Spiritual Warfare | Cheerful Ghost

Spritual Warfare is The Most Under Rated Wisdom Tree NES Game

Recently Hungry Goriya reviewed the classic Wisdom Tree NES game Spiritual Warfare. Spiritual Warfare is a Zelda clone where a Christian Warrior takes on the evil spirits in their community and eventually goes to Hell and kills the Devil. I grew up Christian and my parents wanted me to be exposed to games with a more Christian focus so they bought me Spiritual Warfare in thick of the classic NES era. I played this game constantly as a kid so much so that I had every secret memorized and could be the game start to finish in a handful of hours. Spiritual Warfare is one of the better Zelda clones on the NES and where it's not revolutionary the items and zones are fairly... Read All

Revisited, it's easy, but still pretty fun.

If you're unfamiliar, it's an arpg where you're collecting the Armor of God, and your main method of self-defence is throwing fruit (of the spirit, which is also literal fruit).

It could be nostalgia, but the character of the game is really unique. I used to play this game more or less daily when I was pretty young, but never beat it due to there being no save function. Say what you want about production values, but it's pretty unique.

jdodson Admin wrote on 12/15/2012 at 03:39am

My parents picked this up for me when I was a lad. Surprised me because I had never heard of it before and the cartridge is shaped funny. That said, I played it and loved every second of it. I memorized all the questions as well.

Since it had a save feature, I did finally beat it but it took some doing. You get the Sword of the Spirit and then you have enough firepower to go to the Hell stage. If memory serves the entrance to hell was in two places? It was always pretty fun to go to Hell and kill the Devil, I think thats why when Doom came out later I was so into it.

gmlawton Post Author wrote on 12/15/2012 at 11:21am

I think the questions section planted a seed that eventually became my obsession with bowties...

After weeks of playing it, I finally found the password system, but the 20 character-alpha-numeric-case-sensitive passwords were impenetrable to me at the time. I only ever got as far as the airport. Not that I died at the airport, but it was just that I had been playing for what seemed like hours at that point, and I simply could not go on.

Playing through this time, there was magic in getting past where I had ever been, and seeing things I had only ever imagined, like Samson's Jawbone and the boots and whatnot.

I love the idea of this being a spiritual predecessor to doom! Thinking back, it was somewhat interesting how you're in this utterly normal world (park, city, houses...) and there are demons, and devil dogs that slowly work their way in...

Timogorgon Member wrote on 12/15/2012 at 05:35pm

I'm kind of surprised how many people know about this game. I thought my cousins and I were the only ones!

The game is actually pretty good for being kind of a Zelda clone. The banana was my weapon of choice if I remember correctly. :)

jdodson Admin wrote on 12/16/2012 at 12:02am

@gmlawton: The password system was ridiculous for sure but somehow I was able to navigate it, but sometimes I wrote it down wrong clearing my progress. Samson's Jawbone is a great item, my other fav was the vial of God's truth. But the most OP item of all was the Sword of the Spirit, after you get that its basically "Game Over" for the Devil.

@whiteboyslim: The Banana was the first weapon(if memory serves) that was fast AND went all the way across the screen. If was a front runner to the Sword of the Spirit but when the Sword hit, it blew up with a radius of two "truth bombs."

Did you both find all the hearts in the game?

Travis Admin wrote on 12/16/2012 at 02:23am

I only know of this game because of the AVGN review of all the different bible games. That said, I did buy Bible Adventures a few years back, and it's just as bad as AVGN says.

gmlawton Post Author wrote on 12/16/2012 at 02:50am

The banana was great to find if I recall, you're in the hotels and you talk to this old guy that says something about patience, and if you stand still like 30 secs, a wall moves and that's where you find it!

jdodson Admin wrote on 12/16/2012 at 05:04am

@gmlawton: I think you might be right about that. How many pears did you find? Or... Well there was a fruit weapon you could get that you could get 4 of, grapes or pears... I don't remember.

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