Sadly, I had forgotten all about this little gem. The last time I played it must've been around it's release. While recently going through the collection, I decided to throw it in and jog my memory. Well, needless to say, this one's gonna remain near the top of the NES pile from here on >:b. Oh yes, this game is quite the little treasure. It is sad when I think how nothing that's come down the pipe for these 128 bit wonder machines has delivered the same level of enjoyment as this simple 8-bit game. I think I need to find the PCB. ;)

The gimmick of the game is that you can attack and defend at any moment, whereas in your traditional action title of this era, you could never really defend, only dodge. This was my first game with such an innovation, and I was fascinated. The way the game functions is that attacking is done with the B button, defending the A button, and you can jump by pressing Up on the d-pad. You can defend in 4 directions by holding A and either Down, Up/Forward, Up, or leave the pad neutral. Your shield can pretty much guard against anything including projectiles to melee attacks. HOWEVER, guarding will not keep an enemy from walking through you, and there are two instances where guarding is ineffective; against one boss who swings a large mace, and against a special attack from the red default enemies. Doing the latter will actually disarm you of both sword and shield, and you're only able to punch and kick until you get them back.

A highly addictive and fun game. Capcom should definately release the arcade version of this in a future compilation