Universal Videogame List - www.uvlist.net

"Mashou" is used in official documentation.

Journey through this 3D looking game to collect the evil magic bells from the 7 bell towers and burn them in the sacred flame.

Mashō literally means "Evil Bell" an is a pun of 魔性 which means meaning "devilishness." It was supposed to be titled "Hell's Bells," in English but this title qualified for Nintendo's unwritten censorship rules. Oddly, there are Holy Crosses shown all through the game and the game is pretty blatant that God himself has personally asked the game's protagonists to complete this quest.


Zerothis - # 2007-12-27 07:56:37

I'm surprised to find this game listed on many 'worst games of all time' lists. Ya, its insanely hard. And true, the character and enemies moves in plain 2D even though the enemies are (not) placed in a weird pseudo 3D non-existent environment. And, I'll admit, generally hidden/invisible entrances are used for required main levels instead of just secret bonus areas. And, ok, 20 hit points for the first enemy encountered in the game that isn't even a boss and doesn't even have a name, and doesn't even have a face, or a brain, or limbs, or multiple colors, is a bit excessive. Oh and instead of finding a way to the remotest part of the dungeons, grabbing the treasure and being teleported out, the player is teleported into the remotest part of the insanely complex dungeons, loses treasures, and must find their own way out. It could be worse, imagine if it had no continue option (which is easily exploited btw. Wimpy). However, I like it for the challenge, I find the false 3Dishness very retro (by 1986 standards), in a good way. This game proceeded [gameid=9176]The Legend of Zelda[/gameid] and in many ways its better, imo. The size of dungeons and the order of their 'completion' are superior. Deadly towers was actually the 2nd NES game I ever played after Super Mario Bros. It took me about 300 hours to beat. This game gets 4.5 stars by me.
Zerothis - # 2007-12-27 07:47:03