A birdman, a mage, and a knight walks into a bar...
Sol Divide - Sword of Darkness is a 1997 Horizontal Scrolling Shooter created by Psikyo, one of their many arcade shooters, but the first which is in a High Fantasy setting.
In the land of Shamain, Emperor Ifther had declared war on all surrounding kingdoms after embracing the dark god Heradious. And it's up to three heroes, whose homes are destroyed in the ensuing battle, to stop him.
Players can select between three characters:
- Kashon, the Prince of Neraphai - a Warrior Prince among a race of bird-humanoids with the strongest close range attacks, and the game's Mighty Glacier.
- Tyora, the Great Mage and Guardian of the Rangford Temple - the Fragile Speedster magician with a high Mana Meter allowing her to focus mostly on spells.
- Vorg, the Knight of Silverna, formerly serving under Emperor Ifther's army until his Heel–Face Turn - the Jack of All Stats preferrable for beginners.
Sol Divide contains examples of:
- The Atoner: Vorg, a former knight who served Emperor Ifther and then defected to the side of good.
- Attack of the Monster Appendage: Heradious, who is a dragon so huge that you spend the entire fight attacking it's head.
- Bee Afraid: Giant bees are an insect-type enemy, usually attacking in numbers but can be blasted apart easily.
- Black Knight: Flying knights clad in black armour are another enemy type. Besides dealing heavy damage with their swords if the player gets too close, they can also launch fireballs as a ranged projectile.
- Boss Bonanza: The last few battles of the game, where you'll need to defeat Ifther twice before fighting Heradious, the True Final Boss.
- Breath Weapon: Most of the bosses, including the Wyvern, Hydra, Heradious, as well as some of the mooks like the gryphons and harpies.
- Dem Bones: This game has floating skeleton enemies in several levels.
- Faceless Eye: One of the enemy types, floating eyeballs which can damage you with their Eye Beams. The green ones are generally easier, before being replaced by navy ones.
- Fighter, Mage, Thief: The trio of heroes: Vorg the dark knight, Tyora the Great Mage and Kashon the winged warrior.
- Flunky Boss: Most of the bosses are flanked by scores and scores of lower level mooks. Expect plenty of chaos onscreen in these battles!
- Flying Seafood Special: Flying purple jellyfishes infests the underground caverns.
- Harping on About Harpies: Another enemy type in the game, being depicted as winged women capable of shooting projectiles.
- An Ice Person: The Freeze spell, which summons a winter spirit into freezing every enemy onscreen.
- Our Gryphons Are Different: Fire-breathing, hostile gryphons are another recurring enemy type and can absorb plenty of hits while lashing out quickly on the players.
- Magic Knight: Vorg, Kashon and Tyora are all skilled with weapons and can cast a wide variety of magic attacking spells. Unfortunately, the same can be said for most of the human bosses and enemies.
- Mana Potion: There are collectible power-ups which can refill your character's magic meter, allowing them to cast more attacking spells.
- One-Hit Kill: The Death Spell, one of the strongest magic available, which wipes out practically everything onscreen, even bosses. Unfortunately it usually ends up being Too Awesome to Use due to consuming a lot of Mana.
- Our Hydras Are Different: One of the earlier bosses is a two-headed hydra, both heads attacking in turn (one by breathing fire and another by biting).
- Our Minotaurs Are Different: One of the later bosses is a huge Minotaur armed with a massive battleax which can release projectiles.
- Playing with Fire: One of the first attacking spells release a stream of flames that does decent damage to enemies. It's range is mostly mediocre (covering less than half the screen) but it's cheap on the magic meter and gets the job done.
- Sand Worm: The fourth boss, which periodically sticks itself in and out of the soil to attack from underneath. It somehow have insectoid features mixed with it's worm-like body.
- Sequential Boss: Ifther, who is a Boss Bonanza by himself. You'll need to defeat his human body, only for him to turn into a Draconic Humanoid with a brand new health bar and if you defeat him again, he'll resurrect Heradious, a humongous dragon (made by fusing together the bones of slain dragons everywhere in the level) so large, you'll spend the entire level battling its head.
- Shock and Awe: The Thunderbolt Spell can rain pillars of electricity all over the area, doing plenty of damage, but at some very high mana cost.
- Summon Magic: How the third boss, a humanoid demonic entity from another world, is summoned into the game.
- Warmup Boss: Depending on the route, the first boss is either the two-headed hydra or the wyvern, both of them which are pushovers with low health, easily-dodgable projectiles and the arena throwing plenty of spaces to avoid their attacks. Especially more so for the wyvern who can be bested without resorting to higher-level (or any) spells.
- Winged Humanoid: Kashon.
