Detail i love is how you can choose to not take the boss crystals and play the entire game in the human form. It's a huge challenge, but the gun's hit scan is useful for rapid hits. The fact the games designed around any of the forms makes it very replayable. I enjoy any dark horror themed action platformers, and other than Castlevania or Ghosts n Goblins they're rare. KoD has some great art direction, even if its not the best game ever. Holy Diver for NES is another one Retrobit reprinted but it must be out of print by now.
Good to see you giving to coverage to SNES games as well; to answer what you were wondering about the N64 was out in Spring of 1996 in Japan and of course Autumn 1996 in North America. The Super Famicom persisted a bit longer than the Mega Drive in Japan with quality games still being released as late as 1999 or even 2000. It's astonishing how many quality titles were not localized for the console; I knew of many of them back then thanks to EGM and Gamefan but plenty of others I've only found out about within the last several years. Mega Drive, Super Famicom, PC Engine; it's all good. Actually even though the themes are totally different this game kind of reminds me of the Genesis version of ESWAT; platform/adventure with shooting action and then some kind of transformation later in the game.
@@RetroGamerBoy Yeah there are some mechanical similarities there, though after watching a longplay I think that ESWAT is a tier or two above this one. KOD makes decent use of mode 7 in some instances and later on there are a couple of background settings that stand out however the soundtrack could have been a lot better (subpar by SNES standards) and the stage designs are nothing to write home about.
The gameplay demo makes it look like the SNES version of Alterd Beast or Magician Lord. Then you show the gameplay and start shooting people. I like this style.
I might have to grab this game, such a sick rerelease!! I don’t have a way to play the cartridge though, I guess I’ll emulate it and hold the cartridge like a teddy bear when I play.
SNES cartridges were never cheap and the Japanese ones were the most expensive. Programming on a screen with so few pixels available to search for details must also have been a lot of work, as was the Super Famicom's screen, with its 256 pixels wide. Unfortunately, Nintendo's poor decision on which resolution to opt for created a very serious problem for the Super Famicom due to the inadequate 8/7 ratio on 4/3 televisions. It was a ratio of 1.14 against 1.33 on the monitors of the time, whereas today it would be 1.77, something even more problematic. Taking the vertical resolution as a basis, you could think of a screen like 304x228, something fully possible for the Super Famicom and which would help a lot with the pixel art of the games, instead of the original 512x448 which ended up becoming unfeasible for the system and forcing it to use half resolution. And unfortunately, I really don't like the look of this game.
@@RetroGamerBoy I agree, but a resolution of more than 300 horizontal pixels was sorely missed on the Super Famicom and Nintendo should have ensured this when the console was released at the end of 1990...🤷♂
Just checked eBay and it's stupid expensive. They can keep it. 😂 I got my copy of Rendering Ranger re-release and my polymega recognized. Good to have authentic re-releases and not generic faulty repros.
N64 was quite late a release 1996 1(1997 for us in the UK) Regardless this game was Japan exclusive. I play it with an English translation patch on my SNES mini. It's a shame it never got an MD release as it would probs play better on that hardware. I might have to pick this up as this is actually a very good re release.
I've always enjoyed this game even though it's pretty unforgiving. As someone that's into weird horror/scifi and anime this game's pixel art really appeals to me. It looks like it was inspired by Yasushi Nirasawa's or Keita Amemiya's character designs.