The ring of Arkista has been stolen by ninja!
Stages in this game range from simple forests mazes, to small dungeons, though you do come across one village early in the game, which is the city of Arkista that the game manual speaks of (hmm, doesn't look like much), now abandoned and overrun with the Shogun's minions. Christine's journey will take her from the Phoenix Volcano near the very start of her quest, to the now seemingly abandoned Arkista, a Maze of the Undead, a port, Marble Castle, Harpy Lair, an old Elven Graveyard, the House of Fangs, Dread Dungeon, Last Chance Bridge, and finally the Shogun's Ninja Fortress.
In each stage you have to obtain a key which will appear in a designated place, and only after a certain number of enemies are killed, once you collect it you can exit the stage. Exits will appear as doors, or as stairwells, though with the later, further in the game they will clutter the screen with false exits, picking the wrong one usually resulting in extra enemies appearing to attack you. There are also places where certain walls, rocks, trees, and coffins can be broken by pressing against them, sometimes as shortcuts, many times necessary to passing the stage, and then some only can be broken once you've obtained the key.
Your health is not restored after every stage, instead you must rely on luck to drop you a bag that may heal you some, or any potions that you happen to have on hand, but there are a few places, always underground or fortress type stages, where you'll come across a block or circle with a cross on it, touching or walking onto one of these altars will replenish all of your health as well as damaged armor, though you can only receive its blessings once each.
Christine is armed with a bow and an unlimited supply of arrows, this is her main weapon, though, as with most action games, she will also find extra, one time use sub-weapons and other items, collecting them from sacks dropped by defeated foes. Item drops are in the form of fire wands, thunder wands, holy sticks, ninja stunners, cure potions, and whatnot, and if you're lucky, you many also find some better armor for your elven heroine as well as increasing the power of her shots with better bows and stronger arrows.
The fire wand once used will last for an entire stage, even if you die, or even continue, once you get to the next stage you'll lose its power, but with it you can blast powerful fireballs, and can fire through walls. The thunder wand will destroy all enemies on screen, granted that they are weak against it of coarse. The holy stick does the same, but only affecting the undead. Ninja stunners, this item works only on ninja, stopping their movements for a brief instant, not much good on the later loops of the game though, as by then it has very little effect. As for the cure potion, it'll restore all of your health, including your armor. At first you'll only be able to carry up to 4 items at a time, but as with everything else, randomly a collected sack will give you an extra space in your inventory to carry more goodies.
Armor in this game will be obtained in this order: leather armor, shield, gauntlet, helmet and mantle, with each you'll be able to take an extra hit, the armor taking the impact for you. You begin the game with 5 hearts, armor is nothing more than a fancied up extension of your health. The type of bows, as well as arrows that she'll upgrade to are as follows: short, cross, middle, long, giant, elf, and ultimate. If failing to gain enough power as you near the last few stages, with neither enough strength, nor the proper items, your chances are slimmed in finishing your quest.
All power-ups appear randomly after an enemy is killed, in the form of a bag, yet the contents are unknown until you pick it up, even then, still you may be puzzled as to what you got if it isn't an item that makes itself shown in your inventory at the bottom of the screen, such as the type of bow or arrows that you currently have. But before each stage begins, you can press the select button to view your status, you'll see a picture of your heroine and her name, race type, sex, and where she's from, the stage you are about to start, the type of bow and arrows that you have, as well as armament, perishable items, and elven treasures found. It certainly is helpful to know how strong she is, just too bad you can't access this menu during combat.
On the sub-screen below the playing field, this is where your items are stored, to access them press the 'B' button (or start), this'll pause the action on screen and you'll be able to use the d-pad to highlight the box for the item in which you want to use, then press 'A' to activate it, or 'B' again to cancel. Its pretty simple. During action 'A' button is for firing, Christine will shoot an arrow with each press, her arrows can travel about 5-6 blocks distance, and she can only fire in the four standard up, down, left, right directions, no diagonals unfortunately, this goes for walking as well.
There is just one issue I have with the control, the one single problem with it is that when you press to turn any one direction, Christine will take a step in that direction, instead of simply turning first as with most games, this will put you in harm's way more than a few times as you try to turn to shoot an enemy sneaking up on you, and end up walking into it instead. At first, in the first quest, its not too much of a problem once you get used to it, but later it may just possibly be this elf's last steps.
Sometimes I think these programmers are just ruthless, they just couldn't settle with having you complete the game once, instead, in order to see the ending, you must play through each of the 31 stages in the game 4 times, that's a total of a 124 stages! The first time through the game is rather enjoyable, but as you progress through each successive loop it starts becoming maddening. In the first quest everything moves at a fair pace, as well as taking a fair number of hits, but by the time you reach the 2nd quest everything moves so fast that you are unable to outrun them, and beyond that, forget it, if you aren't able to kill them before they are upon you, its very difficult to get away or even hit them, resulting in many "cheap" deaths.
Also, besides enemies being much faster each successive quest, ones that shoot can now shoot through walls. Another thing, many of the enemies that you could destroy with the thunder wand, and holy stick in the 1st quest, are now seemingly invulnerable to them or simply just take more uses for it to really have an impact on destroying them, though there still are a few select undead that the holy stick will still kill.
And to top it off, you have very little, if any, invulnerability time at all after taking a hit, an enemy can continue to drain your health as long as they are touching you. Since items are dropped randomly, sometimes you will fail due to not having the right equipment for the situation, then other times you may get lucky and have Christine up to full power before even finishing the 1st quest. Randomness is sometimes a good thing for challenge, to make you constantly guess a new strategy, but it can also be a real pain, as it sometimes is in this game.
Enemies range from flying foes that move in wavy or diagonal ricochet patterns, to various walking ones that either beeline straight towards you or try to sneak up along your side for a better attack angle, some even work as a team to take you down, as well as some stationary ones that shoot the occasional shot. There's goblins, zombies, skeletons, slimes, bats and spiders, as well as winged demons, evil faeries, and big ass ogres and more, though many aren't much different from any other, many of them behaving exactly the same as another. There are only a few bosses in the game, aside from the Shogun, there's a manticore and a vampire, but they prove little challenge as they pace up and down a narrow vertical passage within their chamber, only being dangerous if you step out in front of them. No matter what quest you're on, the bosses always stay consistently easy, and with the fire rod they're a cinch.
The later levels in each quest have one of the most persistent and dangerous foes you'll ever face in most any comparable game...ninja! Ninja are incredibly fast, can jump over walls, have both short and long range attacks, do a lot of damage (can kill you in a second), and take more than a few hits to kill, as is being that almost every room with ninja in it also has a leader ninja whom is much stronger than the rest. Your only chance in the later loops of the game is to hope for lots of ninja stunners, because if you don't put them down quick enough, there's very little chance of getting away or killing them once they're atop you, and they always attack in large, well coordinated groups. But what good are stunners if your attack power is too low? Probably a good idea to save some fire wands as well for the last few stages, being able to blast them through the walls before they reach you.
Once you beat the final boss, Shogun, the first time, you will receive Arkista's Ring. This ring will be crucial for the later loops of the game, as it can restore lost hit points as you walk, but even so, that alone won't save you from foes that can kill you quicker than the ring can heal you, namely ninja. There is also another extremely useful artifact, the Elven Mirror, dropped randomly as with every item minus the ring, with this in your possession you'll be able to block any shot fired at you, including ninja shuriken, and the Shogun's powerful lightning beams. And there's also an item called the Wealth Amulet, another random drop, it'll increase your score with every step.
The graphics are decent, but nothing that'll jump out at you, no exciting effects, no large bosses, or anything else of the such, but they'll do and they're pleasing on the eyes. The music, while there aren't very many tunes, is both pleasant and instantly catchy, and ever memorable, ranging from serene to sinister. There's no story to speak of in game whatsoever, I don't care, I'll make up my own, but if you have the manual available that'll make it all clear to what the game is about, regardless as with most action games on the NES, knowing the story isn't necessary. The linearity of the game doesn't offer much depth, but if I wanted that I'd play something else, but this game is easy to pick up 'n play with its simple gameplay without having to feel committed, except with the fact that you have to play through it several times to get an actual ending.
The game starts out easy, but later proving continues invaluable, yet the game allows only limited continues, 10 total, after that its game over. I've only beaten the entire game twice at the time of posting this review, rarely ever do I have the patience to bother playing further once I use up my 1st continue, if surrounded by ninja and having nothing to keep you going, its already a lost cause. Playing the 1st quest, the game is rather enjoyable, its only if you are looking to see the ending and having to play through the game 3 more times, each being much harder than the last, that its no longer fun. The Ninja in Arkista's Ring are the cheapest enemy I've ever encountered.
Though it has a few frustrating gameplay flaws, Arkista's Ring is still a decent, charming little game worth giving a try at least once, at least for the 1st quest. I play the game quite often, which I do enjoy every time, yet rarely ever with the intent to finish it in its entirety, playing the same stages over and over again I find to be unnecessary monotony (Ghosts 'N Goblins ain't got nothing on this). Put yourself through the torture of beating the whole thing once, getting that out of the way, after that its better to just play it simply for the quick fun that the first romp through offers, beating the Shogun in the 1st quest, watching his castle crumble, then ending it with good feeling towards it.