Adventures of Dino Riki

An on-foot Vertical Scrolling Shooter for the Nintendo Entertainment System, made by Hudson Soft. It was released in Japan by the year 1987 (as Shin Jinrui: The New Type) and in America by the year 1989.


 * Continuing Is Painful: Dino Riki's default weapon is throwing rocks which are unreliably slow but can be replaced, via weapon upgrades, with Tomahawks, Boomerangs, and finally Fireballs. Unfortunately, dying reduces him back to using rocks which leaves him at the mercy of fast-moving enemies.
 * Endless Game: After defeating the final boss, the game just loops back to stage 1. Which means that you get absolutely nothing for clearing all seven worlds in one sitting.
 * Hyperactive Sprite: Justified since the stages are constantly scrolling, forcing Dino Riki to stay on the move. At least up until you get to the Boss.
 * Nintendo Hard: Dino Riki must contend with hordes of fast-moving enemies, quicksand pits, bottomless chasms, and river crossings where he must be extremely careful with his jumps or else he will end up falling to his death. This is further compounded by the game's terrible jumping mechanics.
 * Painfully-Slow Projectile: Dino Riki's default weapon: Throwing rocks.
 * Power-Up Letdown: One of the power-ups transforms Dino Riki into Macho Riki which lets him shoots psychic projections of himself at enemies and take a hit without losing health. Unfortunately, the fact that Dino Riki reverts back to using throwing rocks after getting hit and the fact that the fireball weapon is much, MUCH better make this power-up more trouble than it's worth.
 * Getting too many 'Boot' powerups, which increase Dino Riki's speed, will make him almost uncontrollable and increase his risk of running into an enemy, an enemy's bullet, or falling into water/a pit.
 * Shout-Out: Dino Riki was modeled after Riki Chōshū, a popular Japanese pro wrestler.
 * Super Drowning Skills: There are river crossings in this game that serve as deathtraps if Dino Riki botches a jump. And on top of that, there are also small (but deep) puddles that will kill him just as well.
 * Temporary Platform: There are big lilypads in the jungle levels which sink and float back up for a few seconds.
 * Tyrannosaurus Rex: The second boss is one that shoots fireballs.