82. Samurai-Ghost | TG16 | 1992 | 5/10
As I understand it, Samurai-Ghost is actually a sequel to an earlier entry in its series. Anyway you play as a samurai ghost, yes, who marauds through ancient Japan, killing all sorts of traditional Japanese ghosts and demons. The gameplay is very simple platforming and sword slicing, you're always moving to the right, acting as a yōkai mower. The backgrounds are pretty decent, the enemies are well drawn, but the OST is kinda bleh. The gameplay itself gets very repetitive quickly, and overall this is a fairly easy game. If you're looking for a horror game to play on TG16, and you've already beaten Splatterhouse a hundred times, Samurai-Ghost will do I guess. The coolest thing in this game was seeing a boss commit seppuku after you beat him. So make of that what you will.
83. Dracula: The Undead | Atari Lynx | 1991 | 3/10
As a proud Lynx owner, you probably wished desperately to play a Dracula themed adventure game on it, right?
Of course not, but Atari still made one anyway. Let's talk about the good first. So this is the classic Bram Stoker tale, and even goes as far as to include Bram Stoker himself narrating the story. The player takes the role of Jonathan Harker as he tries to escape from Dracula's Castle. Doing so involves typical adventure tropes like examining, taking, using, opening etc. Graphically Dracula: The Undead is kinda cool, as the whole aesthetic is done up in a sepia tone. For being as limited as the hardware is, this game manages to capture the spooky atmosphere it was going for with aplomb. The idea of using dual rotary dials on the bottom of the screen, to perform game actions, was rather innovative. Cutscenes are well rendered and capture the narrative well. Yeah that's about all the good.
The bad is simply this adventure game is terribly designed. Yes there are completely illogical puzzles at times. Yes we're talking absurd amounts of inane backtracking through multiple mazes. How do you like the idea of hidden exits you absolutely cannot see? Or new objects appearing in places you've already previously searched for no apparent reason? Howabout the fact you can die and lose progress? Lose progress? Why yes, because you cannot save your game. At all. Not even a password. Yes this is a portable adventure game which you must beat in one sitting. So the only way to beat it, is to continue to replay up until the last part you were at before, and then blindly beat your head against your Lynx until something finally solves itself. Or just give up and use a walkthrough like a sane individual. By the way, you have to constantly and blindly make "notes" as you play (it's a feature). If you miss making even one note, you will get a bad ending.
While I can certainly appreciate the technical work behind Dracula: The Undead given its platform, I simply can't forgive the horrible gameplay. This is simply a game that does not respect its player's free time whatsoever. So much stuff makes no sense here. At one point I couldn't climb a ladder because a horse suddenly appeared on it. And did you know that regular fishing line and a small hook can support the full weight of a grown man? I was equally appalled and impressed with how ridiculous this experience was. Ugh! I'm afraid the only thing Dracula is sucking here is every ounce of fun from your Lynx.
