Shadow Blasters is a side-scrolling

Side-scrolling video game

A side-scrolling game or side-scroller is a video game in which the gameplay action is viewed from a side-view camera angle, and the onscreen characters generally move from the left side of the screen to the right. These games make use of scrolling computer display technology...

  platform game

Platform game

A platform game is a video game characterized by requiring the player to jump to and from suspended platforms or over obstacles . It must be possible to control these jumps and to fall from platforms or miss jumps...

 developed by Sigma Enterprises for the Sega Genesis video game console in 1990. It was released in North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

 and Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

.

Story

The evil god Ashura has unleashed hordes of monsters and demons onto Earth, hoping to take control of the planet as well as the hearts of men. The powerful god Hyprion has recruited four of Earth's most powerful warriors and assembled them into a team to fight the encroaching darkness. The player assumes control of this group of warriors in order to defeat Ashura.

Gameplay

The game is a standard sidescrolling platform game

Platform game

A platform game is a video game characterized by requiring the player to jump to and from suspended platforms or over obstacles . It must be possible to control these jumps and to fall from platforms or miss jumps...

. The player can control one character at a time and can choose from a pool of four characters. Each character is able to walk, jump, crouch, and fire a projectile weapon unique to that character. For the most part, the player is free to move forward and backward through a given level as desired. As the player progresses, characters become more powerful by picking up power-ups for the attributes of speed, jump, and power. Power-ups do not "roll over" into the character pool if the current character is at the maximum for the respective attribute - a character can only gain attribute points from a power-up if that character is in play when the power-up is collected.

The first part of the game consists of six levels: Mountain, Street, Glenn, Harbor, Forest, and Future. One unique aspect of this game is that these six levels may be played in any order the player desires. The second part of the game consists of two levels and a final battle, arranged in a predetermined order.

Characters

There are four characters that player can choose from: the ninja warriors Horatio and Tiffany, a Buddhist monk Marco, and a Japanese fencer Leo. Each character has four distinct stages to his or her weapon. The player can switch characters at any point during game play simply by going to the character select screen and choosing a different character. While this is a powerful asset, once a character dies, he or she cannot ever be revived. This effectively limits the total "lives" of the player to four - once the last character is dead, the game is over.

Character	Sex	Weapon 1	Weapon 2	Weapon 3	Weapon 4
Horatio	Male	Shuriken	Fireball	Large Fireball	Fire Dragon
Marco	Male	Electric Orb	Lightning Blast	Lightning Bolt	3 Lightning Bolts
Leo	Male	Dagger	Boomerang	Dual Boomerang	Large Boomerang
Tiffany	Female	Bomb	Small Tornado	Dual Tornado	Large Homing Tornado