Hagane: The Final Conflict

Hagane: The Final Conflict

North American SNES box art
Developer(s) CAProduction
Publisher(s) Hudson
Designer(s) Keita Amemiya
Composer(s) Takahito Abe
Platform(s) Super Nintendo Entertainment System
Release date(s) JP November 18, 1994[1]
NA June 1995[1]
EU 1995[1]
Genre(s) Action, side-scroller
Mode(s) Single player

Hagane: The Final Conflict (鋼 Hagane) is a 1994 side-scrolling dystopian sci-fi action video game developed by CAProduction and published by Hudson for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. The game was released in Japan on November 18, 1994, in North America in June of 1995 and in Europe in 1995.

Gameplay

The game is a side-scroller, similar to the early Ninja Gaiden games. The game is noted for being very difficult and there is no save feature.[2]

Plot

The Fuma and Koma ninja clans who live mainly in darkness have mastered the secret arts of ninjutsu and black magic. Although they look just like normal people, they have strength and spiritual power beyond normal human beings. Each clan consists of several factions. The Fuma clan is split into factions based on the Chinese zodiac. The Koma clan is split into factions by color; consisting of the white, the gold and the red dragon. In the case of the Fuma clan, members of a given faction know nothing more about any other factions except that they exist and their blood lines are cut off from the outside world and are destined to decline. The Fuma clan possesses extreme strength and spiritual power. Their duty is to protect the Holy Grail, which is said to possess power that can destroy the world. From long ago, the evil Koma clan had plotted to destroy the world using the destructive power of Holy Grail.

Eventually, they attacked a faction of the Fuma clan and stole the Holy Grail. However, they failed to notice that among the severely wounded, one man survived... On the verge of death, the barely living man known as Hagane was brought back to life by advanced cyber-technology performed by a mysterious old man named Momochi. However, none of Hagane's body survived except his brain. Already a powerful ninja, he now had the incredible power and speed of a human cyborg. With this power, he vowed to take revenge on the Koma faction.

At the end of the conflict and having destroyed the Koma faction's complex, Hagane overlooks the scene from a cliff outcropping, satisfied. His purpose fulfilled, Hagane's glowing eyes fade to black and he passes on. As the credits roll, time and nature claim his seated form and rust his katana as a nearby tree grows unhindered by the blackened land.

Reception

Nintendo Power praised the game's challenging gameplay, non-stop action and good play control, however criticized its sub-par graphics (for looking "like a good NES game").[2]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Hagane Release Information for Super Nintendo, GameFAQs, retrieved 2013-09-11
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Nintendo Power 70 (p.103)

External links