In case you haven't quite met the Wizards and Warriors saga,
here's a short rant about what it quite happens to be.

It's a series of three eight bit Nintendo Entertainment System games,
created by the company Rare, known for their quite playable games on various
Nintendo platforms. Rare has made such games as the challenging, enjoyable
Cobra Triangle boatride on the NES, the RC Pro-Am games,
the entire Donkey Kong Country series on the Super Nintendo,
and the essential Goldeneye-007 on the Nintendo 64, to name a few titles.
I'm not attempting to list all of their games here.

Anyway, the first W&W game was named simply "Wizards & Warriors".
The second title is called "IronSword".
The third one's "Wizards & Warriors III - Kuros : Visions of Power". Impressive. :)

Well, the W&W games are platformers, in which you play the part
of Kuros, the brave warrior who leaps, skips and jumps nimbly
(With this iron sword in hand and a ton or armour on.. sheesh) through
levels doing battle with minions of a certain wizard Malkil,
a run-of-the-mill baddie hellbent on kicking puppies (The bastard!)
and performing all things Evil. I guess.

All three of the series are notably difficult.

The first title is very very cheap and you'll be dying left and right,
to use that phrase, from relentless assault by various creatures of the game.
(Can I say very British gaming? Of course I can !)
The game has infinite continues, but I'll call it difficult anyway since
my warped mind rates the game on whether it's possible to play it through
without resorting to continues. You do that, I want to have your baby.

The second game is ridiculously difficult.
The gameplay essentially stays the same, with random creatures
spawning left and right and up and down,
all hellbent on reducing your health bar. But what really makes the day here
is that you only have two continues to complete the game.
Not only that, once you enter the final level of the game,
you cannot use any continues you might have had left anymore.
To this day I haven't completed the fucker. A friend of mine has, though.
This game is so goddamn cheap at times.

The third game in the series is regarded by me as easily the best one.
Unlike the first two games which were level-based, part three took the road
traveled before by Metroid and later by SUPER Metroid
(And even later the magnificent Symphony of the Night) which basically means
that the game has areas, which you romp through, gaining items and whatnot,
and after each advance in the game, you usually get to enter a new area..
if you can find it, that is. Now, W&W III is basically much more relaxed
than the previous games, and there are no costant relentless monster attacks anymore
and your life isn't quite as cheap either, but this time you don't have ANY
continues and when your last life goes, the game is over.
You don't get extra lives during the game either, so make your three lives count.

The control scheme of the series is something you may need to get used to.
Kuros has his sword, and you can move it in many different maneuvres,
so you can prod, strike and slash with the sword,
and generally Kuros has even been animated pretty nicely in this manner.
But back to controls, as I mentioned before Kuros is quite the knight to call
when you need to jump a lot (No pun intended), as during his encounters with Malkil
you'll have him jumping through fiery caves, tree branches
(How *do* they withstand a grown man wearing full body armor ?-) and rooftops..
How Kuros reacts to the jump button, however, could perhaps be best compared to
Sunsoft's magnificent Batman. There's lag in the controls between pushing the button
and Kuros actually -jumping- since he springs his leap first.

As for battle gear, in the first two games, you'll acquire many items during your journeys,
both weapon and armor upgrades as well as some magical booster items AND
extra items which have some function or another.

In the first title, you have one slot for an extra item, and you'll find a lot of those
from treasure chests scattered across the journey. But since there's only one slot,
you'll have to decide your favourite gear.
But unfortunately when you gain a new extra item,
you cannot choose between that one and the one you had, the new one just replaces the old,
so you have to remember the locations of the items for optimum performance.
The second game centers on the weapon and armor upgrades, and you won't find
extra items in the game, but you do get spells during your travels,
which do all sorts of things.

The third game, however, abandons most of the item-collecting in favor of
a "class system", which basically means that Kuros learns the trades of
Knights, Thieves and Wizards, all of which come in three different levels,
which must all be completed during the game. You can change the profession at all times.
The use of these is basically that the Knight is a strong fighter and gets good weapons,
whereas the Thief has a crowbar and a skeleton key to pass through the many locked
doors and windows of the game, while the Wizards acquire skills to pass
through several magical barriers, and the skill to levitate semi-infinitely.
To complement this, the game basically comes with three distinct areas :
The royal castle (For knights), the town of Piedup (Thieves' region)
and the underground caverns (Where wizards hang out, apparently it's an ungrateful work).
These areas natually have several sub-areas each.

The musics of the games vary.
The Wizards & Warriors theme is very distinctive,
and pretty easy to remember. Many musics from this game begin to grate on your nerves
if you have to listen to them for a long time. The musics of the second game are
kind of light, and I only remember the title theme well. And as for the third game,
I can remember the title theme and the game over theme. They're OK, I guess.
And now a shameless plug. A bloody good small band called the Minibosses
have made a nice rocking rendition of the first game's muzaks
using electric guitars, drums etc. Check them out.

So, enough Wizards and Warriors 101, where would you like to go now ?
("Today" replaced in order to kiss some William Henry ass)
Oh, wait. There's only one way.