Guerrière Lyewärd (Sharp X68000, Tokuma Shoten, 1990)

On the one hand, the PC 98 had Rusty, basicly a Castlevania clone of high quality (so high C-Lab recycled the game, tweaked it and made only a few changes to the engine, even keeping identical sprites between versions, to release Totsugeki Mix ! one year after Rusty, but that's a topic for another day). It showed off some skin, but offered chalenging gameplay.

On the other hand, you have the X68000 and Guerrière Lyewärd. A game that came out in 1990, yet feels like it might have come out on the Famicom during launch year. Considering the quality of other Sharp games (Aquales, our old friend Baruusa, Knight Arms etc.), that's not a good thing.

It don't get much better then this.....literaly

Basicly, the whole thing is utterly devoid of any game design whatsoever. Each level posseses a boring background, the whole playing area is absolutely straight, and all the enemies do for almost the whole game is just run up and either run past you or run away. Out of the games 5 levels (the last of which is just the end boss), 3 of them have just two enemies per level, being just sprite swaps of the same enemies from level 1. In fact, the game doesn't even force you to jump until the fourth level (barring the third boss). You only have two modes of attack, punching and kicking, and seeing that kicking can dispose of all enemies and has a longer range (and the punch can't be used on enemies that recquire you to crouch), you will never need to punch. Until level 4, all enemies do to attack is run up and try to punch you, so you will always be doing the same thing.

The "devil". Which is just some naked chick encased in ice.

Worse yet, each level has an obscene amount of enemies you have to kill before you reach the boss, meaning you have to just move forward and then stand, pressing the kick button and turning back and forth every two seconds, which makes the levels boring and monotonous (well, more so).

Only in level 4 do you get enemies that recquire jumping over them or crouching down to kill them, but their shooting makes it so you have to slowly creep your way forward and then jump the moment they come on screen, which manages to grind the game to a near complete halt.

The bosses aren't anything to write home about. Only the third boss recquires jumping, the fourth is a hilariously inept "devil" that is actualy easier then the boss of level 1, and the last boss would probably be a real pain in the whatsit, seeing him showering down projectiles on top of you....if the bad hit detection didn't mean you can just let them pass halfway through you before you can get to kick him in the snout and get the exciting ending of....

A woman walking somewhere in the most embarassing walk-cycle in human history.