Holy Diver (NES)

Apparently this has no official connection with the Dio song, the developers were probably just metal fans. Though this guy does kind of look like the barbarian Dio plays in the music video...

Sadly despite the English title, this never actually got a release outside of Japan.

The hero reminds me of one of the Belmonts from the Castlevania games. He even stomps around in the same way.

Okay, first problem. I'm on a cliff, and there's nowhere to go but down.

No falling damage then? Excellent, though not a huge surprise really.

It'd be funnier though if he'd done a Prince of Persia and cracked his head open on the rocky floor.

This is still reminding me a lot of Castlevania, with guys swarming in to die to my whip fireballs, and flying enemies swooping down at me.

Shame I can't shoot out the lights for heart ammo in this though.

The fireball attack only has a tiny range so it's not really much different from Belmont's whip. There's even a bit of a delay to it. This hero can steer himself in the air though.

It looks decent enough for a Famicom game, though the music's not as good as in the Castlevania games.

There seems to be more creatures swarming out to kill me than in a typical Castlevania game, and it seems they're a bit picky about where they like to be shot. C'mon, my fireball is half embedded in his head, why won't he just die? I guess to kill these two I'll need to jump down in the pit with them.

Hey, they dropped a heart. And it's actually a healing item in this, which I'm not complaining about.

Wow they are really pouring in now. I feel like I'm playing a shoot 'em up, killing waves of incoming enemies.

Hey, it's a thing...  I wonder what that does.

The menu screen isn't letting slip any clues about what it is or why I should have it. But it does mention I've got some twin fire magic on me. Which might be handy if I can figure out how to active it.

Ah, I can switch to blue mode at any time to active my magic. Shockingly it seems that 'twin fire' just gives me two fireballs. Though they've got a bit of range on them now. I'd better turn that off now though as I've only got 22 shots left of it before I use up all of my 'M'.

I tried walking up the stairs Castlevania style, but it seems I've got to jump up them.

Some of these breakable blocks contain health and magic pick ups, and they're right next to a transition between floors. If I jump down the hole and climb back up, all the bricks come back, so I'm going to hang around here for a bit and fill up on health.

Annoyingly the M counter doesn't want to go past 50 yet, so I won't be using twin fire for a while.

Damn, these bat... skull... things bob up and down across the screen like Castlevania's Medusa heads, but then they swing back around to fly right at me. It's not so bad when there's only one or two of them on screen, but they just keep respawning!

I have to keep pushing forward or else I'll be stuck hitting these things forever.

Well I fucked that up. But it's okay, I restarted back at the breakable bricks so I'm pretty much right next to where I died.

I know what I'm doing now, all I have to do is... not die.

Damn that corridor is tough. It's like swimming upstream. It's like swimming upstream up a waterfall, only instead of water it's Medusa heads raining down. With a few flying knights in there too to keep things interesting.

There's no saves or passwords, but at least I've got infinite continues. Okay let's try this again.


LATER.

Using a continue put me right back at the start of the game, so I had to play back up to here. I still had the thing I picked up from under the stairs though, so that's saved me all the trouble of walking a couple of steps to the right before jumping upstairs at least.


LATER.

These enemies are relentless, and I'm down to my last sliver of health. But... this one just dropped a heart! Awesome, if I can just grab a couple more of these on the way I think I can actually do this.

Health potion! At least it had better be a potion after forcing me to fight through that corridor.

It's just occurred to me that red has been the universal colour of health potions in games ever since... well probably ever since they started using red hearts to indicate health.

I'm out of the castle already? I assumed I'd be stuck there most of the game.

That castle wall has given me a sudden craving for Battenburg cake for some reason, but I can't let myself get distracted now. For all I know a single death will put me back by the breakable bricks before the corridor of infinite batskulls again.

Hey, it's a little me! 1-ups are very much appreciated.

I seem to have stumbled into a boss fight. I finally have an excuse to switch over to blue mode and unleash some twin fire magic.

Hah, this guy has a range problem with his fireballs too. If I stand here they fizzle out before reaching me.

It seems all I have to do is shoot him a few times, let him jump over me, run away from his fireballs, repeat. As long as I pay attention I think I can win this fight.

Son of a bitch. He can't jump over me this close to a wall as he just bounces off, so I'm trapped. Damn, I think I might have just made this fight unwinnable. I definitely won't be running away from fireballs while I'm stuck here.

This is my last life now. I've been doing alright so far, but now I've ran out of twin fire I don't seem to be hurting him.


Then he kills me and sends me back to the start of the game again. There are some games I can replay over and over again to try new things, find a better route, find secrets, beat my last time etc... but when a game keeps forcing me replay an entire level until I get it right, then I start getting bored, fast. Especially when it wasn't that interesting first time around. So I'm going off to play something else.

But if you're a massive NES Castlevania fan, it might be worth checking out.