The title refers to the sword, of course.
- A.D. 2097.
NEO N.Y.
Life has ground to a standstill. There are no more jobs to go to. No more parks to walk in. People do what they're told, or nothing at all.
A warlord named Raptor rules the city. He runs Neo New York for a global mob. And runs it without mercy...
X-Kaliber 2097 (originally called Sword Maniac in Japan) is a 1994 arcade action game made by Japanese developers Fupac and Winds, published by Activision for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, following the usual side-scrolling template in a Hack and Slash-inspired gameplay style.
Taking place in A.D. 2097, in a near-anarchic futuristic version of New York City called Neo New York, a ruthless mob kingpin called Raptor and his army of mutated freaks had taken over the city, with Raptor's own league of mutant lieutenants, called the Morphs, enforcing his rule in every sector.
A warrior named Slash stood in the way, opposing Raptor and battling his army at every turn. The Chosen One to wield the ancient weapon called X-Kaliber, Slash is Raptor's only true obstacle, and to lure Slash out Raptor decide to have his minions kidnap Slash's Love Interest, Alix. It's up to Slash to take down Raptor's lieutenants one-by-one in multiple boss battles as he works his way up to fight Raptor and rescue Alix, while preventing the X-Kaliber from falling into the wrong hands.
The game has a special Versus Mode, only in two-player.
Slash and Slice, the X-Kaliber's ready to kick ass!
- Absurdly Sharp Blade: The X-Kaliber, which can "rip through steel like rancid butter" like the intro states and slice cleanly through industrial metal drums with one hit. It makes quick work of enemy mooks as well.
- Absurdly Spacious Sewer: The InterZone is accessed by infiltrating the sewers, which contains multiple tall platforms and is filled with enemies.
- Adaptation Species Change: The game's true main villain, Krux (who also receives an Adaptation Name Change into Maou), who went from a Demon King to an alien warlord.
- Amazing Technicolor Population: Many of the mooks and bosses due to being mutants. There's purple and brown mutant mooks, the hulked-out version of the first boss is orange, Spuke is blue whilst Tattoo is green.
- Attack Drone: Raptor have multiple hovering robot probes patrolling the city, who hovers around while attempting to attack Slash.
- Background Boss: Krux, the Final Boss, owing to his size where he's in the background spamming projectile attacks to the front. Slash needs to parry Krux's attacks and slash the head by jumping.
- Badass Longcoat: Slash wears an impressive white one for the entirety of the game, that flaps around as he jumps about and fights hordes of enemies.
- Battle in the Rain: It's raining in Stage 3, and Slash is hacking up enemy soldiers outdoors right up to fighting the boss.
- Blade Below the Shoulder:
- Chainsaw's titular chainsaw is built into his right arm.
- The third boss, a ninja-like cloaked mutant with swords grafted in both arms which he can use to shred away Slash's life in a hard-to-avoid Spin Attack.
- Cane Fu: The preferred weapon of the aptly-named boss, Kane.
- Chainsaw Good: One of the bosses is named Chainsaw, and he uses... you guessed it. But only in his second phase after the Robotic Reveal, and his chainsaw is built into his right arm.
- The Dragon: For both Raptor (whe he's revealed to be actually The Heavy) and Krux (the game's actual villain.
- Before facing Raptor, Slash must defeat Raptor's lackey, Kane, who taunts Slash that he won't survive what's in store for him.
- Krux the Demon Lord sic his lieutenant, Spuke, before fighting Slash personally.
- Dub Name Change: The localization is different from the Japanese version. Slash was Gear, his Love Interest (Alix) was Cynthia, while the villainous Raptor was Zieg Dyne. Kane was Cocktail, Dr. Blast was Dr. Mad (???) and Chainsaw was TT (very likely a Terminator reference). Downplayed that Tattoo was Tattoo Man.
- Eldritch Location: After defeating Raptor, the game... isn't quite over yet, Instead, Raptor reveals his true source of power being from a demonic entity named Krux, who suddenly appears and teleports Slash into a floating void in the middle of nowhere, the background distorting all the while as Slash tries finding his way out.
- Evilutionary Biologist: Dr. Blast, the scientist who performs Morph experimentations to create Raptor's legion of mutants. Slash battles him in his own research lab, filled with his creations, and Blast even injected himself with his own chemicals to transform into a monster.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: Chainsaw taunts Slash by calling him a "worthless sack of flesh". After a minute of gameplay, cue the Robotic Reveal.
- Flame Spewer Obstacle: City level has pipes on the floor that constantly shoot flames but during bursts the flames are higher.
- Flechette Storm: The ninja-esque third boss can release a flurry of spiked projectiles in tandem with his spinning attack that Slash needs to block with the X-Kaliber to avoid damage.
- Greater-Scope Villain: For most of the game, Slash is against Raptor and his private army until he eventually defeats Raptor. But Raptor then reveals the source of his powers as results of a pact made with Krux, a demon lord from another dimension, who abducts Slash instantly into his dimension after Raptor's defeat. It turns out the reasons behind all the mutations and the source of the Morphs are from Krux's powers.
- Half the Man He Used to Be: Most of the human-sized mook-grade enemies have their death animations being separation from their waists. Before exploding. In some rarer occasions, Slash's finishing attack will divide them vertically instead.
- I Have Your Wife: Raptor have Slash's Love Interest, Alix, and Slash must fight his way through hordes and hordes of enemies to save her.
- Hulking Out: Both of the Morphs as well as their creator, Dr. Blast.
- The first Morph appears as an unarmed, unnamed bald man in an empty room, who unexpectedly trips as he tries walking. And then as he gets up, he suddenly bursts out of his clothes (sans pants) into an orange-skinned monstrous Hulk-expy for the battle.
- The Morph in the Absurdly Spacious Sewer starts out the same, but is fought in the gutters and he enlarges into a humanoid water elemental that pops in and out of the sewage instead.
- Dr. Blast, after Slash fought his way past Blast's creations and confronts him; the doctor first fight as a human with some easily-avoidable flung projectiles, and when he's depleted he then bursts out of his skin revealing himself to be a giant insectoid monstrosity.
- Industrial Ghetto: Basically the entire state Neo New York was in after Raptor turns the whole city into a heavily industrialized wasteland.
- Jet Pack: Soldiers wearing jetpacks occasionally shows up, mostly in areas with platforming elements, where they'll either try to tackle Slash which deals damage or drop bombs if Slash happens to be below them.
- Luke, I Am Your Father: Prior to the boss fight, the main villain Raptor reveals himself to be Slash's older brother. This however was only in the English localization.
- Mix-and-Match Critters: The final form of Dr. Blast, who's a hybrid of multiple insects including dragonflies, mosquitoes, housefliers and a bit of scorpion (complete with a powerful stinger tail that covers half the screen). His insectoid head somehow still retains a bit of his human face and a degree of sentience, given how he curses at Slash in the following cutscene.
- Mutants: Several of the human-like mooks bears grotesque, deformed mutated features and with their skin a varying kaledioscope of colors because of the setting.
- People Jars: Dr. Blast's test subjects are humans suspended in transparent tanks, where he performs Morph experiments from.
- Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: All the bosses.Chainsaw: Halt, you worthless sack of flesh! Your journey ends here!
Slash: How do you figure?
Chainsaw: Because I'm going to shred you!
Slash: No one in this city has manners. Come here - I'll teach you a few! - Shut Up, Hannibal!: Slash tends to do this in cutscenes leading to boss battles.Spuke, The Dragon: Our plans for your world is almost finished...
Slash: Quit yapping, Spuke! - Sword Beam: The X-Kaliber can release a crescent-shaped orange energy bolt with every swing as a ranged attack.
- Sword Fight:
- Slash's second boss have him pitting the X-Kaliber against Tattoo, a giant green mutated brute that carries a BFS.
- Raptor, who carries a sword that's a duplicate of the X-Kaliber. He's roughly the same height and size as Slash, too, and having identical Sword Beam moves, with the subsequent battle a Mirror Boss match.
- Tattooed Crook: The BFS-swinging boss who calls himself Tattoo have a giant tattoo of a rose on his bare chest. Which he's proud of - Slash making fun of his tattoo ticks him off.Slash: Another man with a bad tattoo.
Tattoo: No one insults my rose, boy! My thorns are gonna cut you real bad. - Terminator Impersonator: Chainsaw, an Arnie-esque brute in military armor, fatigues and combat boots initially attacks with a gatling gun, but as he lose his skin and flesh from taking damage comes the Robotic Reveal where he's a Terminator-like SkeleBot 9000 underneath. He also lose his gun and uses a chainsaw as weapon only after he's revealed as a robot.
- Villainous Harlequin: Krux's dragon and main enforcer, Spuke, is dressed like a court jester and a difficult boss to boot.
- Weapon Title: The game is named after the Cool Sword Slash uses to slice up enemies throughout every level.
- Weaponized Headgear: Kane, besides using his, erm, cane, also wears a hat that can be flung like a projectile before returning to his head.
- Wolverine Claws: The skinny, purple mutants with Creepily Long Arms have long, blade-like claws in place of fingernails used for attacking Slash.
- Xtreme Kool Letterz: It's X-Kaliber, not "Excalibur".
