Cosmo Police Galivan (コスモポリス ギャリバン?) is an action game with a few RPG elements, developed by Nichibutsu for the Famicom in 1988. It shares a title and a few elements with Nichibutsu's 1985 arcade release, Cosmo Police Galivan, but the games are considerably different, with the Famicom version baring very little resemblance the to arcade game.
Instead, the player takes control of a man who can don a defensive power suit only after collecting enough power chips. The player's primary weapon is a sword as opposed to a gun. Projectile weapons slowly become available to the player throughout the game, but they require energy in order to use them.
The flow of the game plays like a cross between Metroid and later Castlevania games. There are stages that must be taken on in a linear fashion, but each stage is an ever expanding maze unto itself, where the player may explore in any direction, and new items or powers can open new pathways in previously visited sections. Each level has a main area, along with one or more dimensional pockets that must be explored in order to increase your options.
The game was only ever released in Japan, and has never been officially released in a language other than Japanese. Knowledge of Japanese is not necessarily required in order to play the game, but many of the in-game hints are essential in order to help you expose many of the hidden paths. In April of 2000, hacker Jair published an English translation patch of the game, which can be found here.
Story
Cosmo 2010: The evil syndicate Mado seized control of the universe. The dark lord Madius crushed the Univeral Police's cyborg warriors. They sent the last one, Cosmo Police Galivan, to the enemy planet Badurr.