Orsa The Fearless: Trollhold

Following the kidnapping of Skuld and the devastation of the Thing of the North, Orsa sets out to recruit the Svartalfar, the ancient allies of the northern tribes, to her cause of vengeance.

With her go her faithful pet, Karhu the black bear, and Wulf and his Cuhlan mercenary band.

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Yes, we're returning to 7TV our Italian TV remake of the 1980s fictional cult classic fantasy movie, Orsa the Fearless, starring amazonian glamour model Alessandria di Napoli as the titular warrior maiden.

The second scenario of the feature pack, Trollhold, sees Orsa and her chums trying to rescue King Snorri of the Svartalfar from the clutches of the Marsh King.

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Upon making contact with the Svartalfar, Orsa learns that they will only aid her if she rescues their king, Snorri, from the fearsome Jotun of the Trollhold Swamps.

If Snorri still lived he would doubtless be being kept in some dank pit or hole until his fate is decided.

King Snorri was lured into a trap by the grossly cunning Marsh King of the Jotun, who is constantly protected by his loyal brute of a bodyguard, Gudrun the Ettin.

What's more, the Trollhold Marshes are haunted by all sorts of aquatic monsters, including the legendary sharktopus, all teeth and tentacles.

Rescuing King Snorri will be no easy feat.

Nevertheless, Orsa, Wulf and Karhu plunge into the Trollhold Swamps, intent on searching every inch of it for the captured Snorri. Wulf sends his Cuhlan Mercenaries on a sweeping flanking manoeuvre to draw the attention of the Jotun whilst the search continues.

Before long, the travellers have drawn the attention of several hungry sharktopi, which begin slithering and squelching their way towards our heroes.

However, the beasts are no match for the cold steel of Orsa and Wulf, and Karhu proves to have a taste for seafood as the creatures are despatched quickly.

Meanwhile, the mercenaries find themselves assailed by the towering forms of the Jotun lumbering out of the mists. The sounds of battle ring out across the swamp, and Wulf believes his distraction is working.

He is disabused of this notion when the Marsh King, who is too cunning to fall for such a ruse, comes rushing towards them, his bellowing roar and thundering stride knocking both Wulf and Orsa from their feet, leaving them stunned and vulnerable.

Just as the Marsh King seems about to end Orsa's tale with his mighty club, Karhu erupts from the water, distracting him long enough for the prone Orsa to slide her blade in between his ribs, felling the monstrous monarch for good.

Despite having taken significant casualties, the mercenaries begin to get the upper hand on the thinning ranks of Jotun causing them to retreat. Is this another trap?

Small parties of mercenaries are seen prowling through the swamps, taking shots at the huge creatures as they disappear into the mist.

A weary Orsa tries to get to her feet , but is struck down again by the two-headed form of Gudrun, the Marsh King's bodyguard, trying to make up for his failure to protect his king.

It's at this point that Orsa mysteriously disappears from the narrative for some time. Several of her scenes were cut from the broadcast version of the series, more on this later, which gave the impression that Gudrun had slain her. This was not the case.

With Orsa apparently out of the fight, Wulf is also stricken by the fearsome Gudrun and struggles to retain his feet in the face of such an onslaught.

The mercenaries across the swamp are also seen being beset by dangers as the are picked off one by one by the denizens of the swamp.

Wulf distracts Gudrun and fights bravely to give Karhu time to search for Snorri (don't ask me how he was able to communicate with the bear, it probably works a bit like Lassie).

What happens next is the most confusing part of the final edit. Wulf appears to be overcome by Gudrun, who then unleashes the Ymir Mother and her brood from their lair. However, what was meant to happen was that Orsa would reappear, save Wulf's life, slay Gudrun and battle the Ymir. However, the scenes where the scantily clad Orsa was assailed by several pink, fleshy, tentacular appendages were considered far too suggestive, even for Italian TV, and were cut from the final version.

Continuity errors are apparently better that dealing with the censors.

Instead of this climactic fight scene, we cut away to Karhu searching for King Snorri.

Many fans still feel shot-changed to this day given that all the promotional material feature shots of Orsa battling the Ymir Mother.

The Ymir brood (who should have been driven away by Orsa) inexplicably now show up battling the last of the mercenaries.

The Ymir begin to fall to the blades of the mercenaries. Again, Orsa should have joined this fight, however, any and all shots featuring both Orsa and the Ymir were removed from the final cut, and so it appears that the mercenaries are doomed.

The editing decisions made in this episode made for a confusing mess of a TV show. Over the years numerous animators and artists have 're-imagined' what Orsa's battles with the Ymir might have looked like. Given the frankly indecent nature of some of these re-imaginings, the studio was probably right to remove the footage.

Anyway, the final scenes of the episode show Orsa, Wulf and Karhu rescuing Snorri with no clear explanation of how this happened. Snorri pledges the Svartalfar to helping Orsa in their final confrontation with Skadi.

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In game terms, both Wulf and Orsa were defeated by the frankly indestructible Gudrun, and Snorri was never found. However, the battle was closer than it appeared as the loss of several sharktopi (polar bears in the scenario), the Marsh (Mountain) King and some Jotun meant that Matt was taking axed tests for most of the game until the Ymir were released. Annoyingly, he passed them all and then the heroes (i.e. me) went on to fail the first test they were required to take as the scattered soldiers and mercenaries had kept the cast above the axing point despite the failure of the stars.

The final score was 6-3, meaning that Orsa and Wulf will begin the final battle with the weakened status.

I'm not sure when we'll get to the final chapter as we only got through two of the scenarios on the day we played. Hopefully it will not be too long as I have several other feature packs to work my way through.