It’s time to look at another pretty fun game for the NES. This one has a real story and everything, not much in the way of cutscenes or anything since it’s so old but you at least feel the progression. The gameplay holds up well and the fact that it has an actual end point before the loop is nice even if there isn’t much of an ending. That would have been nice at least to end things on a high note.

The game starts with your character having to head through 5-6 castles to reach the ultimate demon. You fight two powerful bosses in each castle as you go through to the end. Each castle is a maze consisting of tons of rooms everywhere which are around to block your path. It can be difficult to find the right rooms so you really have to use trial and error. As far as I can tell that are no hints or anything that show you the right room right out of the gate. So that means you really have to be vigilant and continue moving forward until you have conquered all of your enemies.

You have your trusty sword at the ready and you can fire off kunai really quickly. As the game goes on you get power ups that let you fire off the kunai in different ways or even upgrade them into fireballs at times. Those are really helpful as well for when you need to land a lot of damage very quickly. From there you’re just beating up on enemies and trying to get to the end. As far as I can tell they never drop health points so if you get hit 3 times then you’re out.

The game is incredibly difficult. Without the Switch Online enhancements like the rewind feature I don’t see how almost anyone could beat the game. It’s incredibly unforgiving with just how tough the enemies are. You’re going to get hit no matter how careful you are and that is especially true for the bosses. They fire at you so far and in the time it takes to turn around to shoot at them you will have already been hit. That’s how fast these guys are.

One boss knocked me out what felt like 100 different times. Every time I was trying to mount a comeback I would get blasted. This just kept happening over and over and over again. The final boss is also really tough although not as intimidating as the second to last one. The game gets major props for actually having completely different designs for all of the boss. No recolors or anything like I’ve seen with other NES titles. No this one kept everything fresh all the way through.

The graphics are definitely solid here. A lot of care was definitely put into them all the way through. Meanwhile the soundtrack is also on point even if it is rather small. On a technical level they did everything they could to support the gameplay which is really what you’re looking for here. There isn’t really any replay value since the game just loops all over once you beat it. That’s to be expected though so no big deal there. The game’s length may not be very long but as long as you have the Switch Online there is no reason not to get it.

A modern day remake of this game would be a lot of fun. I can definitely see this working really well in 3D with a lot of great combos and everything. Throw in a bunch of big budget cutscenes too of course and then you’re really set. Yeah they should definitely start remaking some of these NES titles with modern quality of life updates.

Overall, This is definitely a game that you should check out. The gameplay is on point which is always the most important thing for any game. You will have fun playing it and while the maze elements can get annoying at times, you only have to go down 3-4 fake paths per level. It’s not like they’re completely filling up the map or anything. It’ll help you see just how good your instincts are. Will you fall for every fake path? There’s only one way to find out!

Overall 6/10