Deliverance: Stormlord II is the sequel to Stormlord and was published by Hewson Consultants in 1990. Programming and art were once again handled by Raffaele Cecco and Hugh Binns respectively, with game design by Paul Chamberlain and Barry Simpson.

It’s a single-player platform game where you once again take control of Stormlord to rescue kidnapped fairies from the evil forces of the defeated Black Queen; fighting from ‘Hell’, all the way up to ‘Heaven’.

Stormlord II is split into three multi-load levels, each divided into two sections, with a boss battle and a bonus stage at the end of each level. This time Stormlord is physically larger and can do multiple jumps, rather than a single flying jump. He can shoot like before but can also carry a secondary weapon this time, which can be collected and used as necessary. The game is less about exploration, using items, and collecting fairies, and more about shooting enemies, survival platforming, and making it to the end of a level.

The scrolling isn’t as smooth as the first game and the graphics are arguably less interesting. Bonus stages are confusing too; I couldn’t find any English instructions for the game so had no idea what was going on in them. I think you have to climb the hearts like a staircase to catch the fairies, then collect the coins they drop, but I’m not entirely sure.

Stormlord II does have some nice touches, though, like the dragons that fly in and drop green goblins down on you, the twinkling stars, and the way Stormlord explodes when he dies (his arms and legs fly off, leaving his heart in the middle). There’s also a cool dragon-riding section, where Stormlord jumps onto a flying beast and his shooting powers increase, turning the game into a horizontal shooter for a while. And if you can make it to part three there’s even a surprising Asteroids-style section where you shoot planets that break apart into smaller chunks.

Stormlord II retains the basic DNA of its predecessor, but is a different game overall. It’s pretty good, but not what I would call a ‘classic’. It was later ported to the Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC, and was also re-made in 1992 for the Amiga, Atari ST and Macintosh under the title of just “Deliverance“.

More: Deliverance: Stormlord II on Wikipedia
More: Deliverance: Stormlord II on World of Spectrum