Getsu Fūma Den (NES)

Wikipedia assures me that text says 'Getsu Fūma Den', meaning 'Legend of Getsu Fūma', and I'm willing to believe them.

You know, I don't think he actually killed any of those people, they look like they've been dead for years. He just found a pile of old bones to pose on because he thought it made him look cool.

Damn, I guess it's not difficult to find a pile of bonus around here. There are mountains of them, plus skulls big enough to build a house out of.

I should probably go venture forth and seek out adventure or whatever.


LATER.

My heroic journey across the overworld has been entirely uneventful so far. No songs will be sung of this day.

But this tent looks like it might be worth investigating.

Oh right, the game is Japanese isn't it? Well I guess I'll leave this woman alone with her skulls then, because I don't understand a word of what she's saying.


LATER.

Wow, these skulls seem to stretch across the whole damn continent.

I hope this door leads to something I can use my sword on, because so far my legendary quest has been more of an afternoon stroll across the bone fields.

Excellent, the game's turned into a platformer and finally there's some people trying to kill me!

I wish he'd wander towards me with a sword or something instead of throwing rocks from a distance though. I've only got a short melee range so he's probably going to hit me before I hit him.

Whoa, Getsu Fuma can really jump. I don't even need to fight these guys, I can just leap over them.

It seems that enemies sometimes drop cash when they die, so I should probably stop avoiding them and get back to slicing.

Though I wish they'd stop dying inside the floor, where I can't grab their money.

I left the dungeon through an exit on the other side and rejoined the path, but it's led me to a fork. Each direction leads to another dungeon, either could be the right way to go.

But I'll go south.

A health potion? A vase? Whatever it is, it might come in useful, so I'll grab it.

And then I fell into a hole and died.

I liked these floating enemies better when I wasn't trying to carefully jump from ledge to ledge across bottomless pits. Enemies drop spirits when they die, refilling my health bar slightly when I grab them (it's the bottom one on the top left labelled いのち), but that doesn't do me much good when I'm instantly killed by a single mistake.

I lost all my lives by falling in holes, but the game just kicked me back to the world map and let me continue. I didn't see anything with a number on it so it's possible I have infinite continues.

These axe throwing enemies must be intimidated by the scary face drawn on my breastplate, because they keep backing away from me. Which is kind of awkward because my sword is not a ranged weapon, and throwing axes kinda are.

Hah, those axe flinging bastards can't run away from me down here. I'm safe in the... purple acid? Damn, this is eating away at my health bar! Change of plan, I'm taking the top route instead.

These floating heads are actually really handy for getting health and cash. They're relatively non-threatening, easy to hit, and if I walk away and come back they respawn indefinitely. As long as I don't make any stupid mistakes I can fill my health bar here.

Uh, what? How am I supposed to get past this?

Seems that the only way out is the way I came in. Maybe I have to go off and find a bomb, then come back.

That's got to be a shop. Maybe they sell bombs there.

Holy shit, what's wrong with your face? Is he wearing white gloves, or a purple mask, or is he just ill?

Hey, there's a potion thing like the one I collected before, plus an orb and a... new sword? Awesome, I'm going right back down that cave and hacking up floating heads until I can afford that blade.


MUCH LATER.

Well it turns out that I can't hack through walls with potions, orbs or swords, so I'm trying the other path instead.

I don't know what he's saying, but I'm getting a bad feeling about this somehow.

He gives me a yes/no choice, I go with yes.

He threw me into a boss fight! Next time a guy with a skull for a face asks me a question, I'm saying 'no'.

Gotta say I'm not entirely surprised by this outcome. Shame there's no boss health bar though, I would have liked to have seen how close I got to killing him.

Well that was a dead end so now I've got to go all the way back, through every dungeon on the way. This game is crying out for some rpg stats for my hero. Sure it has money to collect, so that wasn't an entirely wasted trip, but it'd be nice if dungeons got easier the more I had to backtrack through them.


LATER.

Oh no, it's the skeletal remains of fallen vampire killers! With... bone whips? Ew.

I'm not sure what's going on with the background there. I mean I get the skulls, but what's up with the horizontal lines? It's like... the 80s in here or something.

First I had dead Castlevania heroes to fight, and now I've got metroids to deal with too?


MUCH MUCH LATER.

That's interesting. Little skeleton enemies have invaded my overworld map. I can't do anything about them here though, except try to dodge them.

Hitting an enemy sends me to the middle of this level and I have to fight my way out. It seems like the same place each time, though I can choose what I end up fighting through by what exit I head for.

This time I decided to go right and got pounced on by a squad of evil kangaroo demons.


LATER.

The path leads to this door. This is where my destiny has taken me, and where the next great chapter in my legend shall begin!

Oh, the door's locked.

Well, uh okay. I guess I'll be going then. Going off to play a different game that is. Hah!