Youkai Club Nintendo

Youkai Club (the Youkai being a collective term for a wide array of Japanese ghosts and spirits) is a Famicom platformer that plays like the similarly horror-themed Castlevania games from Konami.

The stages alternate between scrolling upwards and the more traditional side-scrolling set-up, with occasional barriers in the way that can only be removed by destroying the nearby boss Youkai. The hero fights using a stream of throwing daggers that fly horizontally for a few meters before vanishing, which have an added benefit of being able to pass through walls. The player can also collect various power-ups to increase the strength of the hero's daggers, as well as gain XP after Youkai battles that will eventually increase the hero's parameters.