Stormlord

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Stormlord
System(s): Sega Mega Drive
Publisher: RazorSoft (US), Micro World (Japan)
Developer: Punk Development
Sound driver: RazorSoft sound driver
Genre: Action
Number of players: 1
Release Date RRP Code JP 1992-03-27 ¥6,8006,800 T-49113 US 1991 $59.9559.95 56026
Non-Sega versions Amiga Amstrad CPC Atari ST Commodore 64 IBM PC ZX Spectrum

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Stormlord (ストームロード) is a Sega Mega Drive puzzle platform game developed by RazorSoft. Published in the United States by RazorSoft in 1991, it was later published in Japan by Micro World in March 1992. The game is a port of the titular 1989 Hewson Consultants game Stormlord.

Gameplay

The cartridge used for the game's United States release.

History

Lawsuit

In 1991, disagreements between RazorSoft and Sega over the cost and order size of Sega's proprietary Sega Mega Drive cartridges led to Stormlord being released in a smaller run of self-manufactured cartridges (as opposed to purchasing them directly from Sega, as contractually-obliged.) While the company still paid full royalties to Sega, their developer license was revoked in June 1991, and Sega refused to publish any of their future games. RazorSoft then sued for breach of the Sherman Antitrust Act on July 22, 1991, with Sega then counter-suing both RazorSoft and Punk Development in August for copyright infringement and breach of contract.

The final outcome was settled out of court, with RazorSoft agreeing to purchase future cartridges from Sega, having their developer license restored, and Sega dropping the lawsuit.

The game's developer, Kevin Seghetti, elaborated on the details of the lawsuit in a November 2008 interview with GDRI:

“	RazorSoft didn't like how much Sega charged to make cartridges. The minimum order was 30,000 units, and IIRC, they cost $17 each. So publishers had to pony up about a half million dollars, and the risk was all theirs if the product didn't sell. I never saw the contract between Sega and RazorSoft, but apparently it specified a royalty rate for cartridges (I don't know if that $17 per cart included the royalty or not). So RazorSoft decided to manufacture their own cartridges for Stormlord instead of paying Sega to do it because they could do a smaller run, it was cheaper, and they could turn them around faster. They paid all of the royalties to Sega, just didn't have Sega make them (if you get your hand on a Stormlord cartridge, you will see they are shaped differently than Sega cartridges were). Sega was annoyed because they obviously make a profit on making the cartridges and also like to maintain tight control over what gets made when. IIRC, the final outcome was they settled out of court, RazorSoft agreed to buy carts from Sega in the future, and Sega dropped the suit.	„
— Stormlord programmer Kevin Seghetti

Nude fairies

The final version's censored fairies.

The original 1989 Commodore Amiga release of the game features nude fairies in certain areas. When developer Punk Development initially ported the game to the Sega Mega Drive, the fairies were also ported over as nude. However, RazorSoft quickly called for their censorship, and programmer Kevin Seghetti's wife later created the graphics for the fairies' bras. However, preview builds of the uncensored version of the game had already been seen at Winter CES 1991 and sent to the gaming press, and the nude graphics were soon exposed to the general public. Game magazine Electronic Gaming Monthly even apologized for the publishing of nudity in its May 1991 issue.

“	When we did the port, Razorsoft specified they needed the Faeries covered up, for the American market. That was always the plan. So it wasn’t added later, my wife added in the bra graphics early on.	„
— Stormlord programmer Kevin Seghetti

Due to a lack of information over RazorSoft's lawsuit with Sega over the cost of their proprietary cartridges, it was rumored that the lawsuit was instead a result of the company refusing to censor the nude fairies. While easily debunked in hindsight, as a few pixels of nudity would not be worth the loss of a developer license, Stormlord developer Kevin Seghetti definitely verified the rumor as false when clarifying the details of RazorSoft's lawsuit:

“	The Wikipedia and SegaRetro pages on Stormlord do not match my recollection on this point.	„
— Stormlord programmer Kevin Seghetti, referring to a previous and incorrect version of this article

Magazine articles

Main article: Stormlord/Magazine articles.

Promotional material

Main article: Stormlord/Promotional material.

Physical scans

Sega Retro Average
Publication Score Source

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Based on 0 review

Sega Retro Average

Publication Version Score 1700 igr dlya Sega (RU) 40 ACE (UK) 63 Ação Games (BR) 67 Aktueller Software Markt (DE) 67 Beep! MegaDrive (JP) NTSC-J 58 GamePro (US) NTSC-U 92 Games-X (UK) 70 Hippon Super (JP) NTSC-J 60 Joypad (FR) NTSC-U 80 Joystick (FR) NTSC-U 82 Sega Mega Drive Advanced Gaming (UK) NTSC 75 Mega Drive Fan (JP) NTSC-J 60 Mega (UK) NTSC-U 45 MegaTech (UK) NTSC 57 Mean Machines Sega (UK) 57 Power Play (DE) 43 Sega Power (UK) NTSC 75 Sega Power (UK) NTSC-U 79 Sega Pro (UK) NTSC 77 Sega Saturn Magazine (JP) NTSC-J 46 Tricks 16 bit (RU) 63

	65
Based on 21 reviews

Stormlord

Mega Drive, JP
Cover
Cart Manual

Mega Drive, US
Cover
Cart Manual

Technical information

ROM dump status

System	Hash	Size	Build Date	Source	Comments
✔	CRC32 39ab50a5 MD5 73070170122193915b7f8af945ef426c SHA-1 1bf4b58d50fdc0fdc173ce3dcadcc5d9b58f0723	512kB	1990-09	Cartridge (US)
✔	CRC32 0b440fed MD5 689634797f5da35d026593fb240f5fe0 SHA-1 fe06ea2d7fcccecce337a535ae683c31aae4a637	512kB		Cartridge (JP)