Software:Xena: Warrior Princess: The Talisman of Fate

Short description: 1999 video game

Xena: Warrior Princess: The Talisman of Fate
North American cover art
Developer(s)	Saffire
Publisher(s)	Titus Interactive
Designer(s)	Steven H. Taylor Walter Park Alan Tew
Artist(s)	Walter Park Shane Olson Alan Tew Ryan Wood Lauriann Wakefield
Composer(s)	Eric Nunamaker
Platform(s)	Nintendo 64
Release	NA: December 6, 1999 PAL: December 17, 1999
Genre(s)	Fighting
Mode(s)	Single-player, multiplayer

Xena: Warrior Princess: The Talisman of Fate is a 1999 fighting game developed by Saffire and published by Titus Interactive for the Nintendo 64. It is based on the television series, Xena: Warrior Princess, which aired from 1995 to 2001.

Gameplay

Graphics and gameplay

The player chooses from the cast of characters and then, in a random order, fights the other characters (including the player's character). Xena will usually appear as the sub-boss. The final boss is Despair, a character original to the game, who is Dahak's champion. After defeating Despair, the player's character's individual ending will take place, with varying dialogue depending on the difficulty selected. The game also has a roster mode, where the player selects a team of up to five characters and enters a free-for-all against other teams. Also, players can arrange teams and fight against other teams. Each character has their own special moves (such as Xena's chakram and Callisto's fire blast), and is able to perform weapon combos, after which Xena may shout either "wow" or "excellent", or the crowd may boo.

Reception

Reception
Aggregate score Aggregator Score GameRankings 61% Review scores Publication Score AllGame Consoles + 83% Game Informer 3.5/10 GameFan 77% GameSpot 2.8/10 Hyper 77% IGN 7.4/10 Next Generation Nintendo Power 6.8/10

The game received mixed reviews according to the review aggregation website GameRankings.

Matt Casamassina of IGN wrote that the game's graphics were "highly detailed and varied." Casamassina also wrote that the game's 3D polygonal characters "look right on par with their television counterparts. Meanwhile, the game's 3D arenas, also modeled after recognizable locations from the show, look splendid with crisp textures, animated background effects and lots of variation." Casamassina also praised the game's camera system and "super smooth framerate", but criticized the fact that none of the actors from the television series lent their voices to the game.

Casamassina was also disappointed that the characters only had "roughly a handful of special moves" each, and noted that "some of the character animation is a bit awkward looking. Xena and friends move almost too fast at times and some moves come off as robotic and stiff." Casamassina concluded that the game "is a surprisingly good fighter that brings the license to Nintendo 64 in top form. Featuring a remarkable 3D engine, pretty graphics and an outstanding four-player mode to boot, the game has a lot to offer and does its best to disprove the theory that all licensed videogames are doomed to be poor. But at the same time, the game fails to deliver a long, challenging quest with only 11 playable characters and arenas to choose from and a simplistic (though fun) fighting engine that's just not very deep."

Doug Trueman of GameSpot wrote, "Almost everything in this game is done poorly, except the music - but twice while playing this title (the final, retail version, mind you) the sound effects and musical score cut out completely at the end of a match for no reason. Restarting the game is the only way to resurrect the audio." Trueman criticized the game's "atrocious" collision detection and "awful" animation, but noted its "well-drawn" backgrounds.

GamePro's The Freshman wrote in one review, "The fairly-simple models don't move as well as they look," and noted "the various moves and attacks suffer from a bit of jerkiness." The author also wrote, "Good music and various battle-sounds pepper the battlefield, but they're clobbered by annoying shrieks, grunts and oomphs." They noted the game's "fairly good four-player beat-em-up", but described each character's special moves as "awkward and slow to use". In another review, Miss Spell concluded, "Overall, the experience is frustrating. Even given the slim lineup of N64 fighting games, Talisman isn't your best fate."

Scott Alan Marriott of AllGame wrote, "The most compelling aspects of the game are its graphics, tight control and ability to support up to four players at once, with the latter feature almost worth the price of admission alone." Marriott praised the music and some of the voiceover work, but said the sound effects "seem muffled." Marriott also praised the game's detailed environments, and wrote, "All the characters are recognizable as their television counterparts, which is a far cry from the blurry, grainy graphics of other fighting titles on the system. While there is some blockiness and rough edges here and there, the polygonal models are quite good and make you believe you are fighting with the stars of the series".

Marriott was disappointed that "more freedom wasn't given to the player to pick up objects, climb more than just walls or negotiate other elements that could have spiced up the action. Another area of improvement would involve increasing the number of moves offered to each character. Aside from the basic slashes and kicks, there isn't much depth involved in the fighting system". Marriott wrote "there aren't enough features or options to keep you occupied after going through the Quest mode a few times," although he praised the multiplayer mode, saying the game "almost becomes an entirely new experience with three of your friends playing along."

Jeff Lundrigan of NextGen wrote that The Talisman of Fate was "Not a bad fighting game, hampered by sloppy mechanics, which uses its license either well or badly depending on your level of fandom."

External links

• MobyGames is a commercial database website that catalogs information on video games and the people and companies behind them via crowdsourcing. This includes over 300,000 games for hundreds of platforms. Founded in 1999, ownership of the site has changed hands several times. It has been owned by Atari SA since 2022.

Features

Edits and submissions to the site (including screenshots, box art, developer information, game summaries, and more) go through a verification process of fact-checking by volunteer "approvers". This approval process after submission can range from minutes to days or months. The most commonly used sources are the video game's website, packaging, and credit screens. There is a published standard for game information and copy-editing. A ranking system allows users to earn points for contributing accurate information.

Registered users can rate and review games. Users can create private or public "have" and "want" lists, which can generate a list of games available for trade with other registered users. The site contains an integrated forum. Each listed game can have its own sub-forum.

History

Logo used until March 2014

MobyGames was founded on March 1, 1999, by Jim Leonard and Brian Hirt, and joined by David Berk 18 months later, the three of which had been friends since high school. Leonard had the idea of sharing information about computer games with a larger audience. The database began with information about games for IBM PC compatibles, relying on the founders' personal collections. Eventually, the site was opened up to allow general users to contribute information. In a 2003 interview, Berk emphasized MobyGames' dedication to taking video games more seriously than broader society and to preserving games for their important cultural influence.

In mid-2010, MobyGames was purchased by GameFly for an undisclosed amount. This was announced to the community post factum , and the site's interface was given an unpopular redesign. A few major contributors left, refusing to do volunteer work for a commercial website.{{Citation needed|date=June 2025} On December 18, 2013, MobyGames was acquired by Jeremiah Freyholtz, owner of Blue Flame Labs (a San Francisco-based game and web development company) and VGBoxArt (a site for fan-made video game box art). Blue Flame Labs reverted MobyGames' interface to its pre-overhaul look and feel, and for the next eight years, the site was run by Freyholtz and Independent Games Festival organizer Simon Carless.

On November 24, 2021, Atari SA announced a potential deal with Blue Flame Labs to purchase MobyGames for $1.5 million. The purchase was completed on 8 March 2022, with Freyholtz remaining as general manager. Over the next year, the financial boost given by Atari led to a rework of the site being built from scratch with a new backend codebase, as well as updates improving the mobile and desktop user interface. This was accomplished by investing in full-time development of the site instead of its previously part-time development.

In 2024, MobyGames began offering a paid "Pro" membership option for the site to generate additional revenue. Previously, the site had generated income exclusively through banner ads and (from March 2014 onward) a small number of patrons via the Patreon website.

On February 13, 2025, Freyholtz stepped down as the site lead to move onto new projects, leaving operations to Tracy Poff, a veteran coder on the site, and Atari staff.

See also

• IGDB – game database used by Twitch for its search and discovery functions