Necroscathe was made for Week of Zeux competition back in 2001. I don't know what to say for Skylark, but Lancer has absolved himself of responsibility for creating this game.

This was made back when sprites were new in Megazeux. Back then, this would have been pretty impressive by itself. However, there are a few pretty serious problems with it...

Your weapon is the Necroscathe, a staff with the power of necromancy. Basically, you swing it and wait for enemies to walk into it. If an enemy gets too close to you before you start swinging it you'll suffer some damage. If an enemy is touching the player they will suffer constant damage. Lancer offset this by giving the player 4000 health, with no health powerups in the game. I completed the game with barely 2% of that left. So it worked out pretty well in that regard!

Unfortunately most of the difficulty comes from the fact that a bug prevents you from hitting enemies from either their south or east edges and they can block pathways and constantly drain your health. Sometimes the only way to proceed if you're heading north or west on a board is to enter and re-exit and try to pass them again. If this bug didn't exist the game would be extremely easy.

I was tempted to give the game 3 stars because in a weird way it actually makes the game more fun. The fact that I completed it with almost no health left shows at least some effort at balancing!

The game's aesthetics aren't bad. Lancer X and Skylark both made levels (Skylark's contribution is the desert level). However, Skylark's art for the player is terrifying, both the sprite and portrait. Her black scleras and blue pupils on the title screen are particularly unsettling. I'm not kidding, this is the stuff of nightmares. Very nice use of color otherwise, though! Music is appropriate for the game, and it's some good stuff for the most part. Very well chosen, I think.

This is an example of a game that didn't age well. The stuff Lancer X makes nowadays is a million times better.