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Barbarian was initially released by Palace Software on just about every computer and console way back in 1987, receiving many accolades for its innovative gameplay as well as ironically being engulfed in controversy.

It wasn't the gory game sequences that led to the major controversy although it did raise censorship eyebrows with the classic head chop, oh no, no, no, no, no! It was the fleshy cover art featuring the unknown muscle bomber Michael Van Wijk (who would go onto become 'Wolf' in the UK prime time Saturday night show 'Gladiators') and the sexy UK glamour model Maria Whittaker (fnaaar fnaaar). This MSX2 version was conceived by nine individuals to form Bitvision's entry to MSX DEV'18. As you can see from the images it looks a very polished game graphically and won the most polished game award along with GW's Workshop's Shoulder Blade: Overdrive game.

Personally I found this version of Barbarian to be a limited take on the glorious Amstrad CPC and C64 versions. It controls like all the popular fighting games of this period, directional movements perform specific moves and in combination with the fire button those same directions perform a completely unique set of moves. The problem with this version of Barbarian is that it's only really a two player game with no story mode, meaning no Maria to save and no Drax to fight. This would be fine as a two player game but too many of the gameplay nuances of the original have been lost in this translation for my liking. Fighting which was what made the game so great to play back in 1987 and even till this present day is where the big let down is for this version.

The timing seems off which means the game just doesn't flow like the original. Movement appears to not replicate the original. In fact, it feels clunky in comparison. The red blood is also missing when you make contact with your opponent.

The other major disappointment is in the sound department, you need to have an MSX2/MSX2+/ MSXTurboR ROM ASCII16–1024KBytes with 128KBytes VRAM PSG or FM to hear the coolness of the sounds and speech. If you don't have that then the sound effects are really lacking weight so blows and blocks don't feel satisfying. The music is a decent rendition but it's just not a patch on the original C64 version.

The game does feel snappier than the C64 version and the graphics are really nice too. What is good about this games is adding of two extra characters to the roster, 'Thara' the female barbarian and 'Dim Knight'. I liked the added cut scenes and taunting/trash talk scenes I thought these were impressive touches.

If only the gameplay was tighter with some player story mode and a better system of point scoring, this would have been a brilliant version of Barbarian. However I do believe Bitvision group are working on a new version of the game with added improvements possibly to be released during 2020.