Shadow Land/Yokai Dochuki ("Phantom Travel Journal") (ARC, 1987)
Graphics-8 Sound-8 Control-7.5 Challenge-8.5 Story-7
Level Design-6.5 Frustration-9 Fun-6.5 Originality-7
Overall Score-6.5
+ Good art direction, japanese mythology/religion theme, adventure/rpg elements (fairly open ended levels, gambling and shopping, various upgrades), sidekick animals (they won't attack but instead act as a shield of sorts - enemies that walk into them will die), weapon upgrades (rate of fire and strength), movement upgrades (faster movement and longer jumps, faster swimming), some hidden areas, good use of the YM2151 chip, charge attack (need to stand still though and if you charge for too long your character gets stunned for ~2 seconds, you can sort of carry the charge with you as it takes about a second to revert but only the fully charged shot goes through regular enemies), difficulty options (4 levels/ranks- default is A/easiest, coin worth (up to 9 credits)), interesting map feature (shows a nice bird's eye view of the entire area but no topographic specifics), there's a "food" item that lets you regain 6 HP at death, interesting boss fights (summon a flying spirit to fight for you in the first fight), good jump controls and movement speed (after upgrading), five different endings (not a big difference but still - your behaviour in the game determines if you'll end up in heaven or hell or somewhere "in-between", the less points (not shown until the end?) you get in the final level the better and you mustn't collect or kill anything in lvl 5 to go to heaven),
one sequence break (lvl 4 tree part?)
+/- Short default jump height and length (you can buy a cheap upgrade in lvl 2), can bounce on enemies but it's very short and you don't hurt them, some unkillable enemies/traps (small rolling rocks and "mist" ghosts - very hard to avoid the latter in some situations), can't duck or dive, near constant enemy spawning in most segments (there's also a seemingly random element to where something will spawn and what it'll be), can't use the charge attack in water, can't hold more than 9 credits at once, mystery item? - not sure what it does, you lose no money from continuing, a very resilient flying enemy (red demon head) appears if you take too long to beat a level? (could be for other reasons), starts out hard, female nudity,
- Can't continue or shop until the second level, only one life per credit (can't be changed in the options even though there's a slot for it) - pretty big lifebar though, annoying alarm sfx when at low health, plenty of cheap enemy spawn points (breaks flow), some control issues (the boomerang-ish projectile goes too far and takes some time to return which makes the beginning harder, it can also take a suboptimal path when returning and spin around the avatar for a bit longer than it should), poor animal pathfinding and they disappear if they move off screen (the cat will occasionally stop to lick itself so watch out), somewhat loose vertical scrolling, the HUD takes up half the screen space (could've put the map on a separate screen and made it much smaller), rank a (lowest of 4) is default and it's very tough, repetitive enemy roster,
Level Design-6.5 Frustration-9 Fun-6.5 Originality-7
Overall Score-6.5
+ Good art direction, japanese mythology/religion theme, adventure/rpg elements (fairly open ended levels, gambling and shopping, various upgrades), sidekick animals (they won't attack but instead act as a shield of sorts - enemies that walk into them will die), weapon upgrades (rate of fire and strength), movement upgrades (faster movement and longer jumps, faster swimming), some hidden areas, good use of the YM2151 chip, charge attack (need to stand still though and if you charge for too long your character gets stunned for ~2 seconds, you can sort of carry the charge with you as it takes about a second to revert but only the fully charged shot goes through regular enemies), difficulty options (4 levels/ranks- default is A/easiest, coin worth (up to 9 credits)), interesting map feature (shows a nice bird's eye view of the entire area but no topographic specifics), there's a "food" item that lets you regain 6 HP at death, interesting boss fights (summon a flying spirit to fight for you in the first fight), good jump controls and movement speed (after upgrading), five different endings (not a big difference but still - your behaviour in the game determines if you'll end up in heaven or hell or somewhere "in-between", the less points (not shown until the end?) you get in the final level the better and you mustn't collect or kill anything in lvl 5 to go to heaven),
one sequence break (lvl 4 tree part?)
+/- Short default jump height and length (you can buy a cheap upgrade in lvl 2), can bounce on enemies but it's very short and you don't hurt them, some unkillable enemies/traps (small rolling rocks and "mist" ghosts - very hard to avoid the latter in some situations), can't duck or dive, near constant enemy spawning in most segments (there's also a seemingly random element to where something will spawn and what it'll be), can't use the charge attack in water, can't hold more than 9 credits at once, mystery item? - not sure what it does, you lose no money from continuing, a very resilient flying enemy (red demon head) appears if you take too long to beat a level? (could be for other reasons), starts out hard, female nudity,
- Can't continue or shop until the second level, only one life per credit (can't be changed in the options even though there's a slot for it) - pretty big lifebar though, annoying alarm sfx when at low health, plenty of cheap enemy spawn points (breaks flow), some control issues (the boomerang-ish projectile goes too far and takes some time to return which makes the beginning harder, it can also take a suboptimal path when returning and spin around the avatar for a bit longer than it should), poor animal pathfinding and they disappear if they move off screen (the cat will occasionally stop to lick itself so watch out), somewhat loose vertical scrolling, the HUD takes up half the screen space (could've put the map on a separate screen and made it much smaller), rank a (lowest of 4) is default and it's very tough, repetitive enemy roster,
