Ironsword: Wizards & Warriors II (also known as Wizards and Warriors II: Ironsword) is an action platform video game developed by Zippo Games and published by Acclaim Entertainment for the Nintendo Entertainment System. It was released in North America in December 1989 and in Europe on 27 March 1991. It is the sequel to Rare's 1987 title Wizards & Warriors. In Ironsword, the player controls the knight warrior Kuros as he ventures in the land of Sindarin. He must defeat the evil wizard Malkil, who has assumed the elemental forms of Earth, Wind, Fire, and Water. Kuros must collect the parts of and assemble the legendary "IronSword" in order to defeat Malkil, who resides at the top of IceFire Mountain.

The game was fairly well-received, selling 500,000 copies in North America and 50,000 copies in Europe. It received praise for its size, graphics and sound, detailed characters and bosses, and gameplay, with criticism for its lack of originality. Rare responded positively to the game, which led to Zippo Games being contracted to develop games for Rare such as Solar Jetman: Hunt for the Golden Warpship and Wizards & Warriors III: Kuros: Visions of Power, eventually being folded into the company as Rare Manchester.

Gameplay

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Ironsword: Wizards & Warriors II is a platforming video game in which the player controls the renowned warrior Kuros as he explores the land of Sindarin to defeat the evil wizard Malkil. This time, Malkil has taken the form of the four "Elementals", based on the classical Greek elements – Earth, Wind, Fire, and Water – to stop Kuros in his quest. The objective is to assemble the legendary "IronSword" the only weapon that can defeat Malkil and defeat the evil wizard who lies at the peak of IceFire Mountain. In the game, players can move Kuros left or right, or make him crouch with the control pad; the buttons allow Kuros to jump, to use his sword or a magic spell to defeat enemies, to access the "Magic Spell Screen", or to pause the game. Kuros has a life meter that decreases every time he sustains damage from an enemy or a dangerous projectile, or if he falls for too long a distance. Along the way, players can collect chicken and brew to replenish Kuros's life meter. Kuros loses a life when his life meter runs out, and the game ends when he loses all his lives. However, players may continue and restart the game where they left off up to two times. The continue feature would normally be disabled after the player had completed the earth domain,

Development started in early 1989, when the Pickford brothers were still learning about the NES and what it could do. At the same time, as being new to developing console video games, they were also learning about the market aspects and Nintendo's policies and restrictions on games. Feeling that the graphics in most of the games in the NES library were poor, they placed emphasis on the graphics and animation. Pickford was particularly pleased with the animation of the enemy eagles and their movement. Rare assisted with the sound, and all of the game's background music was composed by video game composer David Wise, who Pickford said "did a fantastic job on IronSword". Moreover, the Pickford brothers were trying to resemble Ghosts 'n Goblins and similar games by Capcom as part of their attempt to earn the rights to develop the game from Rare. For the map screen, Ste Pickford used specific character data in the ROM itself, used the font from elsewhere in the data that was inserted separately, and overlaid the Elementals' floating heads over the top of the graphic. According to Pickford: "The job of graphic was always about 30% drawing, and about 70% fiddly technical stuff (which was why so many terrible artists – people who couldn't draw at all – made decent video game artists back then, if they could manage the technical side of things well enough)."

In developing the game's graphics, Ste Pickford translated black and white sketches into the character maps in the game. For the bosses, the plan was to use the entire screen while involving as few moving sprites as possible "to fool the player into thinking the whole thing was alive". The same was done with the "Dragon King", which was not one of the game's bosses; the dragon's head and neck were composed of sprites, while the rest of the body was considered part of the background. The dragon's neck stretched out vertically due to NES hardware sprite limitations horizontally.

The animation of the eagle (the "Eagle King") that transports Kuros to the Wind Elemental was one of Ste Pickford's first graphics which he drew for the NES. It was done in Deluxe Paint for the Amiga with sketching done by mouse - without assistance from graphics tablets or other scanners. He took eagle drawings from a book on animals in motion by Eadweard Muybridge. Pickford wanted to show off the possible graphical capabilities of the NES; he said, "I wanted to do something 'flashy' early in the game, trying to show off my amazing graphic art skills on the rather primitive NES. We were working on Amiga and ST games at the same time, so were always trying to push the NES with bigger and better graphics, right from the start of our work on the machine." The eagle consisted of only three colors and between 11 and 17 sprites per frame of animation. There was a smaller version of the same eagle, which was used as a regular enemy in that level.

Development of the game's title screen was inspired by loading screens that were used in most computer games at the time; the objective was to create a nice-looking graphic while waiting for the game to load, even though the NES, more rooted in arcade traditions, did not require that. Pickford spent most of his character space on the title screen image; he was limited in the number of available colors due to the more limited graphic capabilities of the NES (as opposed to most home computers), as it was more designed for scrolling and animation and not for stationary graphics. The sword in the title screen used character sprites and used a different palette from the picture of Kuros himself; the sword had to be vertical as the NES hardware did not allow for too many sprites horizontally. Pickford planned to use, and completed, an Ironsword logo of his own when Acclaim made him use their planned logo, which he said "was a bit more bland and blocky, with detail that didn't work very well at such a low pixel resolution".

Release

thumb|upright|Fabio in 2014. For Ironswords front cover, he posed bare-chested and without armor, which Ste Pickford found unsuitable for a game about a knight.

Ironsword: Wizards & Warriors II was first unveiled in North America as part of the 1989 Winter Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada and was displayed with other games to be released later that year by Acclaim. It was mentioned as a future game in the May 1989 premiere issue of video gaming magazine Electronic Gaming Monthly. It was also covered in GamePros premiere issue the same month. Finally, it was previewed by Nintendo Power in its July–August 1989 issue.

For the game's cover, Acclaim hired Italian male model Fabio Lanzoni to pose as Kuros; Fabio was presented on the cover bare-chested and without armor. When Zippo Games saw the image of the cover a week prior to its release, they were perplexed. According to Ste Pickford, "Our jaws hit the floor when we first saw this image (which was, being merely the developers, probably about a week before the game's release). Why on earth did they choose a photograph of a bare-chested barbarian to promote a game starring a knight in shining armour?". Pickford added that "We used it as an example of the lack of imagination of Americans", while suggesting that having an actual suit or armor would be too costly to use for a photo shoot. and in Europe and Australia in 1991. It managed to sell about 500,000 copies in North America and about 50,000 copies in Europe. Following the game's release, Zippo Games would proceed to develop its next game for Rare, Solar Jetman: Hunt for the Golden Warpship; they would eventually also release the third installment in the Wizards & Warriors series, Wizards & Warriors III: Kuros: Visions of Power.

| rev1 = Mean Machines

| rev1Score = 77%

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| award1Pub = Game Players

| award1 = Game Player's NES Excellence Award, 1990

Ironsword: Wizards & Warriors II was initially reviewed and received positive ratings in the June&nbsp;1989 issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly. Steve Harris said that the game was very large and expansive, noting that it "is so big, and has so much to offer, most of the competition pales by comparison". Ed Semrad called the game "a worthy sequel that fortunately is better than the original", similarly noting the game's size as well as difficulty. Donn Nauert appreciated the game's good graphics which complement the adventure theme, but he noted that some of the precise movements that are required in various areas may cause some frustration in gameplay. Jim Allee praised all the aspects of the game, saying "if you liked Wizards & Warriors, you'll love Ironsword". All four reviewers lauded the game's involving gameplay and graphics. The game was also one of the featured games in the November–December&nbsp;1989 issue of Nintendo Power, where it received six pages of coverage and featured a poster of the game. Game Players magazine awarded Ironsword the "Game Players NES Excellence Award" as one of the best games for the console in 1990.

The game was also featured in UK-based magazine Mean Machines in May&nbsp;1991. Matt Regan said that he was not impressed with the game, saying that similar platforming games such as DuckTales and Gremlins 2: The New Batch were superior to Ironsword and had a more original approach in gameplay. He also criticized the fact that players cannot hit enemies while in mid-air. However, he noted the game's good gameplay. Julian Rignall also said that the game was fun, but it was not spectacular. However, just as Regan noted, Rignall said that the game did not offer anything special like with better titles such as Mega Man 2 or Super Mario Bros.&nbsp;2. However, he noted the game's good graphics and challenge, though both noted that the backgrounds "are slightly bland". Both reviewers said the game was well-presented with good introductions and a password mode, easy controls, fair challenge, and "fairly good tunes and effects which fit the action well". Overall, they said that Ironsword was "a fun but ultimately limited game that will appeal to platform fans". Website GamesRadar praised the game's music, especially the title theme; Brett Elston said it set a serious tone for the game, saying "its heavy, droning beats mix with a fantasy-minded melody that make it sound like a funeral dirge in the Shire".

The game's cover, which features Fabio, has received significant coverage from many gaming websites. IGN listed Ironsword as having one of the most notable covers in video game history, listing its cover as the 2nd best of all time behind Ninja Golf. Conversely, 1UP.com listed Ironsword as having one of the worst covers of all time, comparing it to the cover for Mega Man. GameSpy listed it as the 4th worst video game cover in history, saying that "thanks to the presence of Fabio on the cover, gamers got confused and thought they had accidentally picked up one of their mom's romance novels". In a retrospective of the NES for the console's 25th anniversary, Nintendo Power wrote that "the game's quality will be forever overshadowed by Acclaim's choice of Fabio as the cover model".

References

  • The Official Pickford Bros. Website listing