Beat in slow motion mode. This game was more like Castlevania than other types of 2D platformers. The jump was very high and floaty but you could press down to fall faster, which was very helpful and should be a feature in more such games. Combat was challenging early on due to the lack of speed, damage and reach of your kick moves. The basic standing and jumping kick hit up diagonal and had slow speed, making it not good unless going after an enemy on higher ground. The duck kick was much faster but I still had to be careful to attack from behind or move in and out of range to avoid taking hits. The duck up kick was the best move in the game because it completely negated all momentum of the enemy, allowing easy cheese wins. I even finished off the final boss with this, and some other bosses and mini bosses. It could be combined with jumping to hit aerial enemies but the momentum cancel did not trigger then. Additional kicks were unlocked with xp though I only made it to level 5 out of 7 and never unlocked the last 2 kicks. Killed enemies dropped 3 items which shot upward then spread out and dropped through the screen giving little time to collect them. I had no idea what they were doing so not long into the 1st stage I looked them up; heart for healing, skull for take damage, bottles for mp, crystal for score (lives) and the others for xp. With quick jumping or sliding I could sometimes get 2 of the items, however there was not really enough time to make proper decisions, especially with items going off screen and other enemies and hazards around. Enemies did not respawn and you could not reverse scroll the screen at all, so I missed numerous enemies and their items. Often times my focus was more on grabbing the stuff before it fell off the screen rather than safe efficient combat and platforming. I did not like this aspect. The pickups should have either been bound by collision with the floor or floated where the enemy was killed so there was not a rush to grab them.

My most used kicks were the slide, dive and flying jump, all of which were fast with mobility that could evade damage. Unfortunately they could also lead to death from pits as there was no way to manually stop or save yourself. With the zero reverse scrolling, it was easy to die during the vertical areas simply by jumping and causing the floor you were just on to go just a few pixels off screen, so of course now that means there is a bottomless death pit. Each stage boss dropped magic, which was cast using select and start went into the magic selection menu. Bounce ball was 1st and it was very effective and cheap, making the game play more like Mega Man. The shots came from an orb floating above the guy's head so it was no good for hitting low or even same height enemies. Pretty sure I could shoot straight up but I never saw need for that with how easy up jump kicking was. I used the ball on the final boss where it bounced back and forth until hitting her. A wave beam was a slight upgrade, costing almost twice as much to hit a wide area. Damage seemed about the same and I used it to kill things that were difficult to kick. Lightning did a cone around the character from above, which I used shortly after getting it when surrounded by tough enemies. Then there was an ultimate entire screen lightning nuke that I didn't use, and earthquake that froze enemies for a while. I had enough mp at the end for 1 quake on the final boss but it was so finicky getting close enough to duck kick without taking contact damage that I was save state scumming hard. It was like 1 pixel between safe range to hit and getting hurt. Most of my mp during the game was spent on the 2 healing spells, since hp drops were rare and hp was not restored between areas or at level up. Optimal way to play was to die upon starting new areas to heal to full, but I only bothered once. I never used the decoy spell and never found spike floor protection, projectile shield or ? spell. I did see a couple locations with items floating above spikes, and others high in the air that required the flight spell. I never saw it worth flying in battle or to bypass platforming so the design could have been better. Some enemies were tough but many could be bypassed if you didn't mind forfeiting the loot. Near the end was the most difficult by far as random balls fell across the screen. I took more damage from that than enemies because they moved too fast to dodge, so it was just eat the hits and rush through. Then just before the final boss a gauntlet of shapeshifting enemies, though they did not turn into any bosses or mini bosses. The final boss herself was a slog because she had so much hp. She only did 1 easy to dodge move while teleporting around, and I hit her mostly with slide kick. The trick was to only slide when she was near the center since going towards the edge made it pretty much impossible to avoid damage. Beating the game unlocked a password for hard mode, and there was a 3rd hardest mode after that, but I don't really want to play it again.

There was a lot to like here with the combat, controls and magic. Even though many aspects were better than Shatterhand, the more difficult enemies, pinata but floor is lava loot system, bosses and scrolling made the game less fun. I will give it slightly lower

7.5/10