This game is so excruciatingly hard. I can’t even say it starts off on a good first impression because the game’s mechanics are so flawed. Why they thought you start with a sword with no projectiles and can even lose it by getting hit a few times. The game plays similar to the Space Harrier series except you’re running on the ground at all times. You can jump and slash with your sword along with charging the sword to power up your attack. My tip is don’t even bother to fight enemies without the projectile. You’ll need to find statues that will give you them but make sure you don’t run past them because the draw distance is so poor and you can only go backwards a little bit. Some stages don’t even let you go backwards. The game’s design is just really inconsistent about scrolling, how enemies move and just where you can go depending on the moment and stage.

The game also likes to have a bunch of gimmicks to spice up the gameplay like a platforming level, a maze level and even a boss rush for the final stage. The game does not run well which is to be expected but it can sometimes chug badly like there was one time it ran at single digits but it was just one time. It’s so easy to get hit in this game especially by the stuff placed like bamboo poles. There’s some parts I’m just unsure how they expected you to even get even close to the end. By stage 4 I had to use save states because it’s just too hard and punishing.

The bosses are also so inconsistent in difficulty. Some of them aren’t too hard but they also randomly like to just make you fight two of them. The worst boss had to be the one made of fire, I just don’t know when the good openings are, he’s so erratic and he throws so many projectiles at you. I don’t even know how you beat these bosses without a projectile, I’m convinced it’s borderline impossible unless I’m missing something. Oddly the final boss isn’t all that hard, the only real challenge is if you do get hit, he can do a lot of damage. Even some of the bosses in the boss rush are easy only because they lack the second copy.

The game is just a mess and surprisingly horrible for Wolf Team standards. Though the game is usually credited to new developer Manjyudo. There’s just nothing fun here and when it gets frustrating, it’s really frustrating. There’s even a 2nd playthrough that I assume is harder but I don’t care enough to try it. I can’t recommend the game unless you really want a challenge. The music at least wasn’t too bad and the sprite art isn’t awful either but that’s the most praise you’ll hear from me. Well at least this wasn’t Manjyudo’s only chance as they would release another PC Engine game that year called…Rock On. One of the worst shmups on the system. Maybe they really are the fault of this game being bad…

Also the game ends on a TO BE CONTINUED. There was no sequel.