Ballyhoo Studios

Chakan
Chakan: The Forever Man is a Sega game gear video game published by Sega of America June 8, 1992. The game featured an uncommonly dark premise for the time of its release, which saw the home console market flooded with licensed (often from children's cartoons) platformers.

The game follows the tale of Chakan, a warrior who was so confident in his martial abilities that he declared even Death couldn't best him in battle. Of course, Death appeared and challenged Chakan with a proposition. If Chakan could defeat him, he'd be granted eternal life. However, if Chakan was defeated, he'd become Death's eternal servant. The battle raged on for several days and the ultimate victor was very clear. While he defeated Death eventually, he was granted his reward.

The player, as Chakan, starts off in a central hub stage, from which he can select one of four elemental-based stages of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. The player advances through that stage until completion, whereupon Chakan is returned to the hub to choose a new stage, either the same or a different stage. Levels within an element must be completed in order, but that is the only restriction on the order the player may do levels. At the bottom of the screen, an hourglass indicates how much time the player has to complete the level. If time runs out, the player is returned to the hub. If killed, Chakan is returned to the hub. Chakan starts out with his characteristic twin swords, but acquires four new weapons in the first stage of each element, which have many uses.

Upon defeating the three stages of each elemental plane and the enemy bosses for each plane, he clears the "terrestrial plane" and embarks upon a quest to defeat four "elemental planes of evil," each consisting of another three stages and a boss each for fire, earth, wind and water. These levels are considerably harder than the initial four sets of planes, levels that are extremely challenging in their own right. The later levels feature far greater incidence of traps and enemies that cause instant death or level restart.

Upon defeating this second set of levels, Chakan is treated to an ending in which his curse is not lifted. After the credits roll for some time, he is allowed to fight an extremely difficult enemy boss (consisting of a H.R. Giger looking creature on a throne carried by what appear to be midgets). The player only gets one try. Doing this without the aid of an emulator with the ability to save and load game states is virtually impossible. If the player succeeds at this task, they receive the "real ending" which was unfortunately not implemented by the game developers. It consists of the hourglass background used in the plot exposition screens but without any text.