Stormlord

Overview

Stormlord is an action-adventure game released in 1989 on a number of home computer platforms, including the Commodore 64, PC, Amiga, ZX Spectrum, and Atari ST. Its story involves rescuing a number of fairies trapped across a hostile world of traps and monsters that only the Stormlord can brave with his command of lightning and magic.

It was eventually ported to the Sega Genesis around 1991, but because the game included imagery of topless women (the fairy statues) Sega forced the publishers Razorsoft to cease cart production until the statues were covered up. This lead to several months of litigation between the two companies until Razorsoft relented, relinquished the cart manufacturing to Sega (they had previously built their own), and Sega released the game around the summer of 1991 with the censored statues.

Gameplay

In Stormlord, the goal is to save a number of trapped fairies across each stage and then leave via the exit. The captured fairies were often placed where the player had to solve a puzzle of some kind to reach them: this could mean finding a key to a locked door, or hitching a ride with Mael Avin the great eagle to reach closed-off areas of the level.

The Stormlord has a weak projectile attack that can be charged up by holding the attack button down a moment before releasing, though some smaller enemies are easier to avoid by jumping over them.

Unwinnable State

There is an unwinnable state in Level 1. The area with the final fairy collectable does not have a return teleporter to call Mael Avin, the great eagle. Collecting this fairy without collecting all other fairies creates an unwinnable state as collecting all fairies is the only method to end the level. The player must reset the game, wait for the timer to run out, or allow an enemy to kill the player character (as seen in Ranking of Evil 03).