Masters of the Universe: He-Man: Defender of Grayskull (2005)

MotU: He-Man: Defender of Grayskull (2005)

Genre: Action / Adventure  |  Players: 1  |  Developer: Savage Entertainment

Your objective in Defender of Grayskull, if I'm not mistaken, is to advance through poorly designed and repetitive levels battling bland enemies, employing badly animated sword strikes to end their miserable existence. You can use a roll manoeuvre during combat in an attempt to add variety, but it's not necessary and you'll soon probably grow tired of even that once you discover that that it's quicker to simply lock onto them with L2 (if you're lucky) and hack and slash until they become a crumpled heap.

He-Man's burly physique is referenced often, in the piss-poor animation and in having his every step be accompanied by monotonous heavy footfalls that hammer the player's brain with each laboured step. He can also jump, which enables the awful platform sections to be properly cocked-up. At such times, collision detection in hinted at but largely absent.

You'll be required to hit switches and then wonder if they even registered; collect oversized keys that are approximately half as big as He-Man is; and reset your game often because of getting stuck in parts of levels that are easy to get into but impossible to exit from. On the plus side, you don't actually have to carry the keys once you find them, because he has a magic gaming-pouch in his furry pants.

If you endure, like a real hero would, you're rewarded (i.e., compensated) with special moves that do more damage but take an age to enact. I'm genuinely not sure if they were purposefully slow-motion or if the frame rate actually shit itself. Things glitched even more during some boss battles, wherein ending a level went from being a frustrating possibility to actually undoable.

The Eternian hero is voiced by Cam Clarke, who also played him in the short-lived but fantastic Masters of the Universe reboot in 2002. That series was never released outside of Region 01 territories, whereas the Defender of Grayskull game was only released in Europe. MotU fans from Region 02 got shafted in the first instance, but MotU fans from countries other than Europe should consider the second instance an act of mercy.

My dream of saving Eternia from colourful villains remains unfulfilled. Hopefully, someday, a proper MotU game will be made that uses the licence as it ought to be used.

- "A hard lesson, for sure, but you learned it well." -