Sentences written about this title, gathered by type from the Japanese and English Wikipedia articles (as of 2026-8-30).
Electronic Gaming Monthly gave the SNES version their "Game of the Month" award, praising its dark tone, amazingly smooth animation, complex and intelligent gameplay, and the ability to kill prisoners after getting information from them.
GamePro gave the SNES version a positive review, calling it "Flashback with an attitude".
Nintendo Power praised the game as "Total fun!" noting its animation and sound quality and stated that it had better play control than games like Out of This World, Prince of Persia and Flashback but was "still a bit slow".
While noting that the game was over two years old by the time it was released for Macintosh, Next Generation gave this version a positive review as well, concluding that "at the very least, Blackthorne is one of the best—and only—action games to come out for the Macintosh in the last year".
IGN rated the game 90th on their "Top 100 SNES Games of All Time".
In 2018, Complex placed Blackthorne at 96th in their "The Best Super Nintendo Games of All Time".
There were also plans to port the game to PlayStation and Sega Saturn, but those plans were cancelled.
A 3DO version was showcased by Interplay at E3 1995, but the port was never released for unknown reasons.
They particularly praised its detailed graphics and stronger emphasis on action over puzzle-solving as compared to similar games.
Nintendo Power praised the game as "Total fun!" noting its animation and sound quality and stated that it had better play control than games like Out of This World, Prince of Persia and Flashback but was "still a bit slow".
While noting that the game was over two years old by the time it was released for Macintosh, Next Generation gave this version a positive review as well, concluding that "at the very least, Blackthorne is one of the best—and only—action games to come out for the Macintosh in the last year".
In 1995, Total! ranked the game 49 on its Top 100 SNES Games, writing: "It's a bit like Flashback, only it's more action based.
In the "Cross Review" feature of the magazine Famitsu, the four reviewers gave 8, 7, 7, and 7, for a total of 29 out of 40. In the "Game Report Card" reader poll run by Family Computer Magazine, it scored 18.5 out of 30, as shown below.
Interplay had intended to port the game to Sega Genesis but instead did so for the Sega 32X.
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