This is reality! Let's Play 8 Eyes!

NES palette limitations are the boring obvious explanation, though. Crazy theories are more fun.

Pretend I wrote a long diatribe about the racist implications of having the African man become white and drinking tea after being subdued by the British dude.

Now go to Egypt.

Sorry guys, life and Mincraft ate all my time for the past couple weeks. I'll have the next one up later tonight. I'm posting this now to prevent myself from procrastinating any longer.

Egypt starts us off with an easy to reach S Jar, and some nice looking statues. Thankfully, the map is simple this time.



Inside, we meet...wait for it...more skeletons! They're red this time, so maybe they're more recently deceased? This guy seems to have lost his weapon, and is reduced to making spooky gestures at us. We are not impressed. He gives us the Ice Ball right away though, so that's nice.



There's a Blue Jar hidden here. We can see some of the room on the other side of that wall, but our only choice is to go up.



Room 2. The door to the right makes more skeletons. falling through the hole just sends us back to room 1.



After carving through yet another skeleton, we find the clue scroll.



Getting down from here can be tricky, but the skeleton will wait there as long as you're nearby, so you can time his movement with the jawa's. He drops a Boomerang, if anyone's excited about that (Orin isn't).



Room 3. More skeleton carnage. Moving on.



Ahhh, here we go. Platforms, flying skulls, and a new enemy! Maybe these things will put up a fight.



The upper platforms give us a nice point to hit the skulls from, so we take them out before jumping down to confront that green mutant. In his haste, he takes a swing at us a bit early.





Six attacks. We stood perfectly still, and it took him six attacks to get a hit in. Worst. Monster. Ever.



And just for icing on the stupid cake, he happens to be a Cutrus-only enemy, so he gets killed in one hit. Disgusted, Orin takes the jar, snags a Power Ball from the other monster, and heads down.

Next Update: I'll finish up Egypt tomorrow. Since this was a short one, here's something special from the manual.



I'm partial to Scimitar Sam and Ninjoe, but there's something wonderfully simple about a knight named Sharp, or a fire breather named Spit.

Simpler names, for a simpler time.

"Crossboy" is my favorite.

I'm not sure anything can hold a candle to the Skeleton named 'Slim'.

Love those ridiculous enemy names. I'm partial to Sir Slice myself.

I thought nothing would be better then Ninjoe, then I saw Ugly.

I was gonna say Sir Slice was my favorite, then I saw the speedo clad S&M demon named Hardball and knew that had to be the best.

Is that supposed to be a (possibly not so) subtle jab at Link?

I just realized something. Remember when I questioned the existence of underpants on that rock throwing enemy in Africa? Rock is the only enemy on this list who's picture shows only his upper torso. Draw your own conclusions.

Um, could you mark that image NSFW? Crossboy appears to be doing some kind of lewd gesture with his... you know.

Spooky looks like a fun guy to hang out with. I mean, look how happy that little guy is!

You have got to be kidding. Please tell me you edited in those names. First they take an obviously middle ages game and make it post apocalyptic, but they can't even be bothered to pretend to have interesting names for the enemies?

That being said, I do really like Sir Slice and Yoga, though I don't know what muscles he has to stretch.

"I'm always sure to stretch my muscles before Yoga so I don't get a sprain.... though I'm a skeleton so I don't have anything to sprain! Skull joke! Yohohohohohoho!"

I like that Yoga's picture captures the same boredom his sprite shows as he casually tosses fire at you.



Room 5 adds another new enemy, Mudman (I'll start calling them by their actual names now). There are also some skulls flying around that can make those platforms a little tricky.



Mudman attacks by throwing two goops of mud at you, which makes getting close to him difficult. He drops a Molotov Cocktail for us, which I don't think we've seen yet, but I'll get to that later.



I try to kill the second one by stabbing at it from underneath, but am immediately surprised by a terrifying green fish! I'm calling foul, he's not even in the manual. Anyway, I end up getting hit by about five of these before making it back to the upper level.



Cutrus needs to hit the switch over there so Orin can get through in time. As you can see, I only lost about a bar and a half to all that. Most normal enemies aren't a major threat, though there are some major exceptions coming up. I also just noticed that I forgot to get the Blue Jar in this room. It's to the left by the stairs, as you can see on the map.



Room 6 has Snaggletooth and Sledge, along with a few (not very) Big Buzzes.



This is a good time to try out that Molotov Cocktail. It's thrown in an arc, and is similar to Castlevania's holy water. The flame is kinda pathetic, but it can get multiple hits in, which is enough to kill Snaggletooth. Orin finds a much needed S-Jar here. We'll wait until we clear the room to collect it.



Sledge may be intimidating, but he can't jump across that gap. He dies to a single hit, so Orin steps in and delivers it between attacks. With nothing to do here, Orin climbs up the stairs and takes out one last Big Buzz.



WHOOPS forgot the S-Jar. It will still be there as long as Orin hasn't collected it, but we have to fight past the enemies in this room again since we left the screen. It's a full heal anyway, so no damage done.



This is Spooky, who looks much more interesting than his manual art. There are actually three here, but I killed the one on the left while getting this shot. Spookies will slowly move toward you, stopping now and then.



When stabbed once, Spooky turns into a smaller ghost that moves much more quickly. Orin is immediately backed into a corner after hitting both of them, but eventually moves through them after taking a couple hits.



Now they're just sitting up there, staring. Spooky's second form is odd. It will chase you around for a second or two, then stop, or back off and wait somewhere. When you get close, it attacks again. Sometimes it comes after you again anyway. I don't really understand these things, and Orin ends up flailing around for a while before he manages to kill them. The one to the left causes similar trouble.



Spooky does his best metroid impression, but Orin finally kills it and gains a small health boost. Even so, we're going into the boss room minus two health bars, as well as the one from the jar we missed. Orin has to release Cutrus near the floor so he can hit the switch after Orin climbs the stairs.



"This Castle is ruled by Nari Tanatos. He is an evil sorceror who throws white power balls from his staff. Beware of his leaping ability - he can jump right over your head! Defeat him and you will get a big red ruby called the Blood of Tutankhamen."

Nari is a problem, and completely unlike the bosses we've seen so far. He can shoot three pink sparks in random directions, or jump almost to the top of the screen. He usually alternates between the two, but will sometimes fire sparks twice if you're too far away. The item is hidden all the way on the other side of the room, and is out of our reach. We have to release Cutrus from the upper platform, get past Nari, and get the item before he corners us.



It's worth the effort, as the Z-Jar (it looks like an N in this shot because the sprite swings back and forth like a bell) doubles your attack power temporarily. This lets us deal as much damage as we would had we taken the correct path, but the effect doesn't last long, so we throw caution to the wind and trade blows with Nari for a while while tossing Ice Balls.



We're in a bad situation though. Nari is jumping against the wall here and bouncing back to his original position, making it difficult to get around him. Orin finally escapes, but Nari now has the upper hand. He fires sparks in various directions, requiring us to jump, duck, or attack them as they pass. Each spark's path is completely random, so this takes some quick reflexes to survive.



The only safe time to attack Nari is while he's jumping, and the best way to do this reliably is to stab him in the ankles jut before he lands. This takes some practice to do without letting him land on you. Combined with his projectiles and the difficulty of obtaining the item, it makes this the hardest fight in the game. Attempting to do this while taking screenshots is tricky, and Orin meets his demise for the first time.



Erm, make that fourth time. This really hasn't gone well at all for Orin, but through the magic of save states, he will prevail. It might have been wiser to play through the level again and try this with more health, but it's late and I'm stubborn.



Alright, we're playing it smart this time. Orin waits for Nari to walk away before jumping down so we can confront him closer to the opposite wall. When Nari jumps we run for it, and he has to walk all the way to the left before coming back. Cutrus makes it to the item just as Nari starts to corner us, so we toss an Ice Ball and go nuts.



We come out ahead this time, and begin the pattern of dodging/destroying sparks and hitting him after each jump.



It's a close one, but Orin finally gets that last hit in and earns his...uh...green gem?



And now Nari's red. I just don't know anymore.

Nari's official art makes him look like a cross between a mummified corpse and an alien. And you beat him so hard his hair and robe got covered in blood. Freaky. o.O;

My vote for the next place goes to Germany, to beat up post-apocalyptic* Nazis.

* Nazi ancestors in the Japanese version.

Don't you have enough weapons by now you have the weakness for every boss? If not, I vote you go fight one of the guys you can't deal massive damage to.

IIRC you only have the sword from the last boss you beat, so you can only deal double damage to one boss at any time.

I knew that he looked weird, but I just couldn't put my finger on it. Thank you for guiding my finger perfectly.

Seconding the vote for Germany.

That's right. You're not collecting new swords, you're trading them. It's very easy to get to the end of this game without ever seeing the damage boost. If that's going to influence anyone's decision, the correct level order is Spain, Egypt, Italy, India, Africa, Germany, and Arabia. Bolded stages are the ones we haven't done yet. We can use the weapon from Egypt to murder the boss of Italy (and then India) but we've lost our chance at having it for Germany.

If you want some extra info to decide with, sending me to India now would destroy any remaining chance of following the order, Germany's level design is insane, and the boss of Italy is the most interesting by far.

Ahahahaha, cripes. I didn't realize the game was that cruel. In that case I'll completely reverse my vote and send you to Italy.

Pastaland!

I'm also changing my vote to Italy, then.

I guess the Nazis can wait until after the next two places. Go wreck Italy and partake in some of its delicious pastas while you're at it.

What? We made it this far on spit and gumption, and you want to break the trend now? I vote India, we'll show this game we mean hardcore. Also, in honor of them winning something in cricket, which meant something, somewhere. I don't really know, but the guys in the office were really excited.

Sorry for the delay everyone, but Orin and Cutrus are back in action! Here we have the entrance to Italy. Nothing special to do here, as usual, so Orin takes the jar and heads inside.







Italy is a pretty simple stage (though it has some classy statues) and you don't need to see Orin stab every single enemy when we've already seen most of them, so we're going to do this a bit faster. Shrimp gives up a boomerang, Orin murders Sir Slice, and we take the hidden jar.





Room 2 contains more of the same, along with the clue scroll. Shrimp drops a knife this time.





The first Sharp in Room 3 gives us that all-important Ice Ball. The switch here is unreachable with Orin's sword, so Cutrus opens the door for us.





Our pitchfork-wielding friend in Room 4 doesn't seem to appear in the manual. He might be Baldy, except that he's obviously got some Wily-style hair in the back. Either way, he's no more of a threat than any of the knights we've faced. Mace requires only a single hit from Cutrus.





Orin falls down the stairs again for my amusement, since this is one of the few levels in which it's possible to do so. The enemies in Room 5 are all familiar, though the terrain mixes things up a bit. The Slim on the upper platform will make no effort to move across that gap, so you can't rely on the usual tactic of making him walk onto your sword. Still, a few well-timed hits will bring him down without much trouble. Yoga is as much of an insufferable bastard as ever, and it's not easy to get down those stairs without getting shot. When we do reach the bottom, Orin wastes no time dispatching him.





One of the panthers in Room 6 drops a freaking gun, of all things. Unfortunately, all it does is give us the ability to deal the same damage as our sword at long range. It's all we need to take out Rock though. We snag a full heal and use Cutrus to hit the switch below the door.

The Dancing Princess of Frenellia is the fruitiest name for a gemstone I have ever seen.



The manual fails to mention that Geno also fights with an animal partner. That panther has far more health than a normal enemy, and could nearly pass for a boss on its own.



However, that bird of ours has had it pretty easy so far, and it's time to put his skills to the test. Orin tumbles down the stairs as the panther walks by, releases Cutrus, and quickly returns to the upper platform. Geno won't step down to the lower area and Orin is staying the hell away from that panther, so it's time for...





The panther is slow to attack, and Cutrus can move right through it as long as he connects with his attack. Our control over Cutrus is limited though, and the panther can retaliate with an impressive jump.



Our battle is quickly interrupted, as Geno begins throwing cards the moment he steps back into view. This is his only attack, but the cards have multiple erratic patterns and are difficult enough to handle without this panther involved. Cutrus retaliates with a few hard pecks to the face.



The fight resumes, with Cutrus attempting to handle both the panther and Geno's cards. If things get too hectic, Orin can call Cutrus back and release him again after Geno walks away.



During one such attempt to get Cutrus out of danger, the panther decides to follow, pouncing on Orin from the opposite platform. We rush down the stairs in a panic, but luckily the panther jumps back over and falls down to the lower area again.



Success! Cutrus defeats the panther with only a sliver of health remaining, and deals nearly two bars of damage to Geno in the process.



Orin jumps across and both begin to fight Geno directly. Cutrus starts with an impressive strike to the ankles, but...



NOOOOOO! CUTRUS!



Orin heads back to the right in cold fury, grabbing the invincibility jar that Cutrus exposed during his valiant battle. Geno backs off and continues to throw cards. Orin forces him into the corner.



The ensuing violence is more than the poor system can handle, and both combatants vanish into a spark of pure pain.



Orin takes a few hits after the effect wears off, but quickly learns to just smack the cards out of Geno's hand before they're thrown, at which point we begin the dick stabbing.



No, seriously, the remainder of this fight can be summed up by just repeating these two frames over and over. There's just enough time between card throws to stab a card, step forward, stab Geno, step back, and repeat until victory, which is exactly what we do.

Geno decides to change before our tea break, likely due to the piss and blood now covering his old suit.

Only India and Germany remain. Which will it be?

India, if only so we can utilize at least one boss weakness...except that we already used Geno's weakness. Oh, well. Let's still go to India, anyway. :-)