Undead Line (also titled Undeadline in certain foreign releases) is a vertical-scrolling, medieval-themed Run-and-Gun style arcade action game originally developed for the MSX, and was later ported to Sega Genesis and Sharp X68000.
In the dawn of time, a war between the gods before creation of men results in the creation of various living weapons, which was later sealed away to prevent them from being used again. The times of war in the past would be known as Ragnarök.
Fast-forward to the present in the Kingdom of Gitane, a demon lord named Count Brahzen is seeking the Great Demon, the Spirit of Roshufa, to revive the monsters from ancient era.
The wise King Fahrenheit II of Gitane immediately orders for his best warriors to go on a quest to defeat the Count and his monsters, a challenge answered by three heroes, the warrior Leon, the wizard Dino, and the ninja Ruika, which player(s) can select to battle the forces of evil. In the Mega Drive version, only Leon is playable.
Undead Line contain examples of:
- Assist Character: You have quite a few, including a fairy who flies around automatically hitting your nearby enemies, and another power-up that summons a trio of baby dragons that shoots fire for you.
- Battle in the Rain: It will rain halfway through in the cemetery stage, just as you're busy slicing up zombies, skeletons, and assorted undead.
- Big Creepy-Crawlies: Giant insects, including oversized bees, flies and centipedes, are recurring enemies in the forest and swamp areas.
- Blob Monster: You can fight weak, green puddles of living slime in the caverns. They die in one hit by any weapon.
- Covers Always Lie: The alternate cover
◊ depicts the Grim Reaper in a far more stereotypical fashion, having his iconic scythe, which he doesn't wield during his boss fight. - Creepy Centipedes: Man-sized centipede monsters are a recurring mook enemy.
- Defeat Equals Explosion: Most of the enemies, and all of the bosses, who blows up repeatedly once their health is depleted.
- Dem Bones: Walking skeletons expectedly appears in this medieval-themed game, in the graveyard and the tunnels.
- Fighter, Mage, Thief: The three default playable characters, Leon, Dino, and Ruika, in that order. In the Mega Drive version, only Leon is playable however.
- Flechette Storm: If you're without any power-ups, your default weapon will be an endless stream of throwing knives which you have an unlimited supply of. You can even upgrade it multiple times with the Spread Shot so you're hurling blades in six directions!
- Flying Face: One of your enemies are flying ectoplasmic skulls who can damage you by touching.
- Gashadokuro: You fight a gigantic floating half-skeleton monster (the upper half) as one of the boss. Said skeleton can float all over the damn place and spam crescent-shaped projectiles that homes in on you.
- Golem: The first boss is a gigantic rock golem who alternate attacks between stomping you and summoning giant rock projectiles to smash you up.
- Gratuitous Ninja: One of the three playable classes is a scantily-clad kunoichi, in a European-inspired High Fantasy setting.
- The Grim Reaper: Unsurprisingly, the boss of the Cemetary, appearing as a gigantic hooded skeleton with abilities to cloak itself with darkness and sic balls of dark energy that drains your health. What's unusual though is that this version of the Grim Reaper doesn't have it's scythe.
- Hand Blast: In all the battles you fought him, Count Brahzen will repeatedly spam energy bolts fired from his hands on you.
- The Heavy: Count Brahzen, the leader of the demons who intends to unleash monsters all over the kingdom. He's also the second-to-last boss, the Great Demon he summoned appearing immediately after.
- Hockey Mask and Chainsaw: In the final stage, you can fight humanoid enemies in hockey masks (despite the medieval setting), though instead of chainsaws they Dual Wield knives. They're also among the more dangerous enemies, needing three hits to kill, having Mercy Invincibility and the tendency to pursue after you repeatedly.
- Homing Projectile: The crescent blade power up turns your default knives into curved blades that can home into nearest enemies. Late into the game, it turns out the giant skeleton boss can use the same projectile as yours, the difference being his crescent blades chasing after you are huge.
- Lethal Lava Land: The "Rock" stage, which is set inside a volcano, with occasional lava projectiles coming from below. Said level ends with a boss fight against a Living Lava Fire Elemental with a fiery face made of flames, which attacks you at the exit.
- Mercy Invincibility:
- You're granted these the moment you respawn after dying.
- Then there's the hockey-mask wearing enemies in the final stage, who needs to be killed thrice. When taken down the first time, they're invincible (preventing you from repeatedly pummeling them) until they get up and resume pursuing you.
- Muck Monster: A huge living pile of sludge appears as a boss in the sewer, with tentacles made of slime lashing out at you. It can break into smaller piles of living slime before reforming into a monster, until you defeat it.
- Night of the Living Mooks: The Cemetery is filled with undead enemies. And there's a section where you have to literally cross a field of tombstones while fighting the undead - accidentally destroying stray tombs will result in the grave spawning more undead to attack.
- Oculothorax: Giant floating eyeballs are one of the many enemies you can encounter.
- Our Dragons Are Different: A hostile dragon shows up as a boss, whose attacks alternate between breathing fire and flapping it's wings, which somehow causes projectiles to fly out at you.
- Our Ghosts Are Different: Your enemies includes ghosts and ectoplasms of various shapes and appearances, but they can be killed by any weapon, including your default throwing knives.
- Playing with Fire:
- The Fire Spell can incinerate half a screen in front of you, and is especially useful for taking out large number of enemies together.
- The Dragon and Fire Elemental bosses both use flame-based attacks, obviously.
- Recurring Boss: Count Brahzen is fought multiple times in the game, usually showing up as a Mini-Boss of sorts right before the actual boss (notably before fighting the dragon in the cavern, and the Great Demon).
- Scenery Gorn: The Ruins stage is given a major overhaul in the Genesis/Megadrive port, going from a crumbling temple full of stone pillars and stained glass into a giant, Slasher Movie-inspired cabin with a red-brick façade and rotting hardwood floors that are liberally sprinkled with gore, bloody weapons, and severed limbs & heads, the latter of which can also fire projectiles at you.
- Sword Beam: A power-up converts your projectiles into these. Among your enemies, the skeletons in the graveyard can somehow fire identical beams from their swords.
- Taken for Granite: The Great Demon True Final Boss turns into stone after being defeated, with the game's end credits being plastered over his petrified form.
- You Have Failed Me: In the aftermath of the boss fight against Count Brahzen, the moment the Count is defeated he then gets vaporized by a beam of light by the newly-awakened Great Demon. Cue the last boss.
