Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
Wrath of the Darkhul King
An image of Buffy Summers imposed over a dark red background that includes one of the Gentlemen. Text including the game's title, rating, platform, and publisher, are also included on the image.
Cover art
Developer(s)Natsume
Publisher(s)THQ
Director(s)Sosuke Yamazaki
Producer(s)Iku Mizutani
Platform(s)Game Boy Advance
Release
  • NA: June 24, 2003
  • EU: June 27, 2003
Genre(s)Action platformer
Mode(s)Single player

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Wrath of the Darkhul King is a 2003 action platformer game developed by the Japanese developer Natsume and published by THQ for the Game Boy Advance. It was the third of six video games based on the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The game follows Buffy Summers, who fights vampires, demons, and other supernatural entities as the Slayer. Set in the show's fourth season, the story focuses on Buffy's attempt to prevent a demonic warlord from initiating an apocalyptic event. The player controls Buffy through 16 side-scrolling levels that focus on solving puzzles and defeating enemies by using customizable weapons.

THQ produced Wrath of the Darkhul King in a publishing agreement with Fox Interactive, and chose Natsume as the developers because they had been working together since 1999. Influenced by their family-friendly image, Natsume presented Buffy as an aspirational character to their young audience. They developed Wrath of the Darkhul King as an action game; dialogue was limited so as to focus on gameplay, and puzzles were added for variety. Natsume struggled with adapting Buffy the Vampire Slayer into 2D computer graphics, citing issues with character sprites.

Wrath of the Darkhul King received generally negative reviews from critics, who disliked the controls, combat system, and level design. The game's graphics and audio received a more mixed response. Retrospective reviews of Wrath of the Darkhul King have remained negative. For the month of its release, the game was in the top ten most-ordered games on Amazon.

Gameplay

A screenshot of Buffy Summers climbing across metal bars in an urban setting.
A screenshot of Buffy Summers. A block of text is shown at the bottom of the screen.
A gameplay screenshot of Buffy climbing across metal bars (top) and a cutscene still of Buffy (bottom)

Wrath of the Darkhul King is an action platformer game[note 1] divided into 16 side-scrolling levels in environments that include a cemetery, an abandoned hospital, a college campus, a museum, a forest, city streets, and a temple.[7] The player, as Buffy Summers, can progress through each level by jumping and double jumping over pits, swimming, or using ladders, ropes, and metal bars.[8] While Buffy is the sole playable character,[9] other characters from the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer appear in cutscenes between levels,[9][10] which use digitized stills from the series.[11] Furthermore, Buffy's boyfriend Riley Finn appears in certain areas to provide weapons and health in the form of presents.[12]

To complete an area, Buffy solves puzzles by locating switches to open a gate or turn off a hazard, such as a steam pipe, and pushing crates to reach higher platforms.[1][9] She can also rescue hostages, who are portrayed as men in red shirts.[13][14] Obstacles include pendulums, falling rocks, unstable platforms, electrified water, and pits with spikes;[15] in certain areas, the player must punch or kick down walls to continue further.[16] The game can be adjusted to a higher difficulty level, which changes some level entrances and puzzle solutions.[6]

Throughout Wrath of the Darkhul King, Buffy encounters five types of enemies: male and female vampires, two species of demons, and the Gentlemen's minions.[1][note 2] The game has four bosses, which are stronger opponents; they are a vampire leader, the supersoldier Adam,[note 3] the demonic Gentlemen, and the Darkhul King.[2] Buffy can punch, kick, and perform combos against an enemy and block attacks.[11][13] Enemies can be thrown off screen and through benches or kicked off ledges,[19] and objects in the environment can be used to hurt bosses.[20] The player is not required to defeat enemies who can be avoided by jumping over them.[6][2]

Buffy can find and use 16 types of weapons,[6] including a stake, a dagger, a torch, a throwing axe, a crossbow, holy water, a flamethrower, a laser rifle, and the Glove of Myhnegon.[21][note 4] Each weapon can only be used a limited amount of times. Ranged weapons stun enemies while only melee weapons and physical attacks can defeat them.[23] Vampires are primarily killed with stakes,[2] but the player can also eliminate them by destroying rooftops to expose them to sunlight.[24] Certain areas require Buffy to use a specific weapon, such as the crossbow or throwing axe, to proceed further.[9][23] Weapons are accessible via an inventory screen,[9] and they can be modified, such as combining a torch and a dagger to make a flaming dagger.[6]

Plot

Set in Buffy the Vampire Slayer's fourth season,[note 5] Wrath of the Darkhul King follows Buffy Summers, a Slayer destined to fight vampires, demons, and other supernatural entities. The game focuses on the Darkhul King—a demonic warlord who ruled the Earth for over 500 years before the sorceress Elnara trapped him in his own dimension—as its main antagonist. The Darkhul King raised an undead army and invaded Earth with the power of the Sceptor of Thelios, which was hidden after Elnara used it to banish him.

Buffy patrols Sunnydale after her Watcher Rupert Giles notifies her of a rise in demonic activity. While starting an extra credit assignment at a museum's Amelia Earhart exhibit, she is interrupted when a demon steals a talisman. As Buffy continues her patrols, her allies—Giles, Willow Rosenberg, Xander Harris, and Anya Jenkins—research the demon. After Buffy discovers and clears out a nest of vampires, she notices they are more organized than usual, prompting Willow to question if a new big bad is behind their activities. During her patrols, Buffy encounters and kills the Gentlemen and their minions. Willow identifies the individuals who stole talisman as Baruk demons, and Anya says that they typically work for a master. Looking for further clues, Buffy finds the Baruk demons excavating for the Scepter of Thelios. After the demons find the scepter, they use it in a ritual along with the talisman.

After killing one of the demons, Buffy receives assistance from Riley Finn in a fight against Adam. Buffy and Riley manage to escape after Adam is knocked out by falling rocks. Giles informs her that the Baruk demons are attempting to free the Darkhul King and initiate an apocalyptic event. He advises her to locate the demon's prison, the Temple of Shadows. After Buffy recovers the talisman and locates the temple's entrance, Giles believes the Darkhul King has already been freed and says she would need the Glove of Myhnegon to defeat him. Buffy finds it in the temple and beats the Darkhul King, who swears revenge against her. After destroying him, she realizes that her mission distracted her from completing her extra credit assignment.

Development and release

A picture of the indigo version of the original Game Boy Advance
Wrath of the Darkhul King was released exclusively for the Game Boy Advance.

THQ and Fox Interactive announced development on Wrath of the Darkhul King in July 2002 as part of a Game Boy Advance (GBA) publishing agreement.[26][27] Both companies had previously collaborated on the Game Boy Color game Buffy the Vampire Slayer in 2000.[27][28] In his review for Wrath of the Darkhul King, The Guardian's Greg Howson described THQ's decision to release games based on licensed properties like Buffy the Vampire Slayer as "a sales necessity for non-Nintendo GBA games".[29]

THQ chose the Japanese developer Natsume for Wrath of the Darkhul King based on their work together since 1999, such as on Power Rangers video games for handheld consoles.[9][30] Wrath of the Darkhul King was directed by Sosuke Yamazaki and produced by Iku Mizutani.[31][32] Katsuo Inagaki was the lead programmer and was assisted by Masashi Ueda.[33] The artists were Tomoki Hamuro, Masashi Kudo, and Chie Yoshida; they were directed by Sosuke Yamazaki.[34] Iku Mizutani, Tetsuari Watanabe, and Kinuyo Ueda handled the sound design.[35][note 6]

When they started developing Wrath of the Darkhul King, Natsume first focused on the story and how to best represent Buffy as a character through a GBA game.[37] Building on their reputation as a family-friendly company, Natsume targeted the game towards a younger audience and viewed Buffy as aspirational for children.[38] Although Wrath of the Darkhul King was published after Buffy the Vampire Slayer ended, Natsume believed the game would still benefit from the show's continued popularity.[30] It was the third of six Buffy the Vampire Slayer video games;[39][40] like other games based on the series, Wrath of the Darkhul King does not explain the characters' backstories or relationships, instead being marketed to the show's established fanbase.[41]

Natsume designed Wrath of the Darkhul King as an action game, and they added puzzles to vary gameplay. Dialogue was limited to avoid gameplay interruptions.[42] Because of rules placed on developing GBA games, Natsume could only have four bosses in the game; when picking the boss enemies, they wanted characters that would leave a lasting impression on players and that could be defeated in unique ways.[30] The company had difficulty adapting a television show into 2D computer graphics, struggling the most with programming the character sprites against a 2D background.[42]

GameSpot published a preview of Wrath of the Darkhul King on June 4, 2003.[43] The game was released on June 24, 2003 in North America[44][45] and on June 27, 2003 in the European Union.[46] For two weeks that month, it was in the top ten most-ordered games on Amazon.[47][48]

Critical reception

According to review aggregator website Metacritic, Wrath of the Darkhul King received "generally unfavorable" reviews. The website calculated a 44/100 score based upon 16 reviews.[49]

Reviewers criticized the game's controls as cumbersome[51] and sluggish.[2][4] IGN's Craig Harris felt that accessing the inventory screen was inconvenient and discouraged players from experimenting with weapons.[9] In Nintendojo, Ed Griffiths questioned the choice to have players jump with the shoulder buttons, which he described as "too uncomfortable to use regularly".[13] Scott Alan Marriott for AllGame and GameSpot's Frank Provo said the controls for navigating platforms were frustrating, particularly when precise movements or quick reactions were required.[1][6]

Critics disliked the combat mechanics; many of them felt players would not be motivated to use combos or weapons as the game could be beaten with only basic kicks and punches.[52] Harris pointed out collision detection issues, which resulted in attacks being off by a pixel and not working.[9] In GameSpy, Zach Meston criticized the limited animations for Buffy's combat moves, saying it became repetitive even after the first level.[4] Several reviewers were critical of how easily enemies could be avoided.[53] Other critics enjoyed the combat,[54] like a Herald Sun writer and Entertainment Weekly's Kimberley Reyes, who highlighted Buffy's ability to destroy rooftops to kill vampires as one of their favorite features.[10][24]

The level design was criticized for relying on platformer clichés, such as pulling switches and pushing crates.[55] Although Griffiths found the gameplay formulaic, he praised the levels as well-made,[9] while a NGC Magazine reviewer compared them to something "pieced together by a five-year-old".[56] Some critics felt that the levels were unclear,[57] such as being uncertain about which areas were platforms and what caused damage.[2][4] Provo criticized the placement of obstacles and platforms outside the player's field of vision, saying the ability to pan the screen would have solved this.[6]

Critics had mixed reviews for the game's graphics. Some of them viewed it as adequate,[58] such as Griffiths who described its style as typical for GBA games.[13] Other reviewers were more negative;[9][16] in Gaming Age, Alex Makar said it had "one of the blandest color palettes ever seen".[16] Alternatively, Marriott praised the backgrounds as detailed and the character sprites as well-animated.[1] Some reviewers enjoyed the graphic quality for the digitized cutscene stills,[59] while others called them repetitive.[1][14] The game's sound received negative reviews from some critics,[60] who found it forgettable.[13][16] Other reviewers praised the soundtrack as retro,[2][4] such as Meston who compared it to the soundtrack of a NES game[4] and Provo who likened it to the soundtrack of a Castlevania game.[6][note 7]

Retrospective reviews remained negative.[61] In 2012, GameZone's jkdmedia praised the graphics and sound, but criticized the level design and controls as outweighing these positive aspects.[11] Two years later, Javier Parrilla Ruiz placed Wrath of the Darkhul King on a HobbyConsolas list of the worst video games based on a television series.[40] In 2017, SyFy Wire's Brittany Vincent found the gameplay to be generic and disliked the lack of "deep characterization or uniquely Buffy content" aside from the dialogue.[62]

Notes

  1. ↑ Video game critics had varying opinions of the genre for Wrath of the Darkhul King. It was described as both a platformer and an action game by AllGame's Scott Alan Marriott and John Scalzo of UGO Networks.[1][2] The Guardian's Greg Howson and GameSpot's Justin Calvert and Frank Provo focused on the game's use of action,[3] while GameSpy's Zach Meston and a BBC reviewer identified platforming as the primary gameplay.[4][5] Provo and Scalzo referred to Wrath of the Darkhul King as having beat 'em up elements.[2][6]
  2. ↑ Introduced in "Hush"—an episode in Buffy the Vampire Slayer's fourth season—the Gentlemen are demons who steal people's voices and cut out their hearts. Portrayed as deformed and in straitjackets, the Gentlemen's minions assist their masters in more physical activities such as restraining their victims and fighting.[17]
  3. ↑ The big bad of Buffy the Vampire Slayer's fourth season, Adam is a human-demon cyborg. The character refers to himself as a "bio-mechanical demonoid".[18]
  4. ↑ First shown in the season three episode "Revelations", the Glove of Myhnegon is a magical gauntlet that allows its user to manipulate electricity.[22]
  5. ↑ Critics described Wrath of the Darkhul King as set in the fourth season.[25] In GameZone, jkdmedia wrote that this was established by showing Buffy was still dating Riley and battling against Adam.[11] John Scalzo for UGO Networks believed the game takes place "a few weeks" following the episode "Hush".[2]
  6. ↑ In Wrath of the Darkhul King, Kinuyo Yamashita is credited as Kinuyo Ueda.[35][36]
  7. ↑ Kinuyo Ueda, who is one of the composers for Wrath of the Darkhul King, worked on Castlevania, the first video game in the series of the same name.[36]

References

Footnotes

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Marriott.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Scalzo.
  3. ↑ Calvert 2003; Howson 2003, p. 24; Provo 2003
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Meston 2003.
  5. ↑ BBC.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Provo 2003.
  7. ↑ jkdmedia 2012; Speer 2003; Vincent 2017
  8. ↑ Griffiths; Makar; Marriott; Provo 2003; Wrath of the Darkhul King 2003a
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Harris 2003.
  10. 1 2 Reyes 2003.
  11. 1 2 3 4 5 jkdmedia 2012.
  12. ↑ Wrath of the Darkhul King 2003b.
  13. 1 2 3 4 5 Griffiths.
  14. 1 2 3 Speer 2003.
  15. ↑ Marriott; Meston 2003; Provo 2003
  16. 1 2 3 4 Makar.
  17. ↑ Buffy the Vampire Slayer 1999.
  18. ↑ Buffy the Vampire Slayer 2000.
  19. ↑ Marriott; Speer 2003; THQ 2003
  20. ↑ THQ 2003.
  21. ↑ BBC; Computer and Video Games 2003; Provo 2003
  22. ↑ Buffy the Vampire Slayer 1998.
  23. 1 2 3 Computer and Video Games 2003.
  24. 1 2 Herald Sun 2003, p. F02.
  25. ↑ BBC; jkdmedia 2012; Marriott; Provo 2003; Scalzo; Vincent 2017
  26. ↑ IGN 2002.
  27. 1 2 THQ 2002.
  28. ↑ THQ 2000.
  29. ↑ Howson 2003, p. 24.
  30. 1 2 3 Natsume A.
  31. ↑ Wrath of the Darkhul King 2003c.
  32. ↑ Wrath of the Darkhul King 2003d.
  33. ↑ Wrath of the Darkhul King 2003e.
  34. ↑ Wrath of the Darkhul King 2003f.
  35. 1 2 Wrath of the Darkhul King 2003g.
  36. 1 2 KinuyoYamashita.com.
  37. ↑ Natsume B.
  38. ↑ Natsume C.
  39. ↑ Macnaughtan 2011.
  40. 1 2 Parrilla Ruiz 2014.
  41. ↑ King & Krzywinska 2005, pp. 52–53.
  42. 1 2 Natsume D.
  43. ↑ Calvert 2003.
  44. ↑ Gamespot.
  45. ↑ EB Games.
  46. ↑ Bramwell 2003.
  47. ↑ Detroit Free Press 2003a, p. 6K.
  48. ↑ Detroit Free Press 2003b, p. 6K.
  49. 1 2 3 Metacritic.
  50. ↑ NGC Magazine 2003.
  51. ↑ Griffiths; Harris 2003; Herald Sun 2003, p. F02; Marriott; Provo 2003
  52. ↑ Harris 2003; Makar; Meston 2003
  53. ↑ Meston 2003; Provo 2003; Scalzo
  54. ↑ Computer and Video Games 2003; Herald Sun 2003, p. F02; Reyes 2003
  55. ↑ Computer and Video Games 2003; Griffiths; Meston 2003; NGC Magazine 2003, p. 66
  56. ↑ NGC Magazine 2003, p. 66.
  57. ↑ Herald Sun 2003, p. F02; Meston 2003; Provo 2003; Scalzo
  58. ↑ Griffiths; Provo 2003; Scalzo
  59. ↑ Harris 2003; Meston 2003; Scalzo
  60. ↑ Griffiths; Makar; Marriott
  61. ↑ Bolt 2021; jkdmedia 2012; Parrilla Ruiz 2014; Vincent 2017
  62. ↑ Vincent 2017.

Citations

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