Slash Out

Slashout is the third installment to the Spikeout series, released for Sega NAOMI hardware in 2000. Unlike other games in the series, Slashout has a completely different setting, based in a medieval fantasy world with different characters - gameplay remains similar, however. It’s fairly standard fare for the genre, having the player pick from four archetypal fantasy heroes (Slash the fighter, Luna the dancer, Axel the warrior, and Kamui the ninja), and fight gangs of monsters in standard (though very nicely rendered) fantasy locations. There’s a little bit of RPG flavour, too, as collecting gems gives experience points with which you use to level up, though levelling only seems to refill and slightly extend your life bar, so it’s really just a different way of providing the extra lives at certain score intervals which traditional beat-’em-ups often have.