Hidden behind this most Heavy Metal of box covers lies Agony, which is probably the prettiest horizontal-scrolling shooter on the Amiga. Back in 1992 it was haunting, with its layers upon layers of parallax scrolling, moody background artwork and fauna of insectoid, draconic and ghastly creatures. The world-building was so elaborate it seemed to belong to a pre-existing, already fully developed universe.
The game was originally meant to be shipped with an extra disk that would detail the backstory through an animated movie. It was scrapped, probably to cut the costs. What's left are the animations in the background during gameplay: The crashing waves, the trees swaying in the storm, withered husks of dragons trapped in fish nets, and the looming threat of a warrior atop a hill catching the power of lightning in his sword. All this makes the game mysterious and highly atmospheric. We are left wondering: what the hell is going on?
Although I like it, people had mixed feelings about most of the bombastic musical score during gameplay. However, everyone seemed unanimously in favor of the piano ballad on the title screen, composed by Tim Wright. The keyboardist Stian Aarstad, then of the Norwegian Black Metal band Dimmu Borgir, was eventually accused of plagiarizing the ballad for parts of his track "Sorgens Kammer". He admitted doing so and later left the band, and the song was removed from the album Stormblåst (1996).
Although Agony's presentation isn't beyond reproach - the enemy animations are lacklustre at best - there's no shortage of ambition on display here from developer Art & Magic. In short, we could not believe our beloved Amiga was capable of such technical and artistic wonders. Agony, in this execution, was never ported to any other system. Anyone making the attempt would have had their work cut out for them.
Too bad the game wasn't particularly fun to play. For a side-scrolling shooter, you control the unlikeliest of vessels: the publisher's (Psygnosis) logotype, an owl. By firing energy blasts and collecting power-ups in the shape of protective swords and offensive spells, you're meant to withstand a bombardment of enemies across six short levels. If you fly close to the enemy and hold down the fire button you can maximize the firing speed, which makes me question why we need to use it at all. An auto-fire option would have been just as good.
The owl animates smoothly and responds well enough to your input, but its hitbox is a nightmare to determine. Constantly flapping its huge wings, with its body repeating an up-and-down motion, dodging incoming projectiles can only safely be done with the widest of berths. This becomes a nightmare amidst the jumble of objects on later levels.
The size of the sprites themselves doesn't help. From its highest to its lowest point in its flapping, the owl takes up roughly half the screen (slight exaggeration). Some enemy types are even larger than that. With monsters flying in from all over, except from the rear (most of the time), with no heads-up and one-hit kills, this game is frustrating and unforgiving. Sure, the extra large sprites are gorgeous to look at, but it comes at too high a cost. You have too little room to maneuver. Besides, most levels are too dark and some of the creatures blend in with the background. How are you supposed to detect them?
Upon losing a life, you also lose one protective sword and some power to your standard energy blast, which basically means you're screwed if you get hit from level four and onward. A wiser design choice would have been to let the player keep all his or her stuff, and instead start the game with only one life (instead of three), earning an extra life every other level or so.
Most of the bosses, on the other hand, are a joke. Some of them, particularly the first and last, you can defeat by positioning the owl at a particular spot and just firing away. From there, the boss cannot reach you with any attack. The rest are not that easy, but their attack patterns are so limited you can only blame yourself if you lose a life, especially if you cast those timed power-up spells you collect throughout the levels.
I must regretfully inform that Agony kind of sucks as a shooter, but at least as an artistic vision I admire it. Just look at those loading screens, consider the vast and empty landscapes, and listen to the haunting score. Agony might be the most inspiring bad game I've ever finished. I'd not recommend a playthrough to anyone, but please, give it some appreciation by watching a playthrough. Let someone else suffer through the gameplay to let you enjoy that poetry in motion on your own terms. And while you do, keep in mind that Agony is nearly thirty years old to date:
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