When you hear that there was a game called Devil World which was never allowed to be released in the US, your mind probably starts thinking of all kinds of Creepy Pasta-esque scenarios. Surely, it must be some kind of dark and twisted game, made all the creepier by 8-bit graphics and music. A real skeleton in Nintendo’s closet.
However, if you’re keen to try something like that, you’re going to be sorely disappointed. Really, it’s just a light-hearted game with more than a few similarities to Pac-Man, just with a little bit of religious imagery thrown in. It’s a bit odd, really.
You play as Tamagon, a small green creature (who some say was a proto-Yoshi) who must travel through a maze eating dots, while avoiding several goofy looking demons which patrol the area. As an extra layer of challenge, you can only eat the dots if you’re holding a crucifix – of which several are scattered around the maze. They also give you the power to shoot fire, but they disappear after you’ve been holding them for a while.
While you’re doing all this, you’ve got the Devil at the top of the screen. Only a part of the maze is visible at all times and you can’t move outside of what you can see. The Devil forces the screen to move in different directions, which can end up forcing you to get trapped between walls – killing you.
It’s a simple game which is fairly fun, but nothing special or even that interesting. I don’t really know why Tamagon is avoiding the Devil and his demons while eating random dots, but perhaps if there’s a good enough story in there it might make things a little more interesting. But I don’t think there is. As things are, it’s a just okay NES game.
Rating: 6.1/10
