We’re already seeing a lot of sequels, and already some are basically the first game again with a couple of minor twists. It’s the easy way. Go with what’s most recognisable, the gameplay and features people liked, or they will feel like they’re missing out. How can you escape that trap? Well, what if your most recognisable features weren’t anything to do with gameplay?
Barbarian II has another photo of a mostly unclothed Wolf-from-Gladiators and Maria Whittaker on the cover, and includes some beheadings. With Barbarian’s most important features duly retained, its sequel can branch out to be a different kind of game. It is a roving beat-‘em-up of sorts, where you move between screens taking on a variety of traps and monstrous opponents. The combination of the sword-and-sorcery genre trappings and the walking around and fighting gameplay immediately makes me think of Sega’s slightly later and more famous Golden Axe.
It’s entirely possible, likely even, that both developers happened to separately look at Conan the Barbarian and the like, look at one of Technos’s beat-’em-ups (Kunio-kun/Renegade or Double Dragon), and decide to combine the two. There are pretty big differences in scope, in that Barbarian II doesn’t have fire-breathing dragons you can ride, or imps you can beat up to steal potions from. Its single-opponent fights are a pretty poor compromise between the tight battles of Barbarian and something more expansive. Against all the differences, it’s impossible not to notice that the barbarian hero literally wields a golden axe. Just saying.
Another thing that reminds me of Golden Axe is if anything a more significant change from the original Barbarian. It’s a change which even the cover photo gives some clues towards. Maria/Mariana has gone from bikini to bikini armour, and she and Wolf stand over the body of a slain monster in much the same way he previously stood over her. Princess Mariana has a sword and has moved up to one of two playable characters in the game. Unlike Golden Axe, there’s no dwarf as a third way, but you are free to choose between male and female hero.
If players of Barbarian liked Mariana, for whatever reason, here is a lot more of her. So yes, bikini armour remains ridiculous, but the same series which started with the most exploitative sexism so far is also, after fifty entries, only the third game to offer the choice to play as a female character (the previous ones being Gauntlet’s Valkyrie and the unnamed girl from 1983’s all-round-pioneering Ant Attack, barring my OutRun headcanon). Things aren’t straightforward, but here’s a demonstration that at least in some respects the story games present can change. The princess doesn’t have to be captive in another castle.
