Saturday 17 December 2011

Tian Wang Xiang Mo Zhuan (NES)

As you may have gathered from the title, this is yet another unlicenced Chinese game. I don't like reviewing similar games after each other, but that whole world of unlicenced, mostly undocumented games interests me a lot.
It's a beat em up, set, if my interpretations of the images in the intro are correct, in a post-apocalyptic world that has suffered the ravages of both nuclear war and the opening of some kind of evil demon treasure chest.
So, you pick one of four warriors (and if you're smart, you'll pick the orange, umbrella wielding guy in the bottom right of the selection screen) and go about various locations beating up monsters.
The enemies are pretty varied, ranging from aggressive bats and frogs, to humanoid snake and eagle monsters.
Combat itself is okay. There's arent any Streets of Rage-style combos for you normal attacks, though each character does have two special moves, though these two moves are essentially the same for all characters: double-tapping a direction and pressing attack will make your character zoom across the screen, damaging all the enemies they touch (very useful for dealing with the bats, who are awkward to kill with your regular attack), and a projectile move done in the tradional quarter circle forward manner.
As for power-ups, there are the usual health recovery and 1-up items, plus a few other items, that all turn you into some kind of creature (including, but possibly not limited to a dragon, a flying unicorn and a will-o-the-wisp), that give you the ability to fly around, be invincible and kill every enemy you touch for a short time.
This isn't a bad game, it's hard, but not unfair, it doesn't look or sound any worse than your typical NES games, and as far as I know, it isn't just an officially released game with the sprites changed.

3 comments:

  1. Just want to let you know I absolutely love the blog and the selection of games you review. I just found the site an hour ago (from hardcoregaming101) and it's looking like I'm going to be reading all your articles in one sitting lol.

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  2. oh wow, i'm flattered, thanks!

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  3. never beat the game, but it is one of the very few i keep popping in and trying until i will.
    i think i beat the second boss once sofar...
    after every boss you get a weapon/projectile upgrade, really well made game i think.
    Final Fight 3 by Hummer Team is a bit better though.

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