Arkista’s Ring Review

Once upon a time in a faraway land, a very strange little cultural mashup occurred. A big ol’ meany head Shogun went and stole a ring and the whole world got sad. So Christine, who is an elf, said she didn’t want the world to be sad anymore. She took her pew-pew bow and went out on the hunt to get that pre feudalistic Japanese ruler and get that ring back and then… I guess we party?

Sammy isn’t really known for creating art with their games. They did Amagon and, well, that’s a game to be sure. The plot is pretty standard for the time and I’m sure the shogun thing was a translation decision and not actually what was written. Just look at the box. That don’t look like no shogun I ever did done see.

Gameplay is Zelda style. Kind of. It’s a top down action game where Christine has to fire her pew-pew bow at all sorts of not very nice things. There’s bears, ninjas, soup, pigs, wizrobes, bats… your standard bad guy selections. Movement is alright though enemies are better at it. The bow is slow and the arrows not terribly strong but there are power ups a plenty to increase Christine’s chances of not-die.

Those power ups come in the form of armor to increase health, magic weapons to up damage, and the all important mega-crush. There are others I’m sure but I just don’t remember them.

It can get a little hectic at times as some of the baddies are downright ruthless. Which is in stark contrast to Christine having lots of ruth. Every stage has a key you need to find by defeating X amount of enemies or location a magic bush or something. After every few stages you’ll move onto a new area and have a “boss stage”. There’s no real bosses in the game, there’s just a harder level once in a while.

Graphics are decent. Nothing is super duper but the game looks good enough. Better than Amagon that’s for sure. Christine is very clearly elfin in her features in both the game play and pause screen. Enemies are sufficiently not Christine. Backgrounds are a little boring but they are varied. That’s really all I got for you.

Music on this one is kind of all over the place, much like Amagon. The title screen theme is fantastic. Legit one of my favorite opening title themes on the NES. Right up there with Legend Of Zelda, Legacy Of The Wizard, Mega Man 2, you get the idea. The stages have a small variety of different themes and most of them are good. Solid effort, Sammy-wammy.

This is a game that I think if I owned when I was a kid I’d have played the heck out of. It’s like Zelda enough to scratch that itch for me but not so confusing in terms of puzzles and exploration as the game is stage based. However what it lacks in stumbling around in the dark it makes up for with more hectic and frantic combat. It’s more action than adventure.

This is also one of those NES games you have to beat multiple times to get the true and final ending. Zelda you had to do it twice. Ghouls n’ Ghosts I think ditto. Metal Storm has Expert mode after you go through once. Arkista’s Ring? 4 times. All 31 stages, 4 times. Getting progressively harder each time. That’s a no thanks for me.