Developed by Saffire and published by Titus Interactive, Barbarian is a game that tries in many ways to bring something new, or at least unusual, in the crowded world of fighting games. Originally scheduled for a 2001 release, it seems that in the course of the development Barbarian turned into something more ambitious than its early project. Saffire decided to add interesting RPG elements both in the gameplay and in the story development, thus arriving to a Summer 2002 release.

Well, it was time well spent. Looking at the first images and videos of Barbarian is like looking at a whole different game. It's clear that Saffire worked hard modelling and remodelling their characters, the arenas, writing a long "navigational" storyline, creating a smooth multiplayer mode, adding concrete depth to their creation.

The Story
It's an age of darkness for the land of Barbaria. A mysterious man, known as Zaugg, has woven a curse that has spread corruption and evil everywhere. But there is a chance of salvation. An ancient prophecy foretold this wicked times, but it also predicted that a lone hero would have arisen to restore peace and prosperity.

Ten fighters, from many regions of Barbaria, have decided to defeat Zaugg, each of them with a different reason. Revenge, will of power, blind rage... only one of them will survive, only one of them will have the strength to save the decayed land.

Barbarian puts the player in a fantasy medieval world, featuring 12 beautiful multi-level arenas and 10 playable characters.

Saffire created a good variety of heroes for their game. Each of them has an interesting story and a different reason to walk the path that will lead to Zaugg. From Dagan, the classic "barbarian", a brave warrior whose wife has been savagely killed for unknown reasons, to Keela, daughter of the King of Argos, from Magnus, ghost of the man who was once the scourge of the Northern Seas, to Mongo, the carnivorous ape, Barbarian's heroes seem a strange mix between the characters of Conan The Barbarian and the ones of Twisted Metal Black. Their intentions, their actions, their stories are sad, cruel, often suspended between evil and good, but deepened in the human nature.

If you are tired of the idiotic stories of fighting games like Dead Or Alive, Barbarian can offer a whole different experience. In the Quest mode, each character can follow his own path. Encounter after encounter, you are sometimes given the chance of choosing between more than route, in a simple, yet addictive, RPG fashion. If you are Dagan, for example, you might have to take the difficult choice to save the young Keela from the evil hands of Zaugg's minions, or to go and search immediately the one who savagely killed your wife. Overall, the game offers about 300 story encounters, which can be played only if you complete the game three-four times with each character. The story is carried on by a voiceover that narrates the events before each encounter. No pre-rendered or in-game movies here, but this low-cost solution works just fine in Barbarian, thanks to good acting and, first of all, excellent scripting.

The way the encounters are organized in the Quest mode is pretty interesting. Often, in order to complete the game, you'll not have to play against all the characters in the game, but just against five or six of them. If you have killed one character in a battle, it might happen that he will face you again in his ghostly form, stronger than before, and invisible.

That's probably the greatest feature of the game: the encounters are extremely varied, thanks to a mix of combo moves, fully interactive arenas, battles featuring special extra rules, massive fights against up to 7 enemies, and a simple character advancement system.

The combo moves are just a part of the complex control system. Barbarian includes an arena designed exclusively to train you; in a few lessons, you'll know the basics to truly enjoy the game. The pressure sensitive left analog stick is used to walk or run and X is the jump button; triangle is Individual attack, powerful but slow; Square is Group attack, weaker than Individual but useful to hit multiple enemies. Pressing Circle and Triangle together you can release a special attack, whose intensity varies according to how long you have pressed the buttons, while pressing Square and X together you can perform a special move that pushes back your enemy; combining the Square and Triangle button you can perform a series of powerful combos.

What adds depth to the controls is the possibility to fully interact with the arenas. Great part of the objects in the environments can be destroyed, grabbed, used as an improvised weapon or launched at the enemy. Barrels, big and small rocks, poles, trees, and even funny things like gigantic fishes, are just a few of the things that you can use in an encounter. The Circle button lets you pick up an object; at this point, Triangle becomes the throw button while Square brandishes the item in your hands.

The 12 arenas are huge, multi-level, structured in a way that reminds Dead Or Alive. Most of the arenas have one or two hidden areas, which can be discovered breaking walls or finding hidden entrances. Each area is filled with platforms at different heights, which can be used at your advantage against other enemies, and using the Circle button you can also hang from poles or ceilings.

In the Quest Mode then, the developers had the ingenious idea of adding occasional special rules to put even more variety to their freeform fighter game. Poison Battle, Strike battle, Healing Foe Battle, Ghost Battle, Gauntlet Battle, Ghost Battle, Pillar Battle, Advanced Opponent Battle are the special encounters that you occasionally have to fight. In Poison Battle you are poisoned, and your life bar slowly decreases as time passes - here you have to kill your enemy as fast as you can, using quick attacks and special moves; in Strike Battle the winner is the one who hits 50 times the opponent; in Ghost Battle you have to fight against the ghost of a character: these are though battles, since you can't see the enemy, just his/her weapon or shield; in Healing Foe the life of your opponent is regenerated; in Gauntlet Battle you character will not heal between encounter rounds; in Pillar Battle you have to destroy a Pillar while fighting against the enemy; in Advanced Opponent battle you'll have to fight against a powered-up foe.

Just to make things even more challenging, also in Single Player mode you sometimes have to face multiple enemies at once. These can be two main characters who have joined their forces to kill you or a main character helped by many weaker thugs, who can be picked up just like any other objects and thrown at other enemies. These different rules can also be combined within the same encounter. So, it can happen that you have to fight against an Advanced Opponent and a normal opponent in a Pillar Battle. The result is a fighting game deep and varied like few others. At the end of each battle you are also given experience points, which must be distributed among the various stats of your character. Since your customized character will be stored on the Memory Card, you can also bring him/her to play against your friends in the multiplayer modes.

Anyhow, not everything is perfect in Barbarian. If Saffire had given the same attention used for the other aspects of the game to the development of a good A.I. for the enemies, Barbarian could have become one of the best fighting games of the year. Unfortunately, the enemies are unable to create any strategy, with the exception of the classic "kill-as-fast-as-you-can" one. From the very beginning of an encounter they'll start attacking you from any direction, throwing any kind of object, using special moves and attacks. Their constant aggressive behaviour is not even useful to make the battles more difficult, it just ruins the richness of all the other aspects of the game. Since the enemies are constantly attacking you, performing combos, special moves, grabbing objects, or activating the magic attacks becomes terribly difficult, and what's more frustrating, pointless. In fact, if you start using the same strategy of your opponents, attacking them as fast as you can with the quicker blows at your disposal (and this means press continuously the Square and Triangle buttons), you'll complete easily the game, whether the A.I. difficulty setting is. The faulty A.I. unbalances a game that overall is rich of good qualities. Another thing that I would have appreciated in the game is an effective lock-on function. While it isn't necessary at all in close combat, where the characters auto-face the enemy, it could have helped a bit when firing magic blows or when throwing object at your opponents from farther distances.

Besides the Quest Mode, the game features a Versus Mode, where you can choose to play against any group of opponents in any arena of the game. If you want you can also use the customized character you've created playing the Quest Mode. While the Versus Mode can be played in Single Player, it's in Multiplayer Mode that its true greatness is revealed. Up to 4 players can play simultaneously Barbarian with a Playstation 2 Multitap, and you can also decide to make teams: two players against two players, one player against the other three, and so on. You can also choose to include four A.I. controlled thugs in the battle, thus creating an impressive, and truly exhilarating, eight fighters match.

Overall, Barbarian offers an extremely rich gameplay, like really few other fighting games. The game has one big fault: a flawed, antiquated, A.I. which detracts something from a gaming experience that could have been just perfect.