Hinotori Houou Hen: Gaou no Bouken/Gameplay

Controls

 * : Use the direction pad to control Gaou. Press left or right to make him run in either direction.  Press down to make him squat.
 * : Press the A button to make Gaou jump. The longer the A button is held down, the higher Gaou will jump.
 * : Press the B button to make Gaou throw his chisel. If a chisel hits an enemy, it will be transformed into a gargoyle head.  Hold  to throw chisels directly overhead.
 * : Press the B button while holding to deposit a Gargoyle head on the screen. If Gaou is standing on the ground, the gargoyle will be placed at his feet.  If Gaou is in the air, the gargoyle will be placed beneath his feet and remain suspended in the air.
 * three times: While squatting, perform a few squat-jumps in order to break the block below.
 * : Press Start to begin a new game, or the pause and unpause the action mid-game.
 * : Press Select to sacrifice one of your lives and start over from the beginning or latest checkpoint of the current stage.

Player
You play through the game as the bulbous nosed Gaou. When Gaou was born, his father tried to hold him while climbing a mountain, but he lost his grip and fell to the earth below, killing him, and costing Gaou one eye and one arm. He was tormented for being different throughout his childhood, and he came to despise humanity, and loved nature. He would steal from other people, and kill them if necessary without a second thought to survive. One day he would encounter a monk who would begin to teach him that by witnessing the ugliest aspects of humanity, he alone could obtain an appreciation for life that no one else was capable of. The monk also taught him how to tap into his innate talents for sculpting faces and gargoyles with intense emotional expressions.

The game loosely depicts Gaou's journey to locate the Phoenix, but it does so by having Gaou travel through a variety of locations, and even through different time periods, in an effort to collect 16 cards which, when assembled, form the image of the Phoenix and releases her into the world. To complete his quest, Gaou must traverse each stage and collect the card found at the very end. Sometimes he must defeat a stage boss first before he can collect the card. He has a chisel at his disposal which he can use as a weapon against his enemies. Gaou also has a health meter, displayed in the upper left corner of the screen. He will lose a life if he receives enough damage to empty his health meter, if he falls below the bottom of the screen, or if he runs out of the time provided to complete the stage.

Gargoyle Blocks
Gaou has a talent for chiseling gargoyle-like faces into stone. And in the game, he can make use of the gargoyle blocks that he collects by creating steps and platforms out of them. Whenever he throws his chisel at an enemy, it will turn into a yellow Gargoyle Block. As long as the block remains yellow, it will slide along the ground and Gaou can collect it, adding one to his supply of blocks. If he throws a chisel at a yellow block, it will reverse direction. If a yellow block falls or hits a wall, it becomes an immovable gray block. Gaou can also create gray blocks where ever he likes by pressing as long as he still has a supply of blocks, shown at the top of the screen. Gaou can destroy any gray block by holding and jumping on top of the block three times. This trick may allow him to access areas that he otherwise could not.

Items
All items in the game (except for the cards) are collected from treasure chests. Treasure chests can only be opened if Gaou can hit them with a chisel. This means Gaou cannot open chests that lie at Gaou's feet unless he can position himself lower than the chest. Once a chest is open, the contents will be displayed and can be collected.