The Tecmo Knight's trusty steeds, although the dragon only shows up if you collect a Crystal Ball.
Tecmo Knight (known in Japan as Wild Fang) is a 1989 Beat 'em Up arcade game released by Tecmo (well, no doy).
In a medieval-inspired fantasy village, hordes and hordes of hostile Beast Men terrorize the local population, and it's up to the legendary Tecmo Knight, a warrior in control of an ogre and a tiger with the ability to summon dragons with an enchanted orb, to take on the beast men army before confronting Deglomes, the powerful eldritch monster controlling the beast people.
In case the premise doesn't spell it out, this game is equal parts Gorntastic and incredibly fun. Each and every single onscreen enemy killed is reduced to piles of spilled giblets, and the Tecmo Knight collects power-ups and extra lives from the leftover skulls of enemies killed. It's likely one of the most impressively violent (and entertaining) game from this particular genre.
Tecmo Knight contain examples of:
- Artificial Stupidity:
- It's probably intentional, since your enemies are, well, beast-men not known for being smart, but every now and then the game will throw exploding obstacles that blows up with a single touch and damage everything in it's exploding radius, both AI-controlled enemies and your players. Very frequently, enemies will purposely run into these obstacles and blow themselves up, even if you're on the other side of the screen and nowhere close to the explosion.
- And then there's areas containing Bottomless Pits which sometimes lesser enemies will walk off to their deaths at random.
- Aim for the Horn: How Deglomes the Final Boss is defeated - after you inflict enough damage on the heart, you'll target the head, and use the "grab" move to rip his horn off killing him immediately.
- Beast Men: All the mooks of the game are variants of beast-people. There are dog-men, bird-men, centaurs, snake-women, various lizard people and whatnot. Regardless of species, they're gigantic, towering over your character and even your tiger. Some of them, particularly bosses, are taller than your ogre.
- Breath Weapon:
- Some of the beast-men enemies, like the crocodile-men who can breathe short streams of flames. Deglomes on the other hand can breath his floating fireballs all over the arena, making it difficult to touch his exposed heart and head.
- For the heroes, one of the steeds the player can summon is a dragon which breathes energy blasts. It kills most mooks in a single shot and deals impressive damage on bosses, but needs to be used sparingly.
- Bully Bulldog: Bulldog-men armed with axes are one of the most common enemies in the game.
- Continue Countdown: Run out of lives, and the game shows you the player character trapped in the jaws of a nondescript monster, desperately trying and failing to prop them open to keep from being eaten. As the timer gets lower, the monster's jaws slowly close more and more, with the poor hero screaming at the count of 2. If it runs out, the game over screen has a mook taunt the player with a cry of "NO FUTURE!".
- Crystal Ball: How most of the power-ups are depicted. The blue ones in particular can fetch a dragon to assist your character.
- Cyclops: Another enemy variety, one-eyed giants looking like the classic depictions of cyclopes.
- Dual Boss: Every single boss comes in pairs save for the last one. There's the two bird-men from the first level, followed by the two snake-women, and later two centaurs, and so on.
- Eldritch Abomination: Deglomes is a giant minotaur-esque monster whose upper body is just a mess of exposed organs and lumps of flesh randomly pasted together. You can only hurt him by hitting his heart, located outside his body.
- Epic Flail: Your default weapon is a spiked ball on a chain, handy for smashing enemies into a pulp. The eagle-men bosses on the other hand use flails with skulls instead of spiked balls for tips.
- Flipping Helpless: The tortoise-men mooks will constantly try crushing you with their shells, but if they miss and land on their backs, they'll spend a few seconds struggling to get up.
- Game-Over Man: A really nasty one, should you run out of lives or chose not to press continue, you'll get a screen showing you in a giant's mouth, desperately trying(and failing) to hold the jaws open. And then a random beastmen mook will taunt you with a "NO FUTURE!
◊" - Gorn: This game delivers increasingly bloody onscreen deaths and executions of enemies, and it's amazing.
- Killer Gorilla: Gorilla mooks armed with maces and shields are another recurring enemy. Also the giant King Kong Copy sub-boss you encounter every now and then, see below.
- King Kong Copy: One of the game's recurring Mini-Boss is a King Kong-esque gorilla monster who's only visible in the background, attacking by lashing its arms into the foreground trying to squeeze you to a pulp. You spend the entire fight hitting its arms until it decides to leave, only for it to come back after a while to attempt grabbing you again. Unfortunately while you can defeat the giant gorilla every time, you don't get to kill it during gameplay.
- Lizard Folk: Several of the beastmen enemies are reptilian in origin, including crocodile men who can breathe fire, tortoise-men who attempts to use their shells to crush you, and bomb-throwing iguana men.
- Ludicrous Gibs: This game delivers the gibs in buckets. Mooks and most of the bosses will explode into bloody smears upon being killed, and it's awesome.
- Off with His Head!: Every. Single. Enemy. (and most of the bosses) lose their heads upon defeat, either from getting your flail in their faces too many times or getting clawed by your steeds. You can also execute a Finishing Move (with the "grab" button) that have you wringing their craniums off the necks, which instantly kills weaker enemies.
- Our Centaurs Are Different: Hostile centaurs armed with chains are a Dual Boss of the third level, before showing up again the next level, this time clad in red armour and stronger than the previous encounter.
- Our Minotaurs Are Different: Minotaurs armed with whips are among the regular enemies you can encounter. They alternate their attacks between lashing with whips, or charging at you with horns.
- Panthera Awesome: One of your summonables is a ferocious tiger which you ride as a steed, and you can have it claw at enemies in conjunction with your trusty flail.
- Recurring Boss:
- The King Kong Copy sub-boss that attacks you between stages needs to be fought several times.
- The two eagle-men boss you kill at the end of the first stage comes back as another Mini-Boss in the last.
- Shows Damage: All the mooks and bosses, from their faces getting increasingly bloodied to their armors denting and breaking.
- Snake People: The second stage's boss is a pair of snake-women towering above your heroes, their lower halves being the tails of some massive serpentine behemoth. They attack by laying eggs which bounce around the area until exploding.
- Stationary Boss: Deglomes, scary as he looks, couldn't really move about since he's just half a body tethered to the ground with various internal organs exposed. The difficulty of the fight comes from trying hit his only weak point, his exposed heart and then his horns, while avoiding his extendable claws and fiery breath, which he spams almost nonstop.
- Wings Do Nothing: The Birdmen bosses have tiny, pathetic-looking wings which only allow them to float a little, but you can still knock them down by jumping combined with punching and kicking. Their flight barely gives them an advantage over you during battle.
