Night Creatures

It seems a certain she-devil, Hecate, is determined to make you one of her eternal beastly slaves. She gave you one of her extra potent kisses-of-death and WHAM-MO! Suddenly you had strange new powers which enabled you to transform into a Wolf, an Owl, a Bear, and a Badger.

Beast or human, slavery's not your style. However, you'll never escape Hecate's grasp until you turn these animal powers to your advantage and use them to track Hecate down, destroy her, and reclaim your freedom.

An Illusive Woman

In this vertically and horizontally scrolling action/adventure you battle against an impressive assortment of animals, insects, rodents, and ghouls. At first glance you may be fooled into thinking this is a straight- forward hack 'n slash type of adventure. However, as you progress into the game a little further you begin to discover hints of role play, which make this cart a "thinker" as well as a slasher.

A Thinking Beast

You can travel freely between any of the 11 areas, including the ever popular evil forest and a run down graveyard, complete with open tombs, bats, and zombies. As they would in a role play game, various people occasionally cross your path and offer up insults, handy items, and vital clues.

Take heed of clues and warnings and you can find your way to places and things you didn't notice before. However, just because you find a shiny Silver Axe in the forest, it doesn't necessarily mean that's the best place to use it. You gotta' put your noodle to work to understand where, when, and on whom you need to use the various weapons. The same rules apply to your animal powers. You earn the powers, one by one, by destroying certain beasts. Then it's up to you to decide how to best utilize them. As for gameplay, well, while the running, jumping, and slashing movements can, with effort, get the job done, your onscreen movements are stiff, limited, and awkward-looking.

The Cold, Hard Facts

We've all seen what the TG-16 can deliver in terms of great graphics, fine tunes, and flowing, responsive gameplay from greats such as Ninja Spirit and the Bonk series. Night Creatures, unfortunately, falls short of the mark in all these departments. Dark colors set an appropriately spooky mood, however, character sprites and backgrounds are a little on the blocky side. The music's just plain dull.

The Little Cart That Couldn't

Night Creatures had the potential to be a really great game. Using human fists and traditional slashing weapons as well as shape-changing animal powers is a unique idea. Figuring out how and when to use these weapons makes Night Creatures a fun mental challenge, too. However, what makes the game mediocre are the blah graphics, and rusty gameplay. Still if you can overlook ugly creatures, you may want to consider venturing into the night.

The kiss-of-death has been bestowed upon you by the evil Queen of Darkness, Hecate. The kiss has given you the power to transform into powerful creatures of the forest, including a wotf and a bear. Unfortunately now you're Hecate's slave for eternity. The only way to free yourself from her hold is to destroy her, so you must make use of your beastly powers and track her down. Your hunt takes you through 11 terrifying levels, where you battle it out against Hecate's evil henchmen - the Walking Undead. To complicate matters even further, there are multiple paths to choose from in each level. Sound confusing and challenging - it is! May the best beast win.

What do you do when a bat slashes your neck, you become a night creature! However, since you are still half human, all the monsters are trying to kill you. Pick up an axe to chop your opponents, or simply run away from them! Night Creatures is a terrific action game for the TurboGrafx!