Maximum Letdown: 8 Eyes (NES)

8 Eyes, developed by Thinking Rabbit and published by Taxan, can best be described as the lovechild of Mega Man and Castlevania. Just like Mega Man, you select stages and have to proceed in a certain order, while it’s graphics and gameplay are vaguely reminiscent of Castlevania. However, it can’t do either right, and is better off being given a $10 million bribe to remain out of all out lives.

Taking place after the apocalypse, you (Orrin and his pet hawk) have to travel the world to find 8 jewels (the titular 8 Eyes) and defeat the 8 dukes, each in a different corner of the Earth, who have them. You can take on the first 7 in any order, and after yo beat them, you are granted access to the house of Ruth, the final level. After beating each stage, you gain a sword, which works on another boss. Of course, also after beating a stage, you sit down and have a cup of tea with the guy whose ass you just kicked. So if nothing else, this game has some of the classiest bosses ever seen in video gamedom. Talking about being mature and taking a loss in stride. Imagine if Gannon sat down and had a beer with Link at the end of the next Legend of Zelda game!

Of course that;s where the praise ends. If you’re playing in two player mode, then the second player controls the hawk and dive bombs enemies. In the one player mode, the player has to control both the guy and the hawk, which makes things difficult. Also, at the end of the game, you have to arrange the jewels in the correct order, or else it’s game over. Also, in one of the biggest screwjobs in gaming, you have to go through the game TWO MORE TIMES in order to get the ‘true’ ending! It’s just like in Super Ghosts in Goblins when you had to go back to the beginning to find the Goddess Bracelet, except you have to endure it two more times with sluggishly god awful gameplay!

Now I will admit, this has some pretty good music for an NES game. Each stage has 3 themes, and they fit well with the background. If only the rest of the game was as meticulously thought out, this could have been a classic instead of a Castlevania wannabe.