Fairies are no end of trouble! Especially for the returning hero Stormlord. This time the winged beauties have been kidnapped by the followers of the wicked Black Queen: underground you go to complete your rescue mission — right down into Hell (brrrr!). It’s not a very nice place, with plenty of the Black Queen’s minions to keep you occupied. Acid droplets, bouncing eggs, green trolls who hop around, zombies and vampires are just some of the vile creatures you face.
Whether it’s a good omen or bad, a variety of weapons can be picked up: they belonged to other explorers who never escaped. Some are more powerful than others, it’s up to you to discover their advantages and disadvantages as mistakes could cost you a life. Occasionally Stormlord is put into a bonus level where fairies drop him gold coins which add up to an extra life for every ten.
Another interesting feature is your ability to tame a wild dragon.
This happens when you prevent her eggs from striking the ground. With the green ’n’ scaley mama on your side, your mobility and firepower increases.
The first thing that strikes you in Deliverance is the size of the character sprite — either Stormlord has been stretched on a rack or programmer Raff Cecco has seen fit to improve his stature (methinks it’s the latter — Ed). The second is just how much tougher this is than its predecessor. It took me a long time to get off even the first couple of screens. The main culprits are the enemy forces — much too vicious too early in the game. I feel a lot of people may not persevere with this for that reason. Which is a shame because it really is rather good, once a bit of practice has been put in.
MARK — 80%