Demon Sword/Gameplay

Controls

 * / : Use the left and right directions on the control pad to make your player run in either direction.
 * : Press up on the control pad to make the player jump up in the air. The longer you hold up, the higher you will jump.
 * or : Press up and another direction to make your player jump diagonally. While jumping diagonally, you can change your motion.  You may not reverse the direction of your jump, you may only stop moving forward.
 * : Press down on the control pad to squat. However, if you are not standing on solid ground, like a branch or platform for instance, you will also fall through to the level below.
 * : Press the A button to swing your sword.
 * : Press the B button to throw a projectile forward. Use the direction pad to change the direction of your projectile when you press B.
 * : Press the start button to begin a new game or to pause the action mid-game. While the game is paused, press up or down on the control pad to cycle through the alternate weapon selections at the bottom of the screen, and press left or right to choose from among the present options.  Press the A button to activate whichever weapon is selected by the cursor.
 * : Not used.

Player
In Fudo Myouoden, you control a man who has undergone tremendous physical and ninja skill training. As a result, he is a very capable warrior who can strike his enemies from a distance or far away. He is also incredibly fast, with the ability to leap tremendous distances across the ground and through the trees. His mission is to reconnect the seven blades of a sword, and rescue a Shinto priestess who has been captured by demons. You start out with a single blade, and you will obtain two more blades when you defeat the final boss of each world. The blades extend the length of his sword, making it easier to strike enemies from a safer distance.

While leaping through the air, you have a limited form of control over your motion. You can control the height of your jump by holding and releasing the up direction on the control pad. If you jump straight up, you can slowly maneuver left and right through the air. If you jump diagonally in one direction, you can stop yourself from moving forward by pressing backward in the opposite direction. You will never be able to reverse your momentum, but you can continue to move slowly forward in the original direction after you have stopped. Use this technique to control the distance that you jump, and to prevent yourself from falling into traps.

Fudo Myouoden
In the Japanese version of the game, this warrior will die as soon as he is struck by any enemy, or falls on to flames or spikes. The only way to survive such an encounter is to possess a supply of substitution dummies. As long as you have at least one dummy, you will substitute the dummy for your body automatically and continue on. However, if you do not have any dummies, you will lose one life. When you lose all of your lives, the game is over, and you are given a password which you may use to continue your game at a later time. If you choose to continue, or use the password, you will begin at the start of the last area you died in.

In addition to obtaining pieces of the sword, you will also obtain different types of projectiles from many of the bosses you defeat. These projectiles contain different properties, and different enemies may be weaker to one projectile than the others. Some enemies are only vulnerable to one type of projectile. Learning which projectile is most useful in particular stages is key to your survival.

Demon Sword
The American version of the game handles health quite differently. Instead of dying after only one hit, the player has a health meter. At the start of the game, the meter only has one unit. If all the health from the meter is lost, the player dies. However, if you collect red orbs, they will fill the meter upon dying. They will fill one unit of health per orb until the meter is full or you run out of orbs. You can extend by meter up to a total of eight units by collecting black orbs. However, the black orbs do not activate until the player loses all of his remaining health. Note that as a result of this change, the enemies have also been made harder to kill. Enemies which can be killed in one hit in the Japanese version now require two or more hits at the start of the game.

Additionally, there are no multiple projectiles in Demon Sword. Rather, the player can collect tiles which increase the player's power. You can find one power tile per stage, except in the final stage. After the first power tile, the player's projectiles do twice as much damage. However, the third tile does not increase the player's power. Rather, it extends the range at which the projectiles can be thrown. After the third tile, they will continue to increase the player's power until you collect the sixth tile. This will set the player's projectile power to a maximum of 5, and change the graphics of the projectile thrown.