Blackthorne

Blackthorne is a video game released in 1994 for PC (specifically, MS-DOS) and the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. It was later ported to the Sega 32X and Game Boy Advance. The original PC and SNES ported were developed by Blizzard (the studio which would become famous for Diablo, StarCraft and Warcraft), Paradox Development for the Sega 32X, and Mass Media, Inc. for the Game Boy Advance. It was published by Interplay, MacPlay (for DOS and Macintosh) and Blizzard for the Game Boy Advance.

Plot
Kyle Blackthorne, an experienced military captain and mercenary on Earth is also the prince of a faraway planet called Tuul. Years before, his grandfather committed suicide and became two stones, one of light and one of dark. The people of light become the kingdom of Androth and the people of darkness become Ka'dra'suul. While Androth lives in peace and respect their stone, the people of Ka'dra'suul reject theirs and are transformed into monsters. One monster, Sarlak, forms an army and attacks Androth. The ruler of Androth sent his son Kyle to Earth. After learning of his heritage, Kyle sets off to Tuul to avenge his father's death and reclaim his birthright, armed with only a shotgun.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) Fluid animation.
 * 2) Amazing cinematic cutscenes for its time.
 * 3) Blackthorne is tough and cool.
 * 4) Blackthorne can hide away in the background and avoid enemy fire.
 * 5) One combat maneuver that Blackthorne does is hold his shotgun with one arm and fire it behind him, which can break the arms of a lesser man in real life, showing off how awesome he is.
 * 6) Saving Androth slaves can net Blackthorne some advice and helpful items, though sometimes some slaves just have useless dialogue.
 * 7) Finding certain items is necessary for advancing the story and game because it helps to solve various puzzles.
 * 8) Should you fail or waste an important item, you can give up and restart the stage.
 * 9) The shotgun can be upgraded to the point where it doesn't need to reload, is fully automatic, and fires explosive rounds.
 * 10) Satisfying ending.
 * 11) This is one of the few times that the Sega 32X port was good and actually makes this one of the bad console’s good games.

The Only Bad Quality

 * 1) The SNES version is censoring blood, while DOS, GBA and 32x still has blood.

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