Demon's Crest (SNES) - Guest Post

GreatOldOne shows some screenshots of the start to the second sequel to classic Game Boy game 'Gargoyle's Quest'!

This is a spinoff of the incredibly awesome Ghosts 'N Goblins series starring one of the classic enemies from the series, a Red Arremer, the annoying flying red demons who love to swoop down and murder you as you struggle to do ANYTHING to them.

The game starts with an incredibly long sequence where you can't do anything, featuring a dragon slowly making his way to the arena you're standing in for some reason.

That little red guy is Firebrand, the hero of this game (who has an upcoming appearance in Ultimate Marvel VS Capcom 3 for the PS3/Xbox 360). Firebrand can jump and spit fire out of his mouth, but he is completely unable to crouch. He also has a neat trick where he flies if you hit the jump button a second time while in the air. While flying, you can move left or right without losing any vertical distance, although you are unable to go any higher.

Only just getting used to how he works, I die like an idiot on the first enemy in the entire game. And then I have to sit through the intro sequence again. The second time going, I figure out I can make him spit fire where I'm standing, then jump and fly over it while spitting my own fire back at him. Repeating this enough times kills the dragon and I'm free to leave the arena.

And then suddenly... the HUD appears. It seems I have 4 life total and lost 2 of it fighting the dragon. I guess that's my fire breath in the top right, along with two empty spots for other abilities I might gain in the future. I try to see if I can blow up the torch like in Castlevania, but no dice.

As I leave that little ledge, the dragon who is evidently still alive forces his head through the door and starts shooting fire at me again. Thankfully, he is no match for the mighty Firebrand! After I kill him, he drops an item which increases my maximum life by one, and fully replenishes me. Then the screen fades out, and back in to a new area.

After going through a few generic mobs, I come across this statue. Using Firebrand's mighty fists, I break it open (since he can destroy objects in the background), causing it to awaken as another boss!

This dude can fly, which is kind of annoying, but he's really easy to dodge. If you don't kill him in time, he turns back into a statue and you have to punch him again, but he keeps all the damage he had from before.

Here is the health-increasing orb for your viewing pleasure. Touching it instantly increases your max health, and then teleports you to the next area.

This place is pretty cool, and gets you used to Firebrand's unique brand of movement. In addition to flying, Firebrand can also grab onto walls and then jump off them, allowing him to scale them quickly. Those little pillars crumble after you stand on them, so you have to jump off and fly pretty quickly. You can stop flying and quickly start again in order to adjust your height just right in order to shoot certain enemies.

Going down this gigantic ditch, I find a hidden item, and nab it quickly before scaling the wall back up.

This bit is awesome. These floating platforms either move up and down or left to right in a pattern, and you have to jump and fly in order to reach them (often by clinging to the side and jumping up. Sometimes you can't reach a platform without jumping up the cliff on the side, which if you touch crumbles away to expose toothy plant monsters. The cliff also have overhangs preventing you from simply ignoring the floating platforms.

Eventually I reach the top. I really like the way Firebrand controls, but the lack of ducking sort of annoys me, since you can't shoot anything on the ground. Luckily, none of the enemies so far are too short to hit, but this pot is unless you're at the right angle on the hill.

Yet another boss. Just so you know, there has only been a single room in between each of these guys. It's not even been 2 minutes since the last guy. Unlike the first two, this guy introduces himself to you, by name even. He's much more annoying to fight than the first two, but eventually I'm able to figure out how to fly over/walk under his dive attacks and shoot him to death.

After I beat him, he flies away while saying we will meet again, and drops something. I pick it up, and the game fades out and back in to...

...a world map. I wasn't expecting that. Seems like this game is going to be quite big. I fly over to a small hut.

Apparently it's a shop, but I wonder why he's asking to 'test my skills'.

I decline for now, since I want to check out the other area I can go to.

This place looks like an abandoned village.

Man, what happened here? There are bodies everywhere. It's actually kind of terrifying to see a corpse like that, halfway out the window with others in the room behind him.

Pressing the start button, I open a menu where I can change my 'crest', which changes gameplay in quite a significant way.

Now I am an earth-powered Firebrand. Shouldn't I be Earthbrand now? Anyway, I lose the ability to fly, but now my spit travels along the ground (thus the 'too small to hit thing' is no longer an issue) and I can also charge forward at an increased speed.

There's still someone alive in this village! I'm not sure who the 'general' is, or what exactly my 'uniform' is. What, the blue bands on my arms and legs? That is literally the only thing Firebrand is wearing.

These torches spit fire out whatever side you are on, and also sometimes sprouts flames from the top. Not too annoying.

And then I get killed by the water. You take damage over time while you're in it. I actually REALLY like this game, and even though not being able to crouch is kind of a bummer, Firebrand has such slick control it doesn't really matter. This actually has some of my favourite controls out of any platformer I've already played. I'm probably going to come back and finish it later, but I'm stopping for now.