After a brief setup via Galactus that there are “evil forces of the Magick Domain” soon to be upon us, and that, “only by recovering the cosmic device can all be saved,” the Surfer heads out to collect the five scattered pieces. Unfortunately for Norrin, the pieces all seem to be guarded by nefarious Marvel Comics characters: Firelord (himself a former herald of Galactus), Mephisto (one of Marvel’s embodiments of Satan), and eventually, a blurry character whose portrait seems to be Mister Sinister (one of the X-Men’s villains).

Right off the bat, you’ll notice that Software Creations and Devine are big Mega Man fans, since you’re able to pick which level you’d like to run through first (viewed via character sprites of the end bosses). Also reminiscent of Mega Man are the power ups sprinkled throughout the levels, with F credits increasing your firepower and S credits increasing your speed.

You also might guess that they’re big fans of ridiculously hard games. Getting hit by a single enemy results in death, and there are no checkpoints to be found. Furthermore, so much as touching the boundaries of the level (such as a wall, ceiling, or statue) also results in death. In fact, the game is so brutal in its requirement that you basically memorize the entire stage - move-for–move - that Devine has actually acknowledged it as a design flaw.