It’s a classic tale, really. Knight in shining armor and his betrothed are about to get married when she (and everyone else around) is killed by the hordes of demons that invade. So the gallant knight rushes off to thwart the evil.
Arthur, the knight, must run toward the right (and sometimes the up and the left) and massacre everything in his path using anything he can find. Treasure chests sprout up from the ground all over the place. Though they’re just as likely to contain some form of Demon Death(tm) as they are to contain a powerup.
And you’ll need those powerups. This game sends enemies swarming you from every direction, and Arthur just isn’t that maneuverable. He can move left and right, jump a bit, and fire left, right, or up, and that’s it. It’s pretty annoying, too, because if Arthur gets hit by anything, no matter how insignificant, his armor comes flying off. If he takes another hit before finding some replacement armor (which is pretty scarce), he’s reduced to a pile of bones. Add to the mix enemies that are placed exactly where you need to jump, wind that blows you around, and enemies besieging you from all sides and you have a game in which the difficulty borderlines on psychotic. This game has a rep, and it’s deserved.
It’s certainly possible to finish this game, but you’re going to spend way too much time trying to do it. The best part? After you spend hours and hours getting to the end, you have to finish the game a second time to get the ‘real ending’.
You shouldn’t play this game unless you like a stiff challenge. You’re not going to finish it without a ludicrous amount of effort that would be better spent elsewhere.