Sabre Wulf Review | ZX Spectrum

[@geoffneil5073]

Great video it is good to see some appreciation from someone playing it for the first time. If you check out my channel I have completed this game and have a commentary if you want any tip :).

[@RoseTintedSpectrum]

Only just noticed this comment Geoff, it'd be flagged as spam for some reason! Thanks for the comments, I'll check out your channel!

[@geoffneil5073]

@@RoseTintedSpectrum I'm guessing it was spam as I mentioned my channel. I really like your channel by the way.

[@RoseTintedSpectrum]

@@geoffneil5073 thanks very much! And yeah, possibly - although saying that, I seemed to be flagged as spam everywhere on KZbin. I must be giving off a smell.

[@geoffneil5073]

@@RoseTintedSpectrum If you haven't see it I'd highly recommend Paul Jenkinson's 'The Spectrum Show' too by the way. I've done a few slots on his show but it is mostly him

[@RoseTintedSpectrum]

@@geoffneil5073 Funnily enough, I came across his channel completely by accident yesterday and was blown away by how good it was. I left him a comment saying as much, but I suspect that may have also been caught up in the spam filter!

[@oldmossystone]

Yeah, its one of the great speccy games! Two tricks to beating it: 1: master reverse controls for the magenta orchid, then use that and the blue one for most of the travelling. This saves you when moving vertically. basically travel from one good orchid spot to the next, then hand around for a bloom. 2: watch the natives. They change colour when in line with an amulet piece. The pieces can only appear in a few places on the map, so after a while, the info from the natives can be really useful.

[@will_hargreaves]

Great Review. When Picking my all-time favourite Spectrum game, Sabre Wulf is always no.1

[@sashaburrow6186]

It was a great game and was the only one of the three Saber Man games I was able to complete as a kid.

[@KarlosMorale]

I never played Sabre Wulf either but I wanted to join in the conversation. Spectrum! Woo!

[@cville991]

The clicky sound bits makes it special. :)

[@UKCougar]

I'll give you a tip for finding the amulet. The spawn locations are only pseudo-random. There's several patterns of locations they can be in and when you start the game, it will pick one layout at random (I can't remember how many there are exactly, 8 would be logical and that feels about right from memory). What this means is, if you know the patterns then once you find one part you know where the others are. On one pattern, one piece is right near the start (they're always in those circular clearing areas). How I completed Sabre Wulf back in the day is this: I'd play the game, check my known location for the first piece and if it wasn't there, restart the game. (I forget now exactly where it is but it's like the third clearing you come across or something) [*** EDIT: it's geographically the room directly to the right of the start location ***]. If the piece was there, I knew I was always playing the same layout, I'd removed the random element. From there is was simply a case of exploring everywhere and drawing a map as I went. Iterate this and you can run through the map ignoring sections you know to be pointless. Of course, in the days of emulators this is simpler. Find the first piece, snapshot your game. Then reload the same snap each time you die.

[@AlessandroGrussu]

I noticed that too back in the day (almost 35 years ago!), and once I was aware of this, it was only a matter of time before I completed it. Still an old favorite of mine although I like Atic Atac even more because it's more varied - the different characters, room design etc. Even nowadays, walking along the "corridor" in the southern edge of the map makes me feel uneasy - at any moment, the Wulf could arrive and run over you!

[@UKCougar]

@@AlessandroGrussu Atic Atac is a right bugger. I never completed it, the closest I came was standing in the start room with the three pieces of the ACG key, trying to put them in the right order when I died. I might have said a naughty word.

[@StavTech]

My fave game as a kid! I was probably 5 or something playing this and no idea what I had to do but I fucking loved just exploring the place. Awesome game

[@arostwocents]

The GBA game is actually pretty good

[@captainblubber]

Thanks for reviewing this! Really enjoyed your video!

[@davidmccormick2957]

I was going to say I loved sabre wolf thought it was brilliant n adventurous.

[@UKCougar]

Oh, and, don't rush. In the video you spend too much time running. Keep your sword out all the time (unless you want to make a mad dash for an orchid). When you go into a new room, stop moving for a moment, this will mitigate most of the insta-death situations you describe. You'll still get unlucky occasionally (mostly from those bastard natives), but a lot less. For vertical passages, wait for them to come to you or work the angles, if you plough on through you'll die. A lot. Good luck.

[@RoseTintedSpectrum]

Yup, most of the footage I had was from my first three runs. I'm not ashamed of my terrible gameplay, haha. Thanks for the tips, will definitely put them to use. I think the speed of Sabreman automatically had me in mind to speed through but what you say definitely makes sense.

[@davidmccormick2957]

The amulets are in dead end rooms.

[@mr.a8315]

🐺👍👍 Great review. Sabre Wulf was really a Super Atic Atac, of sorts. Did you ever finish Sabre? 3:15 "Indigenous arseholes." 😂

[@TheHighlander71]

Good review. Because I want ro play it now. Do you use an emulator? The game looks to be very fast.

[@RoseTintedSpectrum]

I did, I use the Fuse emulator which is really good. Nice set of features and pretty accurate. Sabre Wulf is a surprisingly nippy game, definitely lends it an arcade feel.

[@TheHighlander71]

@@RoseTintedSpectrum I'm going to have a look at playing this in my real ZX.

[@UKCougar]

From memory that looks about the right speed for a real Speccy.