Retro Game of the Week 1: The Twisted Tales of Spike McFang

What the hell is wrong with his face?!

Before I delve into this post I want to say that I fucking LOVE this game, even as ridiculous as it seems.  It implements my favorite action role playing game elements and keeps the story light and fun.  But even so, I have to shout out a huge, "What the fuck?"

It's holding a key.  Cause garlic can do that.

First off, what the fuck is the title all about?  How is it so twisted?  All it is is your typical action RPG where you're a boy vampire prince trying to save your parents and kingdom from evil garlic, cat women, and giant alligator men.  And of course, one of your companions is an Easter Island head stone guy...  Okay, I take that back, the title makes perfect sense; this shit is twisted.  Who in their right mind makes a game like this?  Your health is represented by tomatoes, which I guess makes more sense for a child audience than the blood or hearts of your victims, but what video game have you ever played that had anything remotely close to a tomato life bar?

That's right, they're called Killer Cloves...

So let's talk about how to battle these fiends that have taken over your kingdom.  As a vampire, you'd expect our hero to use super strength, claws, teeth, and his overall dark, vampiric demeanor to kill his enemies, right?  Well, the game comes pretty close to all that as Spike uses his cape.  The cape spin is your main form of attack.  That just doesn't make any sense on a physics level.  Are there fucking blades attached to it or does he just spin so damn fast that the enemies are pummeled by relentless wind bursts?  I'm glad to say that there's an alternate form of attack, but for whatever reason, it's the kid's hat.  If you hold the attack button, Spike's hat lifts off and is tossed in the direction your facing.  Again, how the fuck does this harm your enemies?  It's a fucking hat, not a javelin!

I'm really not sure what's going on here.

The final method of defending yourself from attackers, you're not going to believe this, is a deck of card tricks.  Yeah, like he's a fucking magician.  The cards can turn enemies into animals, turn you invisible, give you unlimited flying hat for a period of time, etc.  So what I've finally decided is that Spike isn't just a vampire, oh no, he's a boy magician vampire extraordinaire!

I mean, what the fuck?  This whole game just boggles my mind.  For some reason though, back in the SNES age, I didn't question anything that went on here.  Apparently at that stage in my life, evil, walking garlic seemed just as normal to me as any house cat.  But, hey, to be fair, if I heard of a boy magician vampire wandering around the world doing card tricks, I would be all over that action.