Famicom Fanatic: The Miracle of Almana Review

アルマナの奇跡 or Arumana no Kiseki

Arumana No Kiseki is a game heavily influenced by Indiana Jones which you can sew on the cover art. The story is quite simple, a mysterious man stole the Arumana treasure from its resting place in a small village causing them to turn into stone, and now its all up to you to get the treasure back and free them. You star of the game with 30 daggers which you can throw at enemies and a grappling hook of sorts which you need to use to climb the many mountains you will face. During the game you will find several power ups such as:

Bomb: Throws it in front of you and explodes.
Gun: Simply shoots a bullet straight forward.
Bolas: It flies of diagonally.
Crystal Ball: Eliminates enemies on screen
Spike Ball: Similar to the "Bomb" except this does more damage.
Hat: Simply a 1-up.
Pendant: Extends the life bar slightly.
Meat: And of course the classical "pork chop" that heals you.

This game is somewhat on the hard side, it starts of simply and gets gradually harder, by the end its a bit to hard like so many early Konami games. You will explore mountains, rivers, mines and lastly a sanctuary of sorts. The enemy setups is classic gaming enemies like snakes and scorpions. There are human enemies as well, all wearing turbines and being equipped with guns. The yellow/brown-ish enemies doesn't drop any items but the red ones does. There is pretty basic setup of bosses to, they are:

Water Hydra/Water Dragon: He just stand's still and shoots 3 projectiles that home in on you.
A old Hermit on a cloud: He just flies around and shoot lightning bolts at you.
A wall with skulls: There's One brown scull moving up and down on the Left side and there's 3 gray skulls on the right side, they both fire beams, but if to of those beams collide they will scatter around the stage.
Big Tarantuela: He just jumps around constantly and shoots web. If you stand close to the boss, his web attack will just go through you and leave you unharmed.
Plant: A plant that comes out from the floor or walls and shoot boulders at you.
Flying skull: Smaller flying skulls comes out of its mouth and homes in on you, and you can also see the stolen Almana treasure on its forehead.

Now to get to the good part, The soundtrack. The soundtrack is mainly the reason i bought this game. Its some of the best famicom soundtrack there is out there, it's definitely on my top 10 Famicom soundtracks list.
Some songs appear on more the one stage though, but that's not a problem in my opinion. From the start to the end of the game its just sheer goodness. This game also uses the FM Syntheses chip but this time its on all tracks. Konami sure knows how to make a stellar soundtrack.

I included a medley for those who are interested.

Well then, this is a game that i strongly urge you to try out. It's a bit on the short side but it's action packet from the beginning to start.

Pros and Cons

The Good Stuff: