Swords and Sandals II: Emperor's Reign

Swords and Sandals II: Emperor's Reign (also simply known as Swords and Sandals 2) is a role-playing game developed by Whiskeybarrel Studios and published by 3RD SENSE for the Internet and Fizzy for the PC in 2007. It is a sequel to Swords and Sandals I: Gladiator.

A redux version of the game titled Swords and Sandals II: Emperor's Reign Redux (also simply known as Swords and Sandals 2 Redux) was released on June 29, 2017, by eGames.com on Steam and for iOS and Android.

Plot
Under the rule of the enigmatic Emperor Antares, the island of Doomtrek’s popularity and notoriety exploded. Antares had six new arenas built, each grander than the last. Gladiatoral combat took place day and night, drawing thousands to the island in search of glory on the arena sands. Even more were brought to the island as slaves, shedding blood and sweat building the mighty colosseums. These slaves were kept in terrible conditions in a catacomb of tunnels under the Imperial Colosseum.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) Awesome and colorful graphics, especially for 2007 and 2017 standards. Like what would you expect from a Swords and Sandals game. They are so awesome and colorful that would make you want to refuse to stop looking at the game for too long, or play it for even longer to see how the graphics are colorful.
 * 2) Outstanding soundtrack. The game now contains a boss theme that plays when the arena champion will appear. And if you will defeat the boss, the outstanding music will come back for you to play as a reward for defeating a arena champion. The Redux version also contains the music if you're fighting a arena champion, unlike the original game.
 * 3) The game contains 18 arena champions (20 in Redux), compared to its predecessor, which contains 7 arena champions. 2 of the arena champions from the first game of the series, The Slave Driver and HeChaos the Scourge return, although the reason how they were resurrected is unknown. Possibly due to Emperor Antares, or they both have survived their injuries after the previous game.
 * 4) The game contains a magic shop and the church. The magic shop lets you enchant your weapon and bow and buy some items, while the church lets you save your character (only in the PC version) and buy some potions to heal yourself, get some or all of your stamina back or repair your armour. Obliviously, to buy the items and potions, you need enough magicka, otherwise, you cannot buy them at all.
 * 5) Unlike the first game, the Cyan to White skins have effects which Swords and Sandals I doesn't have. For example, if you're selecting the green skin color, the pig nose will appear on your gladiator's face, making him look like he wants to be like the pigs from the Angry Birds series. Another example is that if you will select the red or dark red skin colors, your gladiator will look like a demon.
 * 6) The Internet version contains the comma glitch, which can make your gladiator have armor before even starting the game, have skin effects even if you didn't select the skin that contains the effect, have great weapons, like Daikatana or bows, and even have some skill points added to your gladiator.
 * 7) Myrmidon gauntlets are now able to get in this game, as well as the entire Myrmidon armor, as well as others, such as Legion or Warlord, unlike Swords and Sandals II's predecessor, which requires level 18 to get Myrmidon gauntlets, but since level 16 in the first game is the max level, Myrmidon gauntlets aren't available unless you will use the comma glitch, but in the second game of the series, you are now able to get not only Myrmidon gauntlets but also the entire Myrmidon armor.
 * 8) In the Redux version, you can select either the arena champion's helmet, weapon, or even gold once you will defeat him/her, unlike the original version. This is a very great feature since you can take your opponent's weapon or helmet and get gold, which is pretty similar to the first game, although you can only take the arena champion's weapon and get gold if you will defeat him.
 * 9) There are 2 new movements. One is called "Win the crowd", which can make the crowd interested and not bored at all, and it gets unlocked on Level 3. Another movement is called "Psyche up", which lets you deal grievous damage if you press the "Psyche up" button 3 times, and it gets unlocked on Level 7.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) The graphics are still the same as the previous game. And on top of that, some music is recycled from Swords and Sandals I, which can be lazy. But the graphics and soundtrack are not bad at all, as mentioned before.
 * 2) As mentioned before, you can't save your character in the Internet version, just like the Internet version of the first game, meaning once you get a Game Over, you will have to restart the entire game all over again from the beginning. This is a huge problem if you are fighting an opponent that has a very powerful weapon and you don't have much health to survive.
 * 3) Unlike the first game, you can't take the arena champion's weapon if you will defeat a arena champion in the original version. Instead, you just get a lot of gold, compared to the first game. The Redux version thankfully fixes that thing.

Trivia

 * The 17th arena champion (19th in Redux), the Evil Gladiator was implemented against cheating players. This means if you want to defeat the Evil Gladiator while you have cheated, you have to be careful to not get the Game Over while fighting him.
 * While The Evil Ninja (the 2nd arena champion) is a male in the original version, in the Redux version, he is a female.

Game Tips

 * Before fighting Emperor Antares, try to have at least 4 to 6 Dire Fireballs or Molten Deaths so you can deal a lot of damage to him before fighting him with your weapon or bow.
 * In the Internet version, don't type too many commas, otherwise, the game will crash if you will press something (except for the "+' and "-").

Reception
Swords and Sandals II: Emperor's Reign received critical acclaim by many players and Swords and Sandals fans. On jeja.pl, it got a 94% score from users, based on 796 votes, while users from cda.pl gave it 5 stars, based on 19 votes. This game is also considered to be the best Swords and Sandals game ever made.

Videos
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