Duel (1989) 🔗

Kure Software Koubou isn’t exactly a famous name in the West, but in Japan their line of fantasy strategy games enjoyed some influence, most notably being cited as an inspiration for the Fire Emblem series. The evocative cover art by no one lesser than Yoshitaka Amano probably helped them quite a bit with that, but it seems the covers were as far as the budget took them, cause for the in-game graphics of their 1989 title Duel they plundered the Frazetta chest like few others. The first screen of the title sequence only incorporates one character from a black-and-white illustration featured in some editions of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Swords of Mars, but his pose seems to have been cloned and increasingly modified for the entire warrior party of four.

This is followed by a collage of different scenes, all of which feature elements from at least one Frazetta painting. The only character I couldn't find in a Frank Frazetta original is the soldier jumping for the head kick in the big center piece – that comparison instead comes from an anonymously credited cover painting for the first issue of Spanish fantasy and sci-fi comic magazine Cimoc. I’m sceptical about taking it for the direct influence of the Japanese game, though, especially as the rest of the art leans so heavily on Frazetta, so there might be a lost(?) work of the master that forms the missing link for both of them.

Finally, the panel signalling your loss in a battle takes two fallen Mongol warriors from one of his heavily fictionalized depictions of Kubla (sic) Khan, omiting their mourning sovereign and putting them closer together instead.