CLASSIC GAMING
The Lost Vikings
Developer:  Synapse & Silicon (Blizzard Entertainment)
Publisher:  Interplay
Genre:  Platformer/Strategy
Year:  1992
System:  SNES/Mega Drive/MS-DOS/Amiga


History has always been selective to people in a strange way.  We always remember those who made the greatest impact or had the most dramatic lifestyles and appearances.  Vikings were one of those tribes who despite only being known for plundering and sailing, have become such a familiar name and idea to people, no one is that surprised at them anymore.  Well, until came 1992.

Story - The Lost Vikings tells about three vikings (Olaf, Baleog and Erik the Swift), who are taken from their home village by a mysterious alien ship and its controller Tomator who wishes to take different species from varying places to make an intergalactic zoo.  Utilising their various skills, the three friends escape from the ship and soon fall into another world of another time, traversing through Prehistoric Times, Ancient Egypt, a futuristic factory and a crazy alien world of candy and traps, they aim to defeat Tomator and reach their home village in their own time period and world.


The plot itself is incredibly linear, almost painstakingly so that it seems to be at opposite ends compared to Blizzard's later achievement of World of Warcraft, but big things start small, and this game was small yet interesting.  One of the best points of the game is its dialogue, which the three vikings make to each other during the end of levels that are funny enough to make you smile a bit.

Gameplay - The main point of Lost Vikings is its teamwork.  Each of the three vikings has a special ability.  Olaf has a shield and can not only block enemy attacks, but also walk off a ledge and glide using his shield despite it being made of wood and him being quite fat.  Baleog is the fighter of the team and can use a sword to attack enemies up close, as well as using bows and arrows to attack from afar and hit buttons or switches that are normally unreachable.  Erik the Swift is, true to his name, swift.  He runs the fastest, he can charge at certain walls or armoured enemies to smash them up, and the only viking of the three to jump.  He can also use Olaf's shield as an extra platform to reach higher areas.


The vikings can hold four items each which range from food to recover health, keys to unlock doors, explosives to handle enemies better, and an extra hit point represented by a little shield.  They normally possess three hit points, after which they crumble into bones and dead for the entire level.  Some painful ways are instant death, such as falling in lava, water, quicksand or on spikes.  An annoying feature of the game is that when one viking dies, usually that means you can't do the entire level at all without their help.

Again, teamwork is key with some puzzles requiring two vikings to work as one and some innovation with trial & error inevitably happening as the puzzles get more harder as you progress through the game to the point that death is not the one thing preventing you from progressing.
And you're screwed if you have one less viking to use.  If all of them die (and if one is gone, you probably will end up killing the other two), you get a charming cutscene of a traditional viking funeral.  A big viking ship bursting with flames and sailing into the cold Nordic night.  You either let the cutscene roll to be back at the menu, or press a button and bring them back to try again.


Thankfully the levels are all given easy-as-pie password codes to remember them by, usually relating to the theme of the level (an Egyptian level may have "PHR0" as one for example), so it's not even that major a hassle.  Also, the game had the perfect option of co-op mode.  You and a second person could control two vikings at once, which is usually all you really need for any puzzles requiring two, as long as your ally is not a jerk of a player.

Graphics - The graphics are toon-like, with the main protagonists given the classic stereotypical Viking image, and colourfully done backgrounds that while are repetitive for the entire length of the setting you are in, are nevertheless broken up by the different ways through the level, which get more harder and more detailed with more junk of that era as you go further into the game.  The levels are bright and large, the characters are not too stiff to see, including enemies and the several strange deaths of the Lost Vikings which are both grimacing yet funny.


Music/Sound - Nothing is particularly memorable about the audial quality of the game.  The music is generally repetitive and is always the same per level with each world taking on its own hue of tunes, despite one theme for each era set of levels.  The prehistoric era has its prehistoric tribal beat, the Egyptian era has an interesting theme with of course arabic-sounding music in a strange beat and so on.

This is not a memorable game unless you played it.  It is memorable for its level difficulty paired up with easy passcodes, its age-old characters matched up with modern humour, and being an early piece for a company who would make one of the biggest franchises in videogame history.  It's not a fantastic game but for its time it was certainly great with its innovative buddy system, occasional jokes and increasing difficulty.
Even Blizzard themselves have not forgotten their legendary Norse trio, for they are even in the world of Warcraft, in the Uldaman dungeon.  Drop by sometime, they'd appreciate the company.

Fun and Innovation - 3
Replayability - 2
Gameplay - 3
Presentation - 3