Who you gonna call?
When Ghostbusters meets Contra.
Demon's World (known internationally as Horror Story) is a 1989 Run-and-Gun action game developed by Toaplan and Taito, one clearly riding the coat-tails of the then-recent Ghostbusters franchise note where instead of having aliens, robots, or terrorists in the usual role of mooks, the game features supernatural forces as enemies instead.
Anyway, the Excuse Plot this time have a demon lord (one which is unnamed, the whole game) unleashing his brood on mankind, and it's up to the player(s) - an expert Ghost-Buster armed with a laser cannon (powered by a generator on his back that looks suspiciously like the proton pack) capable of hurting the supernatural to clean the streets. Stages leads from America (where battles against the supernatural in the city leads to a Red Indian burial ground) to Asia and Europe (ranging from a Meiji-era Japanese garden to a Chinese palace and a Medieval-style castle) before confronting the demon lord in his domain.
An emulation port of this game was released in 2023 as part of Zero Fire, a Compilation Re-release alongside Hellfire (1989) and Zero Wing. It requires a digital purchase for the digital edition of the game, and is included with the physical edition.
Not to be confused with Demon Front. Same genre, but different setting.
Demon's World contain examples of:
- Airborne Mooks: Crows and bats, winged demons, floating skeleton archers, hovering chōchin-obake, Chinese dragons and the like.
- Animated Armor: Floating, sentient armor appears as enemies in Europe, fittingly in a stage set entirely around a gothic castle.
- Asteroids Monster: Vampire mooks, upon being hit, turns into a small handful of bat mooks and continue attacking.
- Auto-Scrolling Level: All of them.
- Balloonacy: Occasionally in-game, a gigantic balloon (whose sprite is as large as your character's) will float into view, where you can jump to grab onto them to float a bit, either to cross platforms too wide to leap across, avoid enemy attacks, or grab bonuses out of reach.
- Bat Out of Hell: Small bats are a common flying enemy that can be killed in just one shot.
- Boss-Only Level: The final stage simply consists of the Final Boss.
- Captain Ersatz: Your playable characters wants to be Ghostbusters so much, that it hurts.
- Cartoon Bomb: One of the possible weapons, its explosions stay on the screen for a while and thus are particularly effective against enemies like the segmented dragon mooks.
- Chinese Vampire: They appear in (where else?) the China stage. On bicycles, somehow, and are lethal to the touch.
- Creepy Crows: Crows are another recurring flying enemy that swoops around trying to peck you. They're faster than bats or imps, though.
- Dem Bones: Walking skeletons are a recurring enemy the entire game, from skeleton archers in Japan to pirate skeletons in Europe. And at least the first two bosses, the Red Indian skeleton shaman and the samurai skeleton warrior (see below). The PC Engine port adds a mid-stage boss in the United States stage: an undead skeletal cowboy floating up and down while shooting scorpions.
- Detachment Combat: The Japan stage ends with a boss fight against an animated undead Samurai warlord, appearing as half a floating body holding a spear and can detach it's cranium, which floats around. It can attack you as two entities, the body trying to skewer you with it's spear while the head floats around attempting to bite you.
- Dracolich: One of the Western dragon bosses appears to be undead, since you can see its ribs jutting out from the torso.
- Flying on a Cloud: You encounter Chinese sorceress enemies (resembling Princess Iron Fan from the myths) who ride on clouds and can shoot projectiles on you using their fans.
- Flying Seafood Special: Taking a break from the undead-themed ghosts or zombie enemies, one area set atop a lake have floating jellyfishes and squids as enemies.
- Frankenstein's Monster: An occasional enemy who's pretty slow on it's feet, who appears early on and crumbles into dust after defeat.
- The Goomba: The pink, dopey-looking ghosts that you encounter right at the first stage, whom are slow, attacks by floating towards your direction trying to touch you and reasonably easy to kill. They appear in large numbers early on but you'll stop seeing them after the first boss.
- Goomba Stomp: Interestingly enough, this is one of those run-and-gun arcade games that allows you an alternative of stomping enemies instead of shooting them; in fact large enemies that takes multiple shots to defeat (e.g. Chinese dragons) can be dealt with instantly with a well-timed head-stomp.
- Half the Man He Used to Be:
- The skeleton enemies in Japan have only half a body, for some reason. Just a floating skeletal torso with nothing under the waist.
- Europe have animated armor enemies missing their lower halves. All of them.
- Haunted Castle: The setting in Europe have you infiltrating one of these, filled with ghouls, living armors, skeletons and the like.
- Helpful Mook:
- Stages in Japan have lakes and rivers too wide to jump across, and no balloon to grab and use for floating across. But conveniently there are occasional kappa popping out of the water allowing you to use them as a Goomba Springboard for crossing.
- Europe have fiery pits without platforms, which would be impossible for you to advance over, if not for the various coffin-carrying ghosts passing by allowing you to hop over the coffins they're carrying.
- Hitodama Light: Floating blue flames based on hitodama appears in Japan, and can damage you with a single touch. Interestingly, they're the only yokai-themed enemy that made it out of their level, showing up in China and Europe.
- Hockey Mask and Chainsaw: One of the mook-level zombie enemies wears a hockey-mask looking exactly like Jason Voorhees, though without the chainsaw, preferring to attack you with a knife instead.
- Invincible Minor Minion: The helmeted heads going back and forth on the platforms before the haunted castle's entrance can't be destroyed, only jumped on.
- Magical Native American: The first boss is an undead version, an animated Red Indian skeleton sorcerer (wearing a Native American Headdress and poncho) who floats around and drop stone heads from above as an attack.
- Man on Fire: The headless zombies in the European stage stop and catch fire after being shot, turning into another obstacle.
- Monster Mash: The game employs pretty much every classic monster as minor enemies within the game, from zombies and ghosts to Frankenstein's monsters, vampires and skeletons, you name it. Though it starts spicing up things halfway through by adding yokai and Chinese mythological monsters in the mix.
- Mook Maker: The level in China ends with you battling a massive stone Chinese dragon boss, who spends most of the battle dispensing smaller Chinese dragon mooks from it's mouth as it floats around the boss area until you destroy it.
- Our Dragons Are Different: Of both the Eastern and Western variety.
- The stage in China have elongated serpentine Chinese long as recurring enemies, requiring multiple shots to take down - their bodies decrease in length after being hit, until they're a single head left. The stage's boss notably dispenses these enemies en masse.
- Europe have two huge European dragon as bosses, of the bipedal draconic variety, appropriately enough fought in a room filled with flames where you need to jump around platforms to avoid getting hit.
- Porn Stache: Player 1's attire includes this and sunglasses.
- Reformulated Game: Some versions have the levels shuffled around, starting in the China stage instead of the United States one. The European medieval castle is always the final stage, though.
- Snot Bubble: The small sleeping vampires in the United States and Europe stages have these before waking up.
- Spread Shot: An upgrade grants your weapon the option to fire spreads of three per shot.
- Stationary Boss: The Demon Lord Final Boss who's behind all the supernatural activities, when you face him in the final stage, turns out to be confined to a fleshy, cage-like structure in one side of the screen, where he's entirely unable to move. Though he does have the ability to sic homing fireballs on you.
- Unique Enemy:
- The first stage has a one-of-a-kind zombie / ghost (it's not really made clear) carrying a lantern and in a black suit balancing itself on a barrel that you randomly encounter.
- Man Eating Plants are encountered in one area within the entire game.
- There are several fat ghosts resembling Ghostbusters's Slimer, but only one of them is green like its inspiration.
- Waddling Head: A recurring enemy type, either as those gigantic skulls moving on spider-legs, or detached zombie heads who can move on their own, or sentient medieval helmeted heads...
- Yōkai: The stage in Japan is filled with these enemies, from pools infested with kappa to hopping karakasa to burning chōchin-obake and rokurokubi who extends their necks while trying to breath fire at you...
