Death Duel

Death Duel is a tactical side-scrolling first-person shooter.

Platform – Sega Genesis
Release Date – October 1, 1992

The game consists of different time-limited rounds against a single enemy. Before each game, the player can spend Pheelae (money) on repairs and determine what weapons to take into battle. Each opponent has specific weaknesses and they can hide behind walls on the battlefield. To take them out, Jade needs to choose the most effective weapons and target specific parts before he runs out of time and ammo. Weapons include missiles, rockets, grenades that slow the opponent down, a machine gun and more. Only three weapons can be acquired at all times. Between missions there are short gallery shooting mini-games where additional money can be acquired.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whd928I7bF8
(Playthrough video above)

Screenshots and related images

Audio files

Castle
Cave (Arranged)
House
House (2)
Lethe’s Castle
Overworld
Password
Title
Town

This game was on the the 16 bit Sega Genesis Console and released in 1992. I couldn’t tell you what year my parents bought this for me but I would

like to guess Christmas of 1993 or 1994. I had not played this title in over 15 years before finally booting it up all over again via an emulator. Not really sure what kind of shooter I would call this but it is most definitely not a standard 1st or 3rd person shooter.

The music was kinda funky. I think they were ahead of their time music wise. It was very hip-hopish techno. That’s right techno. Something I thought hadn’t been born yet.

Death Duel is a game where you do battle against other robotic and alien monstrosities in guess what… a duel to the death. There is a layer of wall between you and your opponent in many places which eventually crumbles, helping the victor. People call this a obscure game, but I owned it, and at 50 bucks a pop I didn’t own a whole lot of Sega Genesis games. I had a lot of fun with this title though at a young age I never could complete it. I have no idea how many levels there are but I must have been close because it got incredibly tough.

You fight your opponents with a wide variety of weapons at your disposal, such as lasers, machine guns, land mines, homing rockets, missiles, spinners and more. Each fight you win earns you more cash to buy better weapons.

You use a cursor to aim at your opponents, such as dragons trolls and insects. Some of these monsters fill the entire screen up, if I recall the box states that they are the “largest 16-bit characters EVER”. Haw. The action can get pretty intense, but each monster has its own weak spots and attack patterns that you must learn, old school yes. Three weapons per match can keep you busy lobbing grenades and homing missiles for a while. Nothing better than blowing a limb off of your opponent, rendering him immobile, only to find he is still capable of kicking your ass.

After every foe you enter a mini game via shooting gallery that I always found fun. Some of those pesky bugs were hard to kill. You also get a chance to meet the shop keeper to upgrade your arsenal. The game developers had a twisted sense of humor as they created the shop keeper to have a pet monkey as well as a sign that read… “please touch my monkey”.

Once you figure everything out Death Duel really is a lot of fun. Equip the right weapons and learn each boss to defeat him and move on. This game is lost in time and will probably never see a remake but retro-replay never forgets. We give it a Solid B-. If you ever get a chance to play this game, please do, and thank us later.