It's been many days since the last time I did a review and this time I don't have any excuse, I just didn't feel like writing something, although I have been playing some games and I have written some notes about them, but not much, just some details that I could use in future Retro Reviews. Now, the game I'll talk about today is another platformer, entertaining, but not very challenging and it takes a lot of inspiration from other games like Ninja Gaiden (which I think I should talk about this game in some post), even it also takes inspiration from Strider (of which I have a review of the 2nd game). Anyway, in general terms in a game that takes inspiration from many games of this style: Ninjas and platforming.
Today's Retro Review is about: Ganryu.
Ganryu presents the classic story of "save the princess", in this case our protagonist Musashi must go to the rescue of his girlfriend Otsu who has been kidnapped by a mysterious group of ninjas and also have kidnapped some villagers, therefore Musashi will embark on an adventure in which he must face hundreds of enemies over several scenarios, discover who is behind these vile act and recover his girlfriend and save the other kidnapped. However, Musashi will not be alone in this journey, as he will have the help of Suzume, who will help him in this important mission. A simple and quite classic story, without much depth, but entertaining.
Graphically it is a decent game, especially in its setting of ancient feudal Japan and with the design of the enemies, as many of them represent demons with pretty good and very classic sprites of Japanese mythology. The scenarios enjoy a fairly good level of detail, each with their respective elements and characteristics, plus there is a good variety of places to which our protagonist must go in the quest to fulfill his mission.
The design of our playable characters is simple, but with fairly solid sprites and with very fluid movements when moving but especially when performing their attacks, although without being something spectacular, it is a very well represented aspect. As I have already mentioned, the boss design is quite good, very related to Japanese mythology, being these representations of demons, creatures of Japanese folklore and Yokais, which are the ghosts or ghosts of that mythology.
The sound aspect of this game is adequate, at least in its melodies, since as you might expect, these have rhythms and styles that represent the feudal era of Japan, very oriental music that fit very well with the whole atmosphere of this game. In general terms it can be considered quite good for a "generic" game (to say it in a way), they fulfill their purpose very well. However, I consider that the sound effects are a bit deficient, they are not at the same quality as the soundtrack and sometimes they can be a bit annoying.
In terms of gameplay is a game that maintains all the basic features of this type of games, simple and easy to learn controls, without any complications and in just the first few minutes we will have 100% control over our characters. It is not a game that pretends to be extremely difficult, but in some occasions it will provide us with a challenge of difficulty quite adequate and entertaining. Musashi is a much stronger character, while Suzume, as usual in this type of game, will be a little weaker but much faster and more agile.
We will move through several stages full of enemies, and our purpose is to defeat them and advance to the final boss of each stage, which have different attack mechanics and ways to defeat them. In itself, these final bosses are not so difficult, but if we must apply well the use of our skills. Our characters will be able to use a hook to perform certain attacks, but it is an element that I consider a bit poorly implemented due to its lack of real utility within the game.
In general terms Ganryu is a game that is okay, it is nothing spectacular but it fulfills its purpose of entertaining, however it will not be a memorable game that we will remember for many years, rather it is one of those games to play for a while and then forget it completely. Still, it is worth playing at least to entertain us for a few hours.