Retro Weekends Episode 21: Mystic Defender

"This was a relatively fun game but it got a bit samey after a while. Its a fairly impressive game for 1989 but Mega Drive Ghouls N Ghosts came out the same year and this doesn't hold a candle to that, Revenge of Shinobi also had much better gameplay this year, with its dual playfields and limited Shurikens and such. I don't think the game is a 4/5 but I really don't think this is a below average game either, so 3/5 for me."

"This was a fast and responsive arcade-action game for the time. The gameplay has some ideas, such as the different moves you can swap between which work reasonably well and add a bit of strategy. Unfortunately there was a bit of repetition, with some levels reusing the H. R. Geiger theme, and whilst the music was ok the sound effects were a bit poor too. For the time Revenge of Shinobi had better graphics, art design, and music, as did Ghouls N Ghosts so against its peers on the Mega Drive it falls a little short, but against the offerings of most other systems that were out in 1989 it was impressive."