Retro Review: Sabrewulf for Game Boy Advance

Before they created Donkey Kong Country, Banjo-Kazooie, Conker, Viva Pinata, and other celebrated games and franchises, Rareware created Sabrewulf, a game in which an intrepid explorer named Sabreman had to explore a jungle while picking up pieces of a sacred amulet and dealing with the ferocious title character. Sabreman would be featured in some other older Rare games before being laid to rest for a while. His comeback began in 2000 with a cameo appearance in Banjo-Tooie. Four years later, he finally gained another starring role in Sabrewulf, released for the Game Boy Advance in 2004. While this has become one of the lesser-known Rare games, it is a surprisingly fun and excellent title that is one of the company's better efforts since the Nintendo 64 games.

For years, Sabrewulf has been trapped within a statue powered by a magical amulet. One day, a menacing scientist named Dr. Dolittle-Goode (get it?) destroys the amulet and releases Sabrewulf. The two villains have taken over the nearby lands, stealing treasures, setting up trap-filled labs, and generally causing trouble. Only Sabreman, who had imprisoned Sabrewulf before and despite his advanced age, can retrieve the amulet pieces so that he may stop the mad doctor and trap the vicious beast once again. Rare does not usually depend on deep stories, but the tale at least serves its purpose.

The game is actually two types of games in one. First, Sabreman can explore an isometric environment, where he can talk to friendly characters, purchase items at shops, and explore various worlds. The eight worlds each have their own map, and Sabrewulf can talk to a variety of characters in order to receive useful advice or to solve their problems. A series of side quests, from retrieving flowers for a man who wishes to woo the girl of his dreams to one in which you take pictures of things that you see on your adventure, can be performed. At one point, you might even find yourself playing a tea-drinking mini game! There is a lot of ground to cover, though early on in the game, you will meet a man who for a mere ten coins will teleport you from one world to another (provided the world in question has already been unlocked, of course).

The second type of game is the 2D platform segment. Each world has seven side scrolling stages in which the brave explorer will need to retrieve the treasure or other items that Sabrewulf has stolen. Along the way, he will need to deal with a variety of enemies and traps. These obstacles get harder to deal with as you progress. In lieu of a weapon, Sabrewulf can collect animals who can help him eliminate or bypass enemies. You can find a bear with a huge belly that you can bounce off of, a serpent that acts as a floating platform to help you reach ledges that your normal jump cannot reach, a creature who uses its club to smash enemies and obstacles in your path, and many others. The more creatures you find (and buy with the gold that you can find in treasure chests as well as that acquired by trading any gold treasures that you find), the easier the stages will be. Strategic uses of the creatures is vital to Sabreman's success, especially since he can normally sustain a single hit, though he has unlimited lives. Take one hit, and you will have to restart the level in most cases. Fortunately, most stages have armor that enable our hero to sustain a hit without dying, and the armor can be carried over to other stages.

When you reach the end of the stage, you will find Sabrewulf guarding a treasure. In a nice touch, the value of the treasure depends on how fast you go through the levels. The treasure is gold if you are pretty quick, silver if you are a little slow, and bronze if you take too long. When you pick up the treasure, one of the best parts of the game is triggered: you will need to run back to the start of the stage while Sabrewulf chases you. Often, you will need to dodge the wolf's attacks and anticipate his actions, and he gets more aggressive in later levels, but once you reach Sabreman's tents, the beast will simply sulk off. However, if Sabrewulf touches you and you are not wearing armor, you will die. Luckily, if you die during the chase, you will restart from the end of the level, so you will not have to redo the entire stage. After you complete a level, you can replay them as much as you wish to earn treasures of higher values or to discover creatures and secrets that you might have missed.

By collecting gold treasures, you will unlock a neat feature called Challenge Mode, in which you can replay the levels and try to complete them as fast as you can. The catch is, you will only be given a set amount of creatures, or sometimes no creatures, to help you win. If you make it to the end fast enough, you will win a gold star, and you will not have to race back to the beginning with Sabrewulf biting at your ankles. Winning gold stars, as well as completing stages, side quests, and other tasks, will add to your overall percentage, which is a common feature in Rare games.

Each world culminates in a level in which you infiltrate one of Dr. Doolittle-Goode's laboratories. In these stages, you must reach the top of the labs, all the while dodging enemies and hitting red buttons. The buttons will reset the timers that tick away as you explore the labs. If the timers expire, you will need to finish the level quickly before Sabreman gets struck by poisonous ooze. If you manage to hit all three buttons and make it to the top in time, you will win one of the missing amulet pieces. All eight pieces are needed in order to trap Sabrewulf and ultimately foil the doctor's schemes.

If you find keys in some stages, you can use them to unlock trap doors that lead to bonus stages. Here, you will need to collect a certain amount of stars that fall from the sky while avoiding Sabrewulf. The more stars that are collected, the faster Sabrewulf will run. By completing these stages, you will earn some extra gold, and your overall percentage will increase. Sadly, the trap doors will vanish when you complete the bonus areas, meaning that you cannot replay them for extra cash or even for fun. The same thing applies to the rather fun tea-drinking game, in which you will need to drink more tea than your opponent before time expires. It would have been neat to be able to replay these games, but they are pretty fun and challenging while they last.

Sabrewulf is a wonderful mix of traditional platform action and puzzle solving excitement. There are levels that make you think of how to solve a task quickly, and you are often rewarded by going off the beaten path. The Challenge Mode lives up to its name, and gives the game some nice replay value. As usual, there is plenty of Rare's trademark humor, and die hard Rare fans can even find references to some of their oldest games hidden everywhere. All that said, it is not quite perfect. Once you beat the game with a 100% score, there is little to do except replay the levels for fun and try to get faster times in Challenge Mode. It is feasible to get a perfect score in under ten hours, meaning that the game is a bit on the shirt side. Also, Rare missed a golden opportunity to include the original Sabrewulf game as an unlockable feature to show players how far the series has come. As a whole, however, this game is quite fun while it lasts, and Rare should make more games like it and less games like Banjo-Pilot.

The animations are pretty good, and the environments and enemies look great. The people, however, look as if they were molded in clay. On the plus side, there is little, if any, slowdown in sight, and the mixture of 2D side scrolling views and 3D isometric views makes for a fascinating experience. In terms of sound, the music fits the stages well, and several of the tunes, particularly the jungle, cave, and laboratory music, are real standout tracks. There is even some voice acting coming from Sabreman himself. When you grab a treasure, he says things such as "Leg it!" and "Run like the wind!" Return to the tent with a treasure, and you will hear him say such things as "Gently, Bentley!" or "For the empire, what!" The cartoon like speech from Banjo-Kazooie is used here, but only Sabreman and Dr. Doolittle-Goode have unique "voices". All of the men share the same "voice"-just with different pitches-and every woman share a single "voice", again with different pitches.

I was looking forward to checking out Sabrewulf since its introduction at the E3 convention in 2001, and the extra three year wait was worth it. Rare proves that there are times that they still have the old magic, and this is one of those occasions. With excellent game play, neat features and extras, and a whole lot of fun, Sabrewulf is one of, if not the best, games to come from Rare in the post Nintendo 64 era. It will be interesting to see if the company can bring Sabreman back for another revival, or if they end up resurrecting any other older series (Battletoads, Wizards and Warriors, etc) in the future. In the meantime, look for Sabrewulf on e-bay or someplace, and see what a truly excellent Rare game should be like.