizzard game.
@4:50 because you pointed this out, I can't help but see Prince Of Persia but with a shotgun now lol
I loved playing the demo of the DOS version as a kid. :D
Ah yes, Blackthorne. In between sessions of Jazz Jackrabbt and Prince of Persia I had this game. It was hard but after a while I could play at least couple of the first levels. I still have codes written somwhere in the notebook. I never got to the Sarlac in my younuger days though. I managed to do that a few years ago. I like this game it has a cool style and your shotgun becomes more and more effective and fast after a while.
Blizzard got cool ideas back then :D
Holy Hell! I remember Blackthorne. I loved that game, played the hell out of it and finished it, too.
This was on the Sega 32X
This was talked about in the video.
Lazy Game Reviews getting pretty sassy lgr
The 32X version also had an extra area which isn't in the SNES/DOS version.
I remember the game. It was one of my favorites back in the day.👍👍👍
Oh damn, i loved playing this on the SNES, could never beat the final boss though..
That's a hot tip about Blizzard offering a bunch of classic games for free... I never knew that existed. I cant wait to get off work and see what they got.
LGR, I just want to say I liked the video before even hitting play. Blackthorne RULES! I played the hell out of it on the SNES. SO bad ass!
BlackThorne is a great platform puzzle game. Great dark fantasy atmosphere, excellent soundtrack
The mentioned password system isn't terrible as you made it look like
I love the password system, thanks to that I could play it on my snes, then if I have to leave I take my Analogue Pocket and play the level I was on.
this game and rock n roll racing were my super nintendo games back in the day
Your reviews are super!
"A blackthorn in your side"...LGR I expected better from you. Kidding aside more oddware please!
More is coming!
Lazy Game Reviews
Awesome! Ever consider doing the 3DO Blaster, if you can get one and the appropriate CD drive?
Blackthorn is my favorite blizzard game. I had the MacOS port as a kid.
The re-release of blackthorne on battle.net seems to replace the password system with an auto save feature. This is good because you won't have to go typing in passwords, but bad because if you want to go to an earlier level for some reason, doing so erases your current progress. At least that version has a cool MIDI version of the soundtrack.
"Vengeance, sometimes it's the only answer" that should have been Duke's line!
I feel like a ninja when watching this unlisted videos :D
NICE BIOHAZARD IN THE BACKGROUND ;) I WOULD LOVE TO SEE SOMETHING ON THAT!
This is a sweet game. Word of warning though: the SNES version (at least some batches of it) is censored and much harder due to trickier (aka, poorly designed) jumps, which were later tweaked to be more accessible. If you're going to play it, I say play the PC version, which has blood in it (and is free, as LGR said).
One of my favorite DOS games!
Played the crap out of the 32x version back in the day it was really sweet.Never liked platformers much but this game looked sweet.Also one of the few bright spots in the 32x library.
I loved this game growing up, I bought it when it came out on the SNES. Still play it sometimes... the last level (area) is SOOO HAAARDD! Never beat it..
Still have this game for my snes. Love it
i have it today!!! what memories come back!!
One of my favorit games by far on snes this warlock and super metroid got me through many of nights