The Storied Sword

The Mechanics are great, doesn't take very long to get immersed. You are given 2 characters to choose from, both are unique and efficient in their own way. The music and art design is great. If you are a retro nostalgia junky like I, you will not regret this purchase. It is a steal. I would have paid more for this tbh. This game will have you on the edge of your seat whilst wanting to throw the controller @ the screen, bringing back that 8-Bit nostalgia @ its finest I livestreamed my blind playthrough in which I eventually had to end due to having issues with restream servers <3 https://kick.com/kingb33/videos/1fa1213a-7d94-436a-91ac-3962cf5d1993

From the moment I got control of the character, I knew this game was going to be good. Take Ninja Gaiden NES cross it with Batman NES, and you have this game. The controls are excellent, the wall jump feels amazing, jumps are very precise. Unlike Ninja Gaiden you have a lot more control of your character in the air, it's more like Batman NES. There are also subweapons you can use with UP+B like Ninja Gaiden & Castlevania, and a sword upgrade like Ninja Gaiden 3. If you die it is your fault, just like it should be. Thankfully you have unlimited lives even on Hard difficulty because it gets surprisingly hard, don't judge the difficulty or quality by the first level. The game feels just like Ninja Gaiden which is exactly what I wanted. To top it all off, the game is an actual NES game, and ships with the ROM for you to put in an emulator or onto a flashcart to play on your NES or equivalent clone if you want it. The emulator the game ships with is Fceux, which is pretty standard for indie NES games. There is controller remapping, anti-flicker, fullscreen toggle, and smoothing options. The emulator has everything you'd need, and the game feels really good to play. Only criticisms are that I didn't vibe with the music very much, I don't love the graphics but they are serviceable, and the lighthouse boss feels cheap because he doesn't have any tell animations. All of his attacks come out immediately and are chosen randomly from a pool. I'm only on Stage 3, but loving the game. If you like NES games that are hard, do yourself a favor and pick this up. Good price, and support developers making love letters to Batman and Ninja Gaiden because we don't have enough of those. EDIT: Maybe I should not be surprised given that it's an NES game, but the game does not save. You need to beat the game in 1 sitting, and I could not find a save state function. There was an option to "delete save" in the settings of the emulator, so I thought it saves your progress.