LIONHEART

Lionheart
The graphics are top-notch with some great sprites and paralax scrolling, but it is the attention to detail and the amount of thought that has obviously gone into it that brings it to the top of the pile.
    - Steve McNally - Amiga Action

Visually & technically Lionheart leaves all other Amiga and console platform games behind, I'm afraid you're going to have to buy this one.
    - Mark Ramshaw

Into the Lion's Den... March 1st

~ magazine advertising blurb

When it comes to platform games, the Amiga couldn't compete with SEGA and Nintendo's consoles. The biggest names on the platform, such as Shadow of the Beast, were all style over substance, so when a game like Lionheart comes along that has both, you begin to wonder what all the other Amiga devs were doing.

According to its advertising, the game was released on March 1st 1992. This was not long after Contra III: The Alien Wars and not long before The Addams Family on the Super Nintendo. Both were not bad looking games, but Lionheart blows both of them out of the water. It was developed by the German development house Thalion who were well known in their early days for high quality Atari ST games. By 1992, they were all in on the Amiga, much to the chagrin of ST stans, but looking at the overall presentation, even they must concede that their aging hardware cannot compete. Sadly, Thalion would go bust in early 1995, leaving the finished X-Fighter unreleased and the promised Amberstar trilogy closer up in the air.

Lionheart, however, was released with much fanfare. It's entirely black box with a glossy outline of a human-lion hybrid bares no description, screenshots or even the name of the actual game anywhere on the box. It's as if it's chastising any prospective buyer for daring to not know what it was. It's so good, it doesn't need anything flashy - the game itself will show that.

The end-of-world bosses are impressively large and detailed
requiring a bit of thought in order to defeat them.

It begins as Lionheart, or Valdyn to give him his birth name, armours up for a quest to find holy relics stolen from the king. In doing so, you'll travel through 12 levels comprised of forests, swamps and cities, each are culminating in an inventive end-of-world boss. The stages are impressive, not just for their visual design, but for their gameplay too. Not once is there any hint of the unfair jankiness found in other Euro-platformers so you know that if you come face-to-face with a drop of water, it will not damage you. At one point, you even get to ride a dragon, so that's an automatic win right there.

That's not to say that the game is easy by any means. Enemies are thoughtfully placed to offer a challenge, and not just get in the way, forcing you to get to grips with the battle mechanics. This is where the Amiga origins shows its ugly head; the one-button joystick controls. While tilting the joystick Up to jump is mitigated through the emulator's re-mapping features, the same cannot be said for the combat. To fight, hold down the Fire button and tap in a direction to swing your sword that way. You can get a variety of moves this way but it's a control style I could never get to grips with, even as someone who grew up with an Atari ST (though when I got a Super Nintendo for Christmas in 1992, I never looked back).

Collect enough triangular energy crystal to increase your maximum hearts by 1 (left).
Heal spent hearts by collection potion bottles (right).

Most enemies are designed for this input method, however, so even if I struggled with it on occasion most encounters allowed enough forethought to plan an attack route. With the Fire button held, tapping left or right will hit either side of you, but the 'up' swing covers the space above you as well. Diagonally down will kick any little bugger crawling towards you, though it's useful to lay in wait for basic enemies to walk into you path too. Mid-jump, a down attack will stomp you on their heads sword first and will do double the damage of a regular swing.

If you do get hit, you won't instantly die. There is a heart meter on the top left that details how much damage you can take before losing a life. You have four to begin with, but upon collection 100 of those triangular energy crystals (i.e. this game's standard collectable), it will increase by one. After you've taken damage, little potion bottles can be collected to refill one of them. If you're lucky, you might stumble upon a large one that will heal you to full health. Other collectables include 1-up life tokens but beyond these there are no other power-ups of note. You can find better swords apparently, but they must be so well hidden I never encountered any. Even so, you don't really need them to beat the game; just dexterity and patience.

The remake's level editor will allow you to play around with existing levels or create your own from scratch.

Earlier this year, the latest iteration of a fan made remake quietly became available. Programmed by Byron 3D Games Studio, it adds full widescreen support and even a level editor. It uses the same graphical assets as the original, but even so it still looks stunning. Even a lot of modern pixel-art games don't look as good. Not much has changed with its controls, but the levels have been truncated somewhat playing more like a re-jigged "best-of" with memorable set pieces combined with unique platform combinations. It's a much shorter and easier game, taking about 30 minutes to reach the end as opposed to the original's 90 (if you're good at it that is) but a very welcome one nonetheless.

Whichever version you play, you're sure to have a great time playing Lionheart. It still stands up as a great action platformer, even with my gripes over its combat mechanics. It sure kept me playing through it twice - once for each version. If you're looking for a classic old-school platformer that you may not have played before, then this is it my friend.
 

To download the game, follow the link below. This custom installer exclusive to The Collection Chamber uses FS-UAE with WHDload to emulate the Amiga version. The fanmade remake runs natively under Windows. Manual included. Read the ChamberNotes.txt for more detailed information. Tested on Windows 10..

File Size: 184 Mb.  Install Size: 327 Mb.  Need help? Consult the Collection Chamber FAQ

Download

AMIGA ORIGINAL

WINDOWS REMAKE

Lionheart is © Thalion Software
Lionheart Remake is © Byron 3D Games Studio
Review, Cover Design and Installer created by me

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