Saboteur SiO first look

Time flies. It's been about four years since Clive Townsend's Saboteur remake appeared, and somewhat more than two years since the sequel, Avenging Angel. The expansion of the two original games was quite successful in my opinion (My views here and here) and I was hoping a sequel would appear.

Now I got to play Sabouteur 3, or Saboteur SiO to be precise. Clive says this is not the game we've been waiting for, and Saboteur IV will cover that. There's also Saboteur Zero prequel in the works, and as far as I understand that prequel is not IV either.

Now, Saboteur SiO is supposed to be a PC/Windows game, but again, Proton to the rescue and the game launches perfectly on my Linux Mint/Steam. (What's Proton? For example, see the news item here)

What happens now when the game is no longer a re-versioning of an already existing, original 8-bit game?

Well, for example the levels are now scrolling and the ninja moves more flexibly around the obstacles. He'll climb over boxes and stones. The jumps are more forgiving: if there's room for the ninja to do the sideways-somersault, the ninja will sideways-somersault.

Instead of a flying kick, there is a sweep kick, which makes the combat situations somewhat different. More about that later.

Still, it has the feel of an 8-bit Spectrum game, and the look if you choose so, "retro", ZX, C64 and Gameboy are available at first.

The screen scrolls in 8-pixel chunks. This is an interesting choice in 2020, and at times I felt it might have been better for my old eyes to have non-scrolling rooms instead.

But a scrolling Saboteur is also something new and I understand the choice to do it this way. The game looks like it could in principle run on an 8-bit computer.

I would have liked an option to add a black border to the screen - it would have given some more of that speccy feeling.


Enter the Ninja

As for the game, in a true 8-bit fashion, it's quite difficult. You have to both figure out what to do and then do it. Often the figuring takes more time than the doing, at least for me. There's little or no hand-holding.

I'm going to give some tips on how to go on, but it's clear the missions are intended as puzzles to be solved so I'm not going to be too precise. But if you have difficulties like me, it may be helpful to have the solution to the first missions so you'll understand what kind of game it is.

Took me a few mintues to realise I can hit that box.

The intro is done over quickly. There's a lab and a technician who disappears into a kind of ... purple haze. Break the box and you'll find a way to teleport through another purple cloud.

Teleporting onwards you'll find yourself in different ninja-situations.

The first proper mission is a maze. You have to explore around a cave. Addicted to the purple stuff now, you need to collect the crystals before teleporting again to the next level.

There are no enemies to fight, just some bats, which makes this mission quite easy in the end.

Just as I started thinking I have to map this area on paper, I begun to get it and found all the needed crystals. The area is not that huge, just be systematic with the three mine shafts. Falling isn't generally deadly, but if you are already low on health a long fall could be fatal.

The Commodore 64 mode.

The next mission, the Purple Palace, seems like a more straightforward beat-em-up setting. I say "seems" because the level can't be easily completed by just attacking the foes head on. It almost reminds me a little of Skool Daze.

Here the shuriken come useful. What would a ninja be without throwing stars? They can be thrown forwards or diagonally up and down. There's a lot of shuriken but they are also needed for other tasks than just plain fighting.

The ninja appears at a parking lot of what must be a very exclusive club: everyone wears purple. The graphics and the style is really nice here.

A huge number of goons will assault you from two directions and there's a big boss too. Fortunately the henchmen are not very fast, but if you let them gang up on you from two sides it can mean game over very easily.

They are not that tough.

I confess I played this stage a dozen of times without having any sense on how to go on, and was a bit disappointed at first. I could jump past the foes and run to the Baron's office, where I got some more crystal. The goons also left tiny pieces of crystal occasionally. The boss appeared to have the third of the crystal, but was unbeatable, so I left him alone. I switched to easy difficulty and nothing changed for me.

The enemies take quite a lot of beating, but any one of them won't do much damage alone. So, these goons have some qualities of the androids from Saboteur II, but are less deadly.

After a while I accepted there is nothing more to this mission than the left-right scrolling area. Then I went about beating up all of the purple suits, and there must be like hundred. Because they leave off some crystal there is progress to be made.

I lured them outside, herding them into small packs and used the sweep kick. Then I found an easier technique, just crouch and hit the front man, you can afford to take the incoming hits. If a rare guy approaches from the left, sweep kick him early enough and let him join the herd. Pick up all the tie clips.

This was quite satisfying and I felt I was finally on my way to solving the mission. Eventually, the Baron was the only one left. I had to assume that he can be somehow beaten, but nothing seemed to affect him and he just blocks all the shuriken!

Then, after trying a ridiculous amount of obscure approaches, I finally cracked it and I'll tell the solution here:

You have to throw the shuriken at the boss, which he will deflect. This will give you time to jump past him and throw another shuriken at his back. This needs split-second timing. Do this a few times and he'll die.

This felt really obvious afterwards. This is probably something you can't do as long as the henchmen are around, so deal with them first.

Not the nicest reception!

The third mission has again a lot of fighting, but the catch is different. Although the same fighting technique looks useful at first, it soon becomes clear that a new approach is needed after all. Time becomes more important, too.

The fourth mission is the kind of game I was hoping Saboteur SiO to be, when seeing the very first mission. You now have to explore a two-dimensional maze and you'll encounter only a few enemies (at first).

More of those "angry amazonian antagonists", I guess?

The verdict

I won't give a final verdict as I've only played the game so little and only reached mission 5. (Six and half hours says Steam).

I'd like to say Saboteur SiO is better than Saboteur and the Avenging Angel, because it has all the makings of such a game. But based on these first missions, I can't say yet - time will tell!

The idea of collecting the crystals is bit simpler than the usual Saboteur tasks, but then again there are different types of thinking problems, and this variety helps keep the game alive.

As of 10th of September 2020, I have now completed the game, at least the basic premise of it. Admittedly I used the "easy" option. There is probably at least one more "better" way to complete it but it has to wait. It took me about 12 hours and I can see myself returning to the game.

The Inca temple mission was a turning point, somehow the next missions don't get that much harder and the game was over sooner than I expected.

Incidentally, the temple was the only section I really felt I needed to map. On paper. In 2020! The level has some more complexities than just the maze, so it helped.

The Inca temple

I was prepared to map the later levels too, but having opted for the easy mode this was not really necessary. They are quite huge, though.

Saboteur SiO has an interesting position in the series, as it's the first properly new game after Avenging Angel, but other games are already in the works. It's sufficiently similar, but also different, to the original two games.

My verdict now is a simple Thumbs Up!

Outro

I like the structure of Saboteur SiO. As the game is no longer constrained by an 'original mission', it offers reasonably sized stages, and the next mission becomes a reward. It's like having a collection of small Saboteur games.

The 'retro' mode graphics are occasionally a bit uneven (a combination of Amiga-style sprites and mostly ZX-esque backgrounds) so I sometimes play with the C64 or Spectrum graphics. The blue/black combination in the caves is somewhat dark without the new sprites, though.

If you have been pampered with more recent games I have to remind this is a decidedly ZX Spectrum -style game. I'm one of those people who believe the original Saboteur was one of the best 8-bit games overall, so I can persist and trust Clive T. to deliver. For other people, the difficulty can feel unforgiving and the unexplained riddles might put you off. But it is also very rewarding, there's neat things to see and the soundtrack is awesome.

What does "SiO" mean? I have no idea!

Saboteur SiO at Steam

clivetownsend.com