Sabre Wulf
Sabre Wulf is the first game in the Sabre Man series (followed by Underwurlde, Knight Lore and Pentagram), and the game which introduced Rare Ltd's long-running Sabreman character (who's since appeared in many other Rare games). The game was published in 1984 by "Ultimate Play the Game" a.k.a. "Ashby Computers and Graphics", both of which ultimately proved to be trading styles of Rare. If the title character sounds familiar, you might have played another Rare-created series that featured a similar creature.
There exists two different games carrying the same name: the 1984 original, a ZX Spectrum Action Adventure starring Sabreman, a British explorer who finds himself trapped in a deep labyrinth-esque jungle chasm and now must find his way out of it by finding 4 pieces of an amulet. However, on his path he'll have to fence against jungle creeps of various sizes, natives and the titular Sabre Wulf, an implacable wolf who appears at times and is better dealt with by running away. Besides the amulet pieces, Sabreman can also collect different treasures for points and colored flowers that grant him temporary special abilities (increased speed, invulnerability) or disadvantages (inverted controls). The game got ported to a few other computers of the time, like the Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC.
The second game was released in 2004 for the Game Boy Advance, and works as a sequel to the first.
- Big Creepy-Crawlies
- Color Coded for Your Convenience: Each flower is colored differently depending on the powerup it grants (red=invulnerability, blue=speed up, etc).
- Dismantled MacGuffin: The Amulet.
- Elite Mook: The wolf. It can't be defeated, and one has better run away in the chance they cross paths.
- Giant Mook: Rhinos and Hippopotamus, which can't be defeated like any other enemy.
- Giant Spider: One recurrent Mook.
- Interface Screw: One of the flowers' effects.
- Invincibility Power-Up: The red flower.
- Jungle Japes: The whole game is one.
- The Maze