"Fly away"

8 Eyes was an early attempt as a side scrolling game. However, once you got into it, you realized that it played very much like Konami's Castlevania 1. Once you get around the fact that it is a clone of that, you may find this to be a decent game.

You are a man named Orin, who has to find eight jewels, called ''Eyes'' and take them to the altar at the House of Ruth and put them in a certain order. You will also take with you a bird named Cutris. While Orin is pretty much restricted to the ground, Cutris can help you with getting switches, potions, etc. Cutris also add a unique two player to this, even though there is no option in the menu. One played could control Orin, one could control Cutris, but if you are the only one playing, it would be you controlling both.

It seems that most of the graphics here are copied from Castlevania. The backgrounds here are drawn pretty much the same way with the dark, gloomy feel to it, the details drawn are decent at best. He also has some odd way of drawing his sword, it looks sort of stupid.

The music is incredibly average. There is nothing amazing, nothing horrible. You just hear some stereotypical music through each stage, Indian music in India, German music in Germany, Italian music in Italy, and so on.

Sound effects are nothing special either. All you really hear is the swish of the sword, and the footsteps as you walk into a door, but this is really dumb, since there is no animation for when you go into a door, all you see is a guy facing the door and sprites flickering.

Not to mention Orin is extremely slow! He is slow when he walks, he is slow when he fights, he is slow when he jumps, he is slow at EVERYTHING! Cutris isn't much better. When he flies around, he is not going as fast as a falcon should, instead he is flying like a drunk penguin. Also your special weapon involves pressing the same button as jump so you may jump accidentally when you do the special move, and get killed in the process.

Every stage consists of a mansion owned by a boss that Orin and Cutris need to find and beat to death. Whenever a stage is beaten, a password is offered, allowing you to continue your quest at a later date if you wish. Some of the levels you will have to go through include Arabia, India, Spain, Germany, and more. But, just like the MegaMan series, you are allowed to choose which stages you want to do first, second, etc.

Even more of MegaMan series, the boss you fight will be weaker to certain upgrades if you do the levels in a certain order. Beating each boss supposedly ''upgrades'' the sword, but you can not tell, since the sword always looks the same during the game. They should of added new sword colors for each upgrade at least.

I have also noticed how Orin seems to run slower than the enemies. This isn't good if you are trying to run away. Also with enemies that hit Orin multiple times before you can get a hit in, it ruins gameplay pretty much.

When you beat the game, you are given a password so you can play a harder difficulty. There is nothing to help you put the Eyes in order at the Altar (don't worry, its the exact same combination as before), plus the enemies are faster (We don't need that, they are fast enough already!) However, the ending is not worth going through the game.

Overall, this clone of Castlevania is pretty bad. I suggest either buying Castlevania, or buy this one at a very low price. This game had potential, with a few neat ideas, but the gameplay ruined the whole game.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 08/15/03