Sacrifice Review
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- Опубликовано: 9 июл 2024
- The Sacrifice review covers a hybrid action and RTS game with a remarkably high profile cast and many innovative ideas. It mainly vanished.
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00:00 - Intro
00:37 - Issues & Fixes
01:51 - Game Premise
03:06 - Visuals
05:23 - Music & Sound Design
08:26 - Gameplay Mechanics
12:55 - Story & Campaign
17:26 - Conclusions
18:22 - Credits
19:29 - Stop Clicking
#sacrifice #gaming #games 
Игры
![Skilla Baby - Misfit (Feat. Polo G) [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/IjsylSnNMyw/mqdefault.jpg)
Sacrifice on GOG - gog.la/CourageTheCowardlyGiger
Widescreen Fix - www.wsgf.org/dr/sacrifice
There *is* a small multiplayer community! - discord.com/invite/uTJgCEf
THE LIST - docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_K3ziSxT9zcUUGCddS4sF1uNJTWHSbOwB1CQX2Rx4Uo
There can't be that many more hybrid RTS games right?
Love ya work 💜
amazing video
Yesss, finally, someone takes a look at this gem!
Kept us waiting, Huh?
@@smallsay9958
You haven’t even watched the thing yet 😂
"You're not casting magic... You're _committing_ magic."
That's one of the best one liners I've heard in a while.
"And that's how I like it."
-Mandalore
Consider this comment an upvote, 666 is too good a number to ruin
I loved the previous line, it was brilliant.
It's genius!
Sseth vibe tho
"A cross between HR Giger and a Courage the Cowardly Dog episode."
I'm sold.
Biocartoonius?
@@Hy93Ri0n Bio-Animatus? This is sounding more 40K by the second
Add a small bit of Morrowind (And subsequent era graphics) and it does look the part.
Honestly a not far-off description of the works of Heironymous Bosch, which i find this game very reminiscent of
@@paulmedioli7386 I'm glad you said it so I didn't have to!
“Sacrifice is like a game from a different timeline.”
That’s a great promo quote
The irony is that the game seems to work better now than it did years back.
Can we go and live in that timeline? I don’t like this one anymore.
The early 2000s was great. Everything was an experiment, we were fresh out of the optimistic 1990s, and everything looked like it was coming up roses.
PS2 was the standard gaming system, XBOX 1 was right around the corner. Little did we know… and it was good that way.
That can be said for multiple games from that time.
Like, take Starsiege: Tribes. Multiplayer FPS with various modes (CTF, deathmatch, etc). But you also had options for equipment you could deploy, from sensor posts to small turrets. Different armour, different vehicles, et cetera. You even had in-game options to act as a commander, setting waypoints for teammates (Noone ever listened to anyone of course, but that's beside the point).
It was so far ahead of its time with all its options that it would be at least a decade till something even remotely similar showed up, other than Tribes 2. And we don't talk about Tribes 3.
@@someduder5044 First rule of Tribes 3.
"I'm the fastest" and "la la la la laaaaaaaaaa" fucking killed me, rofl.
This game rocks.
i’m so impressed that this game is 21 years old and this ahead of its time. Imagine a remake with todays graphics, ooo! raytracing…etc.
i can’t get over how great this game looks and how much it brings to the table for such an oldie.
I almost expected to hear "the Watchers dance ! The watchers dance !" after that "la la la la laaa" XD
The Persephone mook air unit has the voice and egomania of Kelsey 'Frasier' Grammer, and Pyro's fire ranged mook is pretty much Beavis. (Fire. FIRE!!!)
@@Biouke Tbf Yoko Taro would absolutely play this game
It is a Shrike, of course it sings, it attacks at range by sound waves :D
“Haven’t we had enough war already?”
Everyone: “No”
Sacrifice or the UN Security Council?
I love how the god of "peace" is one of the most warmongering ones in the name of peace. And James, being the only god speaking out against war, only does so because he is a lazy introvert that can't bother with the hassle.
@@GepardenK there's also the religion of peace in RL xD so you're pretty much right.
-every government since forever
@@GepardenK Gotta love James, hes very GROOOVY.
Back in 2003 i think I was standing with my dad in front of pirate-CD booth in Krasnoyarsk, Russia. We just came from our little town about 7k inhabitants and 170km away due to some family business. I recon where was no proper internet connection back in my town and the only way to get access to some fancy games was to physically get to the City and obtain some CD! Dad said he will buy my one. And now I am standing in front of that window-shop in terrible hurry I and have to pick one, just one. There are tons of CD laid in bulk so I can only see the name. I knew nothing about all those games. And Ive just randomly pointed my finger at THAT dim looked tittle. I didnt speak English back then so my first thought was "What the f*ck I just bought! I cant understand a WORD :D" But the game was MAGNIFICENT! So mystique, unique, unreal and out-wordy I just cant stress enough how shocked I was and still am. Gradually my English has improved and Ive started to get dialogs and stuff. Now I understand it perfectly. That was something 1000% to my taste! The game actually shaped myself, my vision of music (I am musician). It evoked fantasies. I am very grateful for SACRIFICE. Absolutely BEST game ever!
Thats a cool story man, yeah Sacrifice was a mental game for its time, I loved it too.
Классная история! Сам побежал покупать игру, почитав журнал Megagame. Там ещё была такая замечательная обложка: человек в праздничном колпаке с раскрытой пастью на затылке. Ну, а внутри все эти замечательнейшие рендеры существ из Sacrifice.
So you're making music similar to Kevin Mantheit's stuff?
Haha nice story, you kinda won the lottery with that game. I have a similar story too that I commented. I kinda randomly came upon the game too, bought a gaming package from Gateway with a bunch of different games and this was one of them.
@@jamescpalmer very true thanks for reading!
@@Al1987ac hey not exactly the same but all those mystic and dark vibes are much appealing to me. Back in 2008 we with my bro did a cool ambient track which I use as a replacement for persephones theme in the game. It worked really well kinda slightly more moody version. I am producing quite a lot of ambient music nowadays under name Time Loop Anomaly
I like James, he's got big "I just wanna grill in peace" energy
but out of the good gods he's the first to go
"alright he crossed the line fuckers gotta die."
Yea his Units have that energy too as they slog along a mile behind my wizard, but boy once they finally get to combat a century later they hurt.
I love his campaign. His late game units are insane. There is this slow af rock spitting guy that tears through the rest of the game once you get him. I didn't make anything else after getting him.
@@zevirem9301 James gets his artillery bomber at low level, and it's crap.
But he gets his _sniper_ unit endgame, and it hits like it.
And sell propane and propane accessories.
For those who never played Sacrifice: This is the Magic The Gathering real time videogame we always dreamed of. You can't really directly attack your opponent but you can summon creatures to do it for you as well as defend you. Your wizard doesnt do much offence but is more of a support unit that heals, buffs and occasionally cast a huge badass spell.
There ought to be a Magic: The Gathering spin-off game that functions the same way as Sacrifice. Chaos, Sacrifice's original inspiration, would be fine inspiration for a Magic game as well. Just imagine being able to summon all of Magic's creatures as you would in Sacrifice, and sending them off into an epic battle against the creature army of an opposing wizard. The environments seen in Magic's cards would made for fine Sacrifice-like terrains for the battles in such a game.
@@Cephalopod51 Which Chaos game would that be?
It's not 1985's Chaos: The Battle of Wizards
, is it?
@@higochumbo8932 Indeed, I was referring to the 1985 ZX Spectrum game Chaos: The Battle of Wizards. Sacrifice's developers were initially influenced by Chaos while making the game. Remarkably so, since Sacrifice went way beyond Chaos in terms of gameplay and experience. The aspect of sacrificing the fallen creatures of an enemy wizard upon your altar certainly made Chaos' gameplay even more chaotic.
@@deadliestvice5356 I used to put my fire shield spell on and rush into melee range to burn the enemy wizard while spitting fireballs left and right.
@@higochumbo8932 If you did it right you could acquire as well the spell chain lightning while using Fire shield and possibly some kind of wall spell to funnel the mobs into you....oh so much fun lol
"And my Kain meter keeps getting higher"
immediately runs into an npc voiced by the elder god
the wheel churns once more
hey everybody he figured it out!
I like all the american children who keep calling Megabyte/Shere Khan an elder god.
@@Gigas0101 You say that like Reboot never aired in the US
@@Synthonym Yep, it aired on Toonami in the 90s, but and I'm pretty sure if anything most people who were kids at the time would know Tony Jay best as Frolo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
One thing that impressed the heck out of me with this game was its extremely long draw distance for the time. Seemed to go on for miles!
ya makes sense why they made it all islands, it means you dont have to try render distance based loading, just load everything at once and load new stuff on a new map
Giants: Citizen Kabuto was another hidden gem from the same time (and studio iirc so maybe the same tech?) with a similar, functionally infinite draw distance. Both games blew my mind graphically at the time.
The scale is insane. Apparently it ran decently on lower PCs if you knocked things down but it had to have been meltdown mode at max.
I remember reading in an article that they developed polygon scaling for the models just for that.
Models would get fewer polygons the further away they were and more as they got closer.
This allowed a lot of creatures to be visible at once even at long distances. It was very impressive.
@@MandaloreGaming i can confirm, i played it back in the day on the good old Cyber cafes. And then bought it myself for my old laptop and it ran really well
9:58 I love this mechanic. Someone could make a great Necromancy game with this. Dragging the corpses of your enemies back to your lair to create new minions with. You have to deal with challenges like people collecting their dead to bury, or anointing the bodies, or even when things get desperate, burning them in the streets.
dungeon keeper
they did, you just watched a video about it
So just like Pikmin then?
I used to play this game a lot. Have so many good memories. I loved how when you loaded the game the main character used to say "where was I? Ah yes..."
omg yes I forgot about this!
Totally. Still use this phrase with my friend.
Omg, is Inscryptions Leshy referencing this????
That phrase has been burned into my psyche for decades.
I kept watching this video, thinking "This game looks awesome, but there's gotta be some kind of catch." It seems like these huge, ambitious games have a dramatically increased chance to have some kind of awful _thing_ that makes them a chore to play in the modern day. Yet the video kept going, and there was no big catch, no baffling design decision or terrible basic gameplay mechanic, it just seems to be a really good game that didn't get the credit it deserved. I think I'll be picking this one up sometime.
Yeah, same thing. I was expecting something to be bad, but It's an insta buy for me
the catch is that noone plays the multiplayer anymore :(
Being fair at the time some of the graphics decisions - like functionally-infinite draw distance - seemed calculated to make unprepared computers catch fire. But if you get it running now with modern equipment that handle it no problem, that's no longer relevant.
yeah sacrifice was legitimately great, people were put off by how weird it looked and how bad the marketing was
As someone who played it when it came out and returned to it repeatedly over the years I agree with all he said, but I'll add three points of emphasis if you want to play it. 1- Those creatures can be really hard to identify at a glance. and 2- the campaign has erratic difficulty levels, you'll often have to replay missions if you didn't quite understand the gimmick on the first go. 3- Min-maxing is quite difficult because the gods don't have any indication of which creatures/spells they'll give you when you run a mission for them. It'll mostly work out because you're getting something from each tier, but each faction forms a different complete army. So you can end up with some pretty weak combinations with a lack of ranged units. Or a bunch of status magic and nothing that deals direct damage. Again, mostly it works out but if you get stuck on a mission it may be way easier to restart the campaign with a different bag of tricks.
Part of why it has held brain space for me for two decades is the unclear nature of all of that. It always feels like I'm yet to see everything... And I probably havent. Sometimes perfect information removes mystery and fun.
"Tickle-me Necromorph" was the name of my high school progressive-metal band
Wonderful to see someone cover THE underrated video game.
Fun Fact: part of the reason the game sold so poorly was because the studio put almost no advertising behind it because their prior game (Messiah) was critically savaged even after they put their marketing machine behind it.
"All your manahoars have been slaughtered" Sacrifice is one of my all time favs
The inbetween mission dialogs between the gods was one of the best parts of this game. One of my favorite exchanges:
Charnel: "KILL THE BLASPHEMER!"
Persephone: "Charnel, death isn't the answer to everything."
Charnel: "Ah yes, Torture also has its merits."
Charnel is just so cartoonishly, unapologetically evil it's amazing.
It was funny. Pyros and Charnel might hace been the "evil" gods but.....
They were the only ones who seemed actually concerned with the big bad demon trying to destroy the world and actively trying to prevent it. Persephone was too busy being a self righteous cunt and James was too busy being manipulated by Persephone and Stratos to do anything about it.
@@patrickh8109 I think I read that Charnel was the only god (Maybe James too?) to not start throwing insults and threats after finishing the story and choosing to not continue serving the god. Instead Charnel just wishes them good luck
Charnel is comically evil on a personal level in a self-indulgent sort of way, but he is the only god - together with James - who isn't genuinely hateful. Like James he accepts the others existence while Persephone, Stratos and Pyro are all on a crusade to subjugate anyone who aren't ideologically aligned with them.
@@VoresD Stratos is also pretty cool with it. He just says something about "It is your way after all." James is disappointed but understands. I never did a full Pyro playthrough so I don't know what he says.
i love the throwback to this dialogue if you finish the campaign with charnel
The art direction makes a lot more sense (well, "sense") when you consider these are the same devs that made MDK and Messiah. It's hard to describe what exactly Shiny's aesthetic was but they definitely had one
Same authors of MDK...
Now it all makes sense...
I did not know they made MDK but i guess now I know why I loved them both.
now you have to consider how stupefied I was when their next game was... Enter the Matrix... now, sure. it WAS impressive(when it worked and didn't try to kill itself) and insanely ahead of it's time (covershooting, driving, complex combat system, health regen?) but... yeah...
So I was watching this video and I just kept thinking of MDK. Well no wonder.
@@lordfriedrick7911 More on that later.
Great to see Sacrifice getting love after all these years.
Age of Mythology when!?
Oh hell yeah, AoM deserves some love. I mean heck, it got picked up again a few years ago with an extra expansion that iirc was balanced terribly, but it revived the multiplayer which I loved playing when I was younger.
@@Red-Tower I think AoM was fairly popular and mainstream, no? Mandalore tends not to focus on such games.
"You are not casting magic; you are committing magic," fantastic line.
You're also committing _to_ magic.
You can't move or cancel while conjuring high-level artillery bullshit, so you'd better have your main army around to defend you.
“You’re not _casting_ magic - you’re _committing_ magic.”
Just started playing Noita and getting that exact feeling. Feelsgoodman
YES! I love Noita. Still haven't managed to beat it though.... the furthest I ever got was the Vault.
@@jozinek876 I got one area farther with a really good loadout.
Exploding Corpses which makes enemies explode and the player invincible to explosions, Immunity to Fire, Immunity to Melee, I must have had some projectile resistance too, but I had a spell that just set everything on fire, so shit's exploding and burning all around me as I simply reveled in the destruction I wrought. I even "Angered the Gods" although I don't know if that's something I actually did, but I didn't care because the avatar of their wrath was meek against my flames. First time I actually fought that thing (once before it just esploded me in one shot the exact second I entered the room) and it was a curb-stomp that resulted in me getting loads of gold. Over and over again.
I eventually died to some kind of hazardous terrain in the Temple of the Art, but not before I killed every enemy that was waiting for me at the entrance. I took a screenshot of the Game Over screen because that run was so good. I broke every personal record and discovered three new areas. I was a badass. I was the God of Fire.
@@maddockemerson4603 you must have been so frustrated when you died on that terrain.
@@jozinek876 You may not believe this, but just after I wrote that, I started up the game and had another extremely successful run. When life gives you lemons, eh? You uh... make lemonade. Yeah. Am I using that idiom right? Who cares.
I got a Digger Bolt early on level one which allowed me to get loads of money by mining gold, which I used to get spells and reroll perks until I got something good. I first got a perk that gives homing to all my projectiles, which as it turns out works very well with Bubble Sparks, which is already the most OP attack spell in my experience. I put those on a wand that blows them out ceaselessly at a high rate, and at the next HM I picked up Oil For Blood which makes you immune to fire, so I attached Burning Trail and Fire Trail and eventually the Oil spell to my main attack wand.
So now I was spewing a constant stream of missiles that can bounce around corners, home in on enemies, set fire to things both above and below, and I spill out kerosene when hit so even more stuff gets set on fire - fire which I am immune to.
The God of Fire burns again.
That run only ended because I got stupid. One HM gave me the choice of Explosion Immunity or Melee Immunity, both of which are very good, but I just picked up the Explosive Projectile modifier and wanted to see just how much it would hurt if I got hit by that, which I assumed would only happen some distance away if I got unlucky. I put it on my OP deathwand and BOOM. It went up right in my face. I had 102 health. All gone. Broke my gold record from the previous God of Fire run, yaaay. Fukken lemons.
I think what happened is that the Burning/Fire Trail counted as an environment block for the explosive modifier to set off against. What was I thinking? Melee Immunity? Really? I should have not even considered that. Explosive Immunity is so much more useful anyway. I might have beat the game with that loadout.
And you know what? I will. I came too far, too many times. I'm gonna keep trying, keep getting as many destructive (and, preferably, fire-related) abilities as possible on each run, I'm going to find out what's at the bottom of this stupid dungeon, and I'm gonna kill it, with FIRE.
I am the God of Fire, and this hole is made to burn! Life gives you lemons, you don't make lemonade. You make life take those lemons back. Make life RUE THE DAY it DARED to give you lemons. You know who I am? I'm the guy who's gonna BURN YOUR HOUSE DOWN. With the lemons!
Happy noiting
I am DEEP into the lore of this game. Interestingly the goods are not on a goodness scale like you pointed out. James is the most benevolent because he just lets people do what they want. Persephone 'seems' like a good god, but she is actually really blood thirsty for anything she deems 'unjust.' In the manual, it even talks about how Stratos saved some of her creatures from extinction because they did not fit her 'plan' and she was going to let them die, so they pledged loyalty to Stratos instead. Also each god is a limitation of their aspects. Charnel, while the most evil in nature, draws his power from causing suffering so he is surprisingly nice for a guy that needs people to suffer to stay alive. Even Pyro, while a god of ingenuity and invention, is well intended in a sort of demented way. He is like that boss who wants the best from his workers, and if they are not up to snuff, well he just 'upgrades' them. The best part is, the story changes depending on who you follow.
I loved this game from day one of playing it and there is even a streamer who tried to resurrect a multiplayer duels for Sacrifice. He may still do it but I know the movement was pretty weak for this game.
freedom is not considered as universal good by the majority of humans, though. It's the West and USA in particular who are obsessed with such.
Sir, this is not Berkley. The difference between a trash mob and a vital part of a doomstack is not some kind of social construct, or matter of opinion. Much like the real world, some people are just better than others, and videogames don't have some cockeyed balance system to make sure the crappy ones can keep up with the rest of us, because affirmative action for orcs is still a dumb joke even when it's virtual
So persephone is like Meridia from Elder Scrolls basically.
how the fuck do you actually PLAY the multiplayer for this lol
i have an ancient CD copy of this game but ever since gamespy kicked the bucket, i couldn't ever find a single game, do i need to buy a gog version or something
@@dimas3829 Yes but James is also a passivist. Its only after other gods have died or when he is being attacked that he actually put forth an actual military strike back.
"You're not casting magic, you're comitting magic" I love that quote.
"Some old games are like a deep sea fish; sure you can visit the fish in its habitat, but try to bring up to the surface and sometimes it explodes" This accurate analogy explains why some old games are just blobfish. At the time and in their habitat, they didn't look that bad and looked like any other game. Now, looking back after getting used to modern graphics they look like the severely tissue damaged pink blob we think of.
also a minor detail: some games where intentionally born and bred for CRT monitors (and the slight bloom/blur caused thereby) and dont look nearly as good on modern monitors.
I think it still holds up great, in some ways better. Take the bombard unit of strator, I never knew it had a midget wizard riding the creature lol, and some faces you couldn't make out before, but now with HD we finally get to see their wierd ass faces ^^
I am not used to modern day grapics. you all should try being too poor to afford modern games and hardware sometimes
@@blueshit199 damn right.
@@Zyzyx442 That's one of the best parts of the design of Sacrifice. It may be intentional or just a product of the technology, but everything just looks so warped. Look close and you notice that Mithras isn't holding a staff, his wrist is fused to it like it's a part of him.
A hotkey to set hotkeys is really unique and seems like it could lead to a lot of interesting possibilities
at the time yes, but most modern RTS have a assign hotkey hotkey. Otherwise known as control groups.
@@Cryten0 that’s a fair point, never thought about group controls like that before.
Doesn't EYE Divine Cybermancy have one? Or at least a button that brings up the menu that lets you set hot-keys
@@Cryten0 This game also has control groups, but control groups are not the same thing. The hotkey to rebind hotkeys is like saying "I want Q to cast this spell" or something similar, not just "I want 1 to select this group".
edit: you can pause at roughly 11:12 to read it for yourself.
minecraft has an assign hotkey hotkey lol
I have been waiting YEARS for someone to finally cover this game, I have not even seen the video and I am already SO happy. It is a criminal SIN this game has been so forgotten.
Totalbiscuit was very vocal about this game years ago. May he rest in peace.
How the hell is this game under the radar even the infamous games isn’t as unknown as sacrifice
@Jasper Stokman I know I am working on full remakes of all the creatures in it I will post eventually. Art takes a long time.
My favorite lines from the telepathic beings.
When selecting unit: "I know what you're thinking."
Giving an order: "I knew it!"
You know even though it’s sucks that it really didn’t get the love it deserved I appreciate that the game existed at all along with many other hidden gems. Really love this kinda niche genera of “alien/surreal fiction” that really seemed to have a hay day in the 2000s and late 90s. It gives a lot of inspiration for my own creative pursuits and I hope these games can inspire others as well. Hopefully more like them are created in the future (games like Grime, the Eternal Cylinder, Abe’s odd world, Outer-wilds, and even Scorn to an extent give me hope for this), maybe they would provide the breath of fresh air the industry really seems to need nowadays. In my opinion: world could always use some more weird shit!
Biggest problem was lack of hardware to run it, same with Black&White, none of my friends or myself had the PC hardware to run these games at release, we had to wait 2-4 years before finally be able to play it at home. I used to skip school and head to the local computer store where they had computers you could play the full games on to see if you liked it, and we were a bunch of poor kids hanging in the store watching each other play and taking turns playing sacrifice and B&W etc. Good times, but yeah for better and worse the games were ahead of their time to the detriment of the consumer base who only had home computers usually everywhere from 3-8 years old hardware.
@@Zyzyx442 Agreed. Back when I had a PS2, I had a regular IBM PC with a regular VGA that could barely run 2D games like Red Alert 2 and Commandos. It's only years later that I get my first PC with my first Graphics card an nVidia FX5000 and a Pentium IV just to play Warcraft III and C&C Generals. Funnily enough, it's only my recently upgraded PC that I started playing these old 2D games like the Black Isle games. We didn't have GoG or high-speed internet back in the day.
No one thought of PC as a gaming machine as we did with stand-alone Consoles. PC was a place to keep documents and sometimes music and pictures on CDs and Diskettes more or less.
*jerma voice* Scorrrrrrrn.
I sort of low how interplay put Earthworm Jim into every game they could. It’s like Nintendo with Mario but with games focussed on blood sacrifice, violence, and depravity.
G-roovy!
Not shown here, but they got the cow in too.
@@CharnelMouse Amazing
@@Jimbo55151 There's a long-range spell which basically works like mortar artillery called "Bovine Intervention." It's legit.
Man, the late 90s-early 00s were a great time for alien, off-the-wall aesthetics and gameplay experimentation.
Just like the early-mid 80s (1983ish before everything seemed to collapse into space shooter, rail shooter, beat-em-up & the random racing game) -- and 2020, when suddenly every armchair dev (not even an insult) had the time to make their own game, and the indie scene not only kept up to, but gained on the "AAA" companies like never before. Let's hope that's another golden age of game genres.
"I've never played anything like it" is saying a lot considering you have a vangers review
This game has one cute little reference. Listen carefully to the incantation the wizard speaks when casting. He says “klaatu beraada nikto” in various arrangements which some might remember from Army of Darkness, but originates in The Day the Earth Stood Still.”
👍Also...
Anál nathrach, orth’ bháis’s bethad, do chél dénmha ... Charm of making from Excalibur.
Vermithrax Pejorative ... The name of the dragon from Dragonslayer.
@@Deipnosophist_the_Gastronomer good catch! I forgot about Vermithrax, and didn’t realize the other was from Excalibur!!
@@Deipnosophist_the_Gastronomer I'm doing a rare YT comment reply to thank you for this info! I have fond memories of playing this game as a kid but I never looked into whether the incantations had any meaning or allusion, or were just chosen because they sounded "magicky". The only one I still remembered was "pejorative", which always struck me as a funny choice.
On the "Godzilla music" as you called it.
Most of those tracks are themes for Pyros and the reason they sound like they do is because of their use of distorted samples of old brass instruments.
It's actually a really cool nod to the fact that while Pyros is a god of destruction, fire and slavery. He's also a god of progress and industry even if his progress is twisted beyond any morality. So the composer probably used those old timey samples to represent the industrial era Pyros brings even if that era is one of constant suffering under an uncaring, greedy god.
How this game hasn't had at least a remaster is beyond me.
It's in a sorta legal hell, I think. Interplay sold it off in an auction, last I heard, but I didn't hear who got it.
Plus, y'know, it's an obscure and largely forgotten game
Yah both this one, and Warzone 2100 by Pumpkin Studios ...insanely ahead of their time just like Total Annihilation was but completely forgotten by time
You want something close to it mechanically speaking at least I'd recommend brutal legend there are mechanics and ideas ripped directly from this game write down to Tim Curry being a prominent character
There's a very good reason he flashed a clip of it on screen
Maybe we'll get lucky and Wizards of the coast will do something with it
I remember playing this back in the day. Games like this, Magic Carpet, Archipelago, and Giants: Citizen Kabuto did an awful lot with very little in terms of available hardware performance, and made up for the rest with sheer balls-out creativity.
And now, in 2022, we have the technology to make anything but all the creativity is gone.
@@arandompasserby7940 There is still some, but it's all in the independent developers.
This game looks intense. If there was ever a remastered version, I'd definitely pick it up
It is worth it as-is, man, go for it
Can't wait to see how Mandalore single handedly revives the entire multiplayer scene for this game
I don’t why, but I would really like to see a esport tourney on this game for fun. But I don’t know how well that will work so I will leave that up to people who actually played the game.
if you find a way to play it lol
@@richardvlasek2445 True, it does look like a hassle. Definitely deserves a remastering; a good one though, not whatever became of Warcraft Strategy.
@@lukestover2207 What happened to Warcraft Strategy? Sorry, I haven't kept up. And I'm rather curious.
"There's a hotkey to assign hotkeys"
That's brilliant, why don't more games do this?
A ton of RTS's did - select a group of units and hit ctrl+1 to set them as group 1 which can be accessed by pressing 1, etc. - though I'm not sure how common it is nowadays.
@@stevepittman3770 No, he meant hotkey to assign other hotkeys, like using it to assign heal to 'Q' button, or teleportation to 'E' on the fly
EU4 introduced this last year
Diablo 2 did that
@@stevepittman3770 not the same thing, as Vedx explained. You can pause at 11:12 to read the description yourself.
“All of your manahoars have been slaughtered.”
I felt that one.
No manahoars? 🤔
Ah Sacrifice. I had the pleasure of playing this young when it did not felt old, i was totally captivated by it. To this day i think about it.
This game has been carved into my childhood memory. Even to this day, after 21 years I still vividly remember dialogs, battles, maps and monsters. I would pay anything to have it remade properly. Thank you for bringing this game to light.
I can't unhear the Colonel from Metal Gear in the Main Character
I keep wanting to be immersed in the dialouge, but then my brain expects his next line to be "Careful Snake, Metal Gear is nothing to be triffled with"
I was thinking of Bennison Tennison
Same VA. I just imagine this was what was going on in the Colonel AI's mind when it was malfunctioning.
Yeah, Eiding is great
Jesus this is one of my all time old favorites. It is, and was amazing. I bought a physical copy randomly browsing a store and it remains a stand out. The music, the story, the acting…it’s just a fun game. It’s one of the few games where i actually bothered playing every “path”.
The Max level spells are appropriately phenomenal in scope. My favorite is the Tornado.
Grim reaper spell is quite devastating *snicker-snack*
@@yesilpaprika the Reaper is also my favorite. Spoilers about the spell:
You LITERALLY summon Death, and Death is not there to do your bidding. Death will kill ANYTHING in front of him, so you BETTER make sure that he's pointing in the optimal direction. Because if he runs out of things to kill, you are *absolutely* on the menu.
The first time you get sucked up into one of those tornados (and your old early 2000's PC shit itself) it was amazing.
Tornado+Cloudkill would kill any endgame doomstack, except for Silverbacks, who absorb electricity.
I don't think I can pick a favorite, but Bovine Intervention certaily deserves a mention!
02:13 Colonel Campbell? Snake does a raw blink WITH THE TUNING FORK in Flapjaw space on harikari rock. I need scissors… sixty-one!
"cruelty squad is the logical conclusion of video games"
Never has one sentence made me want to play a game more
I've played through Cruelty Squad. I'd say that's a pretty good take on it. I'll warn you, it's not for everyone. Actually, I'm not sure it's even a very good game. It's just so.... weird.
@@samb495 It, like Doom's Hideous Destructor, has a learning curve to it, but once that's passed, it's an experience you won't see in any other games.
Definitely would not recommend it to anyone with epilepsy or any related disorders.
Oh boy...someone that hasn't heard of Cruelty Squad is going to play it randomly....this outta be interesting.
@@Largentina. oh I heard about it before that
just never described in such a way
@@Largentina. That describes me! I just saw it on the steam store, and I was laughing about it to myself thinking "WOW this game looks like ass, how it made it here is beyond me", and I looked at the reviews which were "Overwhelmingly Positive" straight across the board.
......Huh. Alright, I'll buy it. And I went in cold.
Ho-lee-schitt. Good lord, what a goddamn game. 10/10.
I just love finding obscure weird ass games on your channel
Не ожидал увидеть тебя здесь, данил
This isn't actually an obscure game though, certainly not by Mandalore standards. It's a cult classic, you'll easily run into it just by looking for good games.
this game reminds of uprising 2. Action RTS but sci-fi
Ну, не так уж "obscure" - у нас её даже 1C издавала, не говоря уже о всяких седьмых волках.
@@souler__ Where?
Is the main character voiced by Grandpa Max's voice actor, by any chance? Sounds awfully similar.
yes, its max tennyson and also metal gears colonel
Paul Eiding
One of the first videogame I've played, got it from a magazine. I was amazed back then by the great visuals and the soundtracks are still in my head, it has one of the most beautiful music library a game can have, it is not a rich library, but a quality one. The visuals and the soundtracks combined create a unique atmosphere.
"A demon tore open a portal to Hell, and then God lost that war. Hell has won, and a new pantheon of gods just appeared. It does explain why the creatures look like melted gorgonites. Hell is the base template for life here."
I think the Fallen One was actually one of the Creator's original followers than a demon. The first followers were known as the Fyllid race, who ended up worshiping Persephone later. He may have even been a Druid. The Druid Athelas claimed it was one of their own who murdered the Creator. We don't know who he was, but he was never referred to as a demon. He may have turned into demon after opening the portal.
The Fallen One didn't really open a portal to Hell, but to other dimensions inhabited by demons. So basically, alternate realities which are multiple Hells. While the manual doesn't explain this explicitly, the new Gods are supposed to be the split personalities of the original Creator who became their own god. The game box misleadingly made it sound like the Creator's death would be an important plot point in the game, but it never is. Interestingly, when the other gods are killed in Sacrifice, they don't die, but they do lose their forms, and only return as new gods with new names and identities after a few centuries have passed.
Hell didn't become the base template for life in the Fyllid. It's just ever since the Creator had been killed, the land began to twist, and so did its creatures. The opening of the demon gate caused the Fyllid to split apart into floating islands, and the death of the Creator caused the world and its creatures to change. I guess the trauma of the Creator's death changed the land, and his creatures' essence were bound to him, so once he was gone, things got weird. The manual did say the first followers were given the ability to shape the world, land, trees, and beasts as they saw fit, so maybe their experiments may have helped make the creatures look stranger.
Shiny Entertainment may have originally planned to have the game's plot take place after the Creator's death, but Sacrifice seemed to have gone through multiple last minute changes before settling into the game we know today. The Brainiac creatures for Stratos were originally different looking, and Grakkus I think was planned to have a bigger role. I wonder if Marduk was originally planned to have ties with the Fallen One, or if he was supposed to be the Fallen One. That would've tied the plot of the game with the manual nicely if the Fallen One were the ultimate villain.
All in all, good going on your review, Mandalore Gaming. Ever since I played a piece of Sacrifice years ago in the year 2000, I had been obsessed with the game. Once I played the full game in 2011 or 2012, I have mastered the game. Learning that Shiny Entertainment did Earthworm Jim 1+2, MDK, and Messiah before Sacrifice made me respect Sacrifice even more. Interestingly, Sacrifice was intended as a spiritual remake of an old ZX Spectrum game, Chaos. It amazed me that Shiny took Chaos' aspects, and added the whole soul sacrifice aspect to it. Sacrifice is like an amalgamation of MDK, Legacy of Kain, Chaos, WarCraft, StarCraft, and a whole host of fantasy RPGs. Sacrifice badly deserves an expansion pack, and it badly deserves a remake and a sequel. Thanks for revisiting this awesome game, Mandalore.
It's always the damn droods
@@itarH I think you misunderstood what I said in my post. I know that Marduk's a demon summoned by Eldred to deal with his enemies. I only wondered if Shiny Entertainment originally planned for the Fallen One to make an appearance in Sacrifice, or if Marduk was originally planned to be connected with the him. I only thought that way, because Sacrifice's game manual went into great detail into how the Fallen One's actions caused the Creator's death. It made me think that the Fallen One was originally planned to have a larger role in the game than just a passing reference in the manual.
I never said Marduk made any mention of the Creator. No character in Sacrifice ever references the Creator in-game, strangely. Considering that Sacrifice's original game box and manual made a big deal about the Creator's death, you'd think that the Creator's history could at least be referenced by a character or two.
Eldred is not the Creator reborn. After the Creator died, the Creator's personality split apart, and created the Five Gods we know today. Eldred was born centuries after the Creator's death, and in another world far away from the Fyllid. There's no chance Eldred had any connection with the Creator.
It's an interesting idea, but Eldred's not a god. He was the Emperor of an empire in Jhera, another world that's quite different from the Fyllid in Sacrifice. He was once the servant of the original Emperor, but the last Emperor died of unknown causes. Eldred sadly recounts that his predecessor died "far too young," and grudgingly pointed out that he was way more popular than Eldred ever was. We don't know exactly what Eldred did as Emperor, but he did say he was a tyrant, and Zyzyx eagerly pointed out that most people thought he was an evil man and despised him for it. Whatever Eldred did, his people turned against him for his actions.
Before he became Emperor, Eldred practiced magic and alchemy in secret to fill a void within himself, since the people of Jhera had abandoned faith and religion long ago. It's because of his magical experiments that he summoned Zyzyx, and escaped Jhera just in time. It's thank to Eldred's prowess as a wizard that he learned quickly how to serve the gods so effectively in Sacrifice.
It's still an interesting concept to have the main character of a Sacrifice game be once a god. It's not the case with Eldred, but it still is interesting.
@@rambot_14o43 They always have an altitude
I have my original disk but lost the manual. Thanks for posting this! If you played back when the online community was somewhat booming and map making with scrapx was popular, I may have run into you.
@@rambot_14o43 It took me awhile, but I now get the Mystery of the Druids reference. If only there were a Sacrifice mod where you got to command, fight, or sacrifice those crazy droods from that crazy adventure game. If only you could be able to sacrifice Brent Halligan on your altar to Persephone before he poisons another bum or slaps his girlfriend again.
My childhood game! Made a promise to myself if I win the lottery i'd remake this game xD
I'm hoping you win one, then (:
did you win?
@@maximomanzano9165 well im trying but the numbers dont like me
I had the exact same idea :D
This was such a great game. Definitely deserves a sequel or a remaster. Would be instant purchase for me.
Earth God James, he's such a groovy guy.
Of course his ultimate spell is a giant cow.
"I guess they couldn't conjure any dead presidents" god that hit me like a brick wall lol.
mind to explain, didn't understand that reference
@@Agrargorn money
@@Agrargorn presidents are on american money, so in essence dead presidents = money.
Oh, thank you both
@@Agrargorn y'all wrong, it's a reference to a dexter's laboratory episode where dexter and mandark give life to the mt rushmore presidents and make them fight.
jk it's prolly what you said.
Sacrifice taught me that "Torture has it's merits too".
The voice acting in this game was top notch and the higher level spells devastating.
We need a new game with a concept like this. No game has magic that makes me summon volcanos, tornados, death pits, frog rainbows, giant hentai tentacles, shields of insects, walls of souls or actual Death with a capitol D scythe wielding specter of carnage to the field of combat. turning tail and going the opposite direction is advised once summoned.
@@Arokuara too many walk-backs in the industry, when sacrifice came out we started to get terrain deformation (red faction), destroyable buildings (BF bad company), pet-classes with a level of micro usuallt reserved for RTs games (City of Villains mastermind, best pet class in existence nd closest class to my heart to this day), even MASSIVE combined-arms fights between 3 factions (planetside).
but devs got throttled by lazy/cheap/risk-adverse/console(controller)-first publishers, the entire industries sense of exploration and iteration seems to have been replaced with streamlining and cutting out/away features that only needed a tweak to become legendary and this is the future, why ae all the jetpacks so damned ineffective now when back in the 90s they would let you ski, fly 10+ foot into the air, outright fly or rocket/grenade/wall-jump as a matter of course.
magica tried but it was still a twinstick at heart, noita looks like it's giving the entire impactful magic thing a go, but only within it's strict limitations, MMO's have some of the most insane spell VFX but then the slime dies and it's as if nothing ever happened. closest to a "magic" system in a modern game that had real impact (and variety) for me would be is still Heroes of Might and Magic: Dark messiah and that games pushing 15 years old now (i.e. it was at the final point before everything stagnated) with all the skill-tree features that were fresh out of a classic diablo title. I'd include a number of the weapon effects from the EDF games as well due to the pure fun-factor and impact they have on the enemy but that's very much a sci-fi weapon rather than magic (though a plasma-orb-explosive is not so dissimilar from a fireball on a practical leel)
"Power belongs to those who _wield_ it."
Leaders who do nothing are worse than leaders who do bad things.
Every time i watch this i end up thinking "now i want mandalore to cover Giant: Citizen Kabuto"
I’m amazed someone reviewed sacrifice today. One of the best games ever made.
I love how wide ranging Paul Eiding’s voice acting talent is, but then he’ll say one line a certain way and you can instantly recognize him
RAIDEN! I NEED MANA! 61!
Amusing
Indeed. The first line he said in the video instantly brought me back to "Glory and Aprobation to Diablo!"
"You're not casting magic, you're committing magic."
He run out of medicine.
Finally someone put words to that high power magic feeling.
Wow! You watched the video too!
@@356Krisu Wow, you read RUclips comments too!
Sacrifice was one of the first games I have ever played back when I was a kid and I will always have a nostalgic connection with it. I still come back to it from time to time and I'm always left in awe. This game has such an incredible potential and even for an older game like this, it's still very playable. One of my low-key dreams is that at one point I will be able to play a remake version or a sequel.
I’d pay money for a Septerra core review. Hell I’d even send you a copy of it
I still remember the intro video by heart... Even though I barely knew English when I played it
This is one of the first games I ever played on PC. It is by far the most surreal and beautiful. The colors, animations, design of levels and creatures, the music and the story, everything is of the highest quality.
You can see and feel how they poured their hearts into this one.
Well said. I dont care what Mandalore says, the lore was incredible and this game is an example of how to push videogames to their full potential. All games from Shiny/Planet Moon are a class of their own.
"Godzilla music", I've never heard something so obscure so well described in such few words
Thunderbirds has something similar.
3:59 “Hey remember when that wizard came and casted a fucking volcano?”
Me: yeah, but where was that fr-OH NO. ***gets Populous: New Beginnings flashbacks*** that wasn’t WIZARDS
Not sure where you can get your hands on it these days, but Drakan Order of the Flame was one of the most underrated games I've ever played. Interesting mechanics for a game from 1999 with open world elements, vertical gameplay, flying around on a dragon and a Diablo like inventory system, good soundtrack and great atmosphere too. Might want to check it out
Naming the soundtrack as "Godzilla music" is so fitting!
Right?
Thunderbirds has similar 'psychotic brass' vibes on some of its tracks.
@@JoshSweetvale TV show?
The Strategy guide for this game was really excellent as well, telling you where to go for little dialogues to fill out the lore, fleshing out the story, telling you the paths you could go to get the unit combination you wanted and so forth.
Damn this game was so damnably good
I'm so happy you are finally talking about this one, I actually searched for your review of this years ago and was confused you hadn't made it yet
I'm glad that I'm not the only one suffering in silence for decades due to three guys singing songs about building a boat and filling it with food.
What a wonderfully crunchy game.
Here comes Mandalore with unknown games I didn't know I needed but I end up getting hooked
check "Hostile waters antaeus rising" and "Nexus the jupiter incident" for more hidden gems. I had 4 hidden gems, those two, sacrifice and star sector. I hope my list of unknown gems reaches zero one day.
@@0xbaadf00d Yes, I remember Antaeus Rising opening with a recitation of WB Yeats "The Second Coming". The in-game story didn't really reach the heights alluded to in the intro, but it DID leave a lasting first impression.
@@junibug6790 I liked how your units would talk to eachother, but yeah, the story was only decent. Do you know nexus the jupiter incident?
6:35 *Walking and thinking about the in-game universe intensify*
I CANNOT BELIEVE IT! YOU ARE PLAYING THIS GAME, A GAME I HAD FORGOTTEN ABOUT FOR 20 YEARS. CHILDHOOD FLASHBACKS. I JUST SPENT 2 DAYS WATCHING EVERY SINGLE VIDEO YOU HAVE MADE AND I CAN'T BELIEVE IT ENDS WITH THIS MASTERPIECE YEEEEEEEES!
So, Giants: Citizen Kabuto when?
Literally the first thing I thought of too lol
yes!
Oh no, it wasn't just me thinking that after 3 minutes in this video ...
I have no clue why Sacrifice and Kabuto are linked so closely in my memories - maybe because of the similar scale and the art style?
@@japkoslav Citizens had a Sacrifice demo in the package.
TIMMYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!
Main character is voiced by Paul Eiding, same actor who played Aldaris from Starcraft: Brood War!
Colonel?!
And the grandpa from Ben 10
Thank you; I was trying to figure out where I'd heard him from.
He's also the narrator from Diablo and Diablo II, and voiced Coloney Roy Campbell from Metal Gear Solid, which is where I recognized him most from.
@@MattDemers as soon as he started talking I thought I was in a codec call
I played this game when I was a kid and I kinda forgot about it, just remembered flashes of it here and there; the thing I remembered best was the altar, its simple yet alien architecture was etched into my mind. The game itself felt like a fever dream that I was unsure if I ever really did play, or just dreamt about it, but after seeing the video thumbnail I knew it had to be THAT game... and yup, it does really exist. Now I get why it felt like a fever dream, lol. I will have to replay it sometime, looks really interesting.
We NEED an enhanced modern version of this game. Wow. Im in love.
This game is the definition of a hidden gem.
I'd say it's much more in line with Heironymus Bosch's aesthetic.
I was think Beksinksi honestly. It's got that very surreal, sometimes nightmarish aspect.
... crossed with a courage the cowardly dog episode.
Heironemious?! I dated a Heironemious at BYU, but we all called him Harry.
@@dbmwray my m8s dog was the same, Heironymus to Harry.
@@WalkingDeadProducts I can't see anything resembling Zdzilaw's aesthetic per se but definitely nightmarish albeit cartoonish. 🤔😊
You should review dominions 5! Its a truly unique strategy game with an in depth magic system that can get truly apocalyptic, and a presentation that feels straight out of the early 2000s.
4:58 I was not expecting a reference to the dumbest documentary I've ever seen in a Mandalore Gaming video
With the "Tim Curry" comment on the last video, everyone thought the next one would be Command & Conquer... BUT IT WAS ME, SACRIFICE!
I called Sacrifice :D
That run animation in the beginning is really something.
This is one of my favorite games of all time, I played it a long time ago. I am really glad you made a review about this game!
I remember this from a schooltrip, it was being sold in a Dollarshop in one of the local stores.
A friend of mine bought it and we 'tried' to play it after we got home.
I do remember.. This was a strange adventrue and we just never got to know what we had to do.
We were so confused for the entire 'trip' that i can remeber this even so many years later.
... There was another game, even more confusing.. I can't remember the name but i recall a strange man wearing a very clunky armor-robo-metal .. Thing on the cover and it started with you being some kind of slave that had to get waterbuckets to get rid of a fire...
" They say Buta has wooed her for many years without success... Maybe thats where her defensive talents came from eh? "
I know almost all the lines from this game verbatim. Such nostalgia.
Haha, buta has been always good with the ladies.
@@Elkaade MAKE WAY FOR THE *AMBASSADOR*
Rammstein's song 'Du Riechst So Gut' has brass instruments trumping to the rythm of Buta's swagger-waddle.
Just.. fyi.
Sacrifice is without a doubt one of my favorite games of all time. I have probably played through this one at least 10-12 times, trying out different builds and going through all the possibilities of the single player campaign. The music, voice acting, art-style, and humor were just unforgettable. If ANY game deserves to be reinvigorated, it is this one. It was a strategy game ahead of its time.
This is my favorite game of all time, the immersion is so great and the graphics were beyond it's time and still holds up in some funny ways, I mean at least now in HD we get to see the textures, like some units I had no idea what really was back in the day, I still play sacrifice 1-3 times every year since I was 8. Family members that visited every few years would say "you are still playing that wierd ass game huh" :) So happy with this game, I love it. I just hope it will get VR support in the future, imagine living in that wonderful beautiful strange world (while high on drugs). Oh man I can't wait. Thanks for making this video Mandalore, you're a real bro :)
I played through the campaign trying different gods so many times that I could almost quote verbatim every clip Mandalore used here. A huge letdown that it didn't get an expansion, as it certainly deserved it! And I like the music so much that I even have some of it in my playlist. Especially the Pyroborea music which Mandalor referred to as "Godzilla Music." Fantastic game!
from time to time I replay this game with all of its path and a custom path... just so good
Listening to how the gods interact with each other I got a "what if chaos was in charge" vibe there. Which is an interesting idea in itself. Very unique game too. Shame I never had it on my radar.
I really like the approach of even the creatures of good and light being twisted and malformed. Really hammers the point just how different magic and gods can be from human perception and understanding.
“I guess they can’t conjure dead presidents yet”. This is why I come back every time.
Can you explain pls? I dont get the connection between witchcraft and former us presidents.
@@tamasrehany6532 The U.S. paper currency consist mostly of former U.S. presidents. Because of this, "dead presidents" is a slang term that refers to money.
@@CallofDutynoob thanks
I recommend trying out Populous: The Beginning. It still has a multiplayer scene today.
Thanks for giving 'Sacrifice' some love! It blew my socks off when it came out. There still isn't anything quite like it. 🙂
OH MY GOD. when i first found your channel, i was like "DAMN HE SHOULD REVIEW SACRIFICE!" Aaaand after a few years you did it!!! This is still my favorite game after all this years.
Its so damn good!!!
5:30 Everyone's gangster in a fantasy world until the mutants roll up with machine guns.
13 year old me sucked at this game, but I loved it so much. The voiceover and dialogue were incredible, its art and music so unique, and honestly, still to date has some of the best and coolest magic in any computer game to date.
This game is a timeless classic and work of art, not perfect but this is like an ancient relic that still at the least manages to be still fun today, and the soundtrack is amazing.
Never, in my entire life, I'd expect someone do an in-depth review about Sacrifice. That's why I love this fellow
Canonical: Populous the Beginning meets Overlord meets an acid trip
Cant believe you did this game, it was a childhood favourite of mine! Shiny also made some other great games like Messiah, which was very amusing and similar in art style.