Danan: The Jungle Fighter (Master System) (PAL) - Full Playthrough
15Turn on CC for commentary.
A rare instance of a Japanese-developed game that was not only not released in Japan, but was also a Europe exclusive (at least until it was released in Brazil later down the line). As such, I feel particularly vindicated about my choice to emulate these games at 50Hz.
"Danan: The Jungle Fighter", as you might expect, stars Danan, who is a fighter who lives in the jungle. The sole survivor of a plane crash as a baby, he was taken in by a tribesman named Jimba, who raised him as his own son... at least until he got murdered for having a shiny knife. Swearing revenge, Danan jungles and fights in order to seek the prophet Niai and find out who killed his mentor and why. (And I realize I kind of gave the "why" away already, oops.)
I think I first played this game years ago, but never got very far because, for all his muscle, Danan starts off with the durability of wet tissue paper, and the game does not make it terribly obvious if and when you're dealing damage to bosses. Doesn't help that you only get one life and no continues (with your only safety net being rare elixirs that serve as auto-revives), and your only weapon is a puny knife that... nevertheless has a surprisingly sizable hitbox. I used to get stuck on the second boss, only to beat him by pure chance about two months ago and then immediately go on to beat the game on the same attempt because the difficulty drops off like a rock afterwards.
Here's a casual pseudo-speedrun, just without skipping the dialogue because the game is actually quite cutscene-heavy.
0:00 - Opening
1:30 - Round 1
3:45 - Boss 1 (Narga)
6:15 - Round 2
9:10 - Boss 2 (Gaza)
10:59 - Round 3
13:37 - Boss 3 (Schtrouheim)
15:40 - Round 4
17:42 - Boss 4 (Horn)
20:00 - Boss 5 (Priest of Moralos)
20:35 - Final boss (Gilbas)
21:32 - Ending