Lightning Swords

The Good
Irem has been making arcade games since the early eighties. They started out with fixed-screen shooters that no one heard of outside Japan. Later, they expanded into the American market, releasing their popular shoot-em-up, R-Type. They also experimented with beat-em-ups, and one of these is Lightning Swords (or Ken-Go, as it was known in Japan). It is one of their overlooked titles; not one home system received a port.

The game opens up with a cinematic similar to the one in Ninja Spirit for the TurboGrafx-16, showing a young woman walking toward a tree. She collapses then is brutally murdered by a group of ninjas. You control Blue Dragon (a second player can join in any time as his teammate Red Dragon) as he negotiates a series of landscapes, killing baddies that stand in his way and defeating a boss at the end. After you deal with a boss, it appears as a regular enemy in the game.

Lightning Swords is a cross between two other Irem games. It has the same gameplay mechanics as Ninja Spirit minus the weapons switching; you still have to beat each stage within a time limit, but the timer is represented here as a series of golden balls that gradually deteriorate. Like R-Type, holding down the fire button for a certain time unleashes a powerful blast which proves more effective against end-of-level bosses than it does normal enemies. Power-ups can be collected by smashing the gray pillars along the way, and upgrades to your weaponry can be obtained by collecting swords left behind by certain enemies.

I love the animations of the enemies, especially the monster made of rocks. The animation of him pulling his arm back to punch you is just fantastic. Most of the backdrops are breathtaking. The one I like involves riding on a ship against a dark blue sky, avoiding getting shot by mounted cannons. Having the player walk through a corn field at night while lightning is seen in the distance is just stunning. The enemies are very detailed, and the bosses are huge. There is background music, and most of it is well composed; it gives a Ninja Spirit feel to it.

In typical Irem fashion, completing the game triggers a “Special Game” feature. This is where you get to do it all over again to unlock the true ending. Irem is not the only company to do this; Capcom was first with Ghosts ‘n Goblins.

The Bad
There is nothing bad about this game.

The Bottom Line
Taking a break from the shoot-em-up genre for a while, they have released a few beat-em-ups, and one of these is Lightning Swords, a game which plays very much like Ninja Spirit. The graphics and sound are brilliant, and like many other Irem games, you have to beat the game twice for the real ending. It's a shame the title never made its way past the arcades.