So there I was last Tuesday night, sitting in my basement game room trying to avoid grading another stack of essays about World War I, when I decided to dig through my Genesis collection. You know that feeling when you’re just… restless? Modern games with their constant tutorials and waypoint markers weren’t gonna cut it. I needed something that would punch me in the face and ask questions later.
My hand stopped on Chakan: The Forever Man, and I swear I actually snorted. Here was a game that had absolutely destroyed my teenage psyche back in ’92. I’d completely forgotten I even owned it until that moment – funny how the most traumatic gaming experiences get buried in your subconscious like that.
The cover art is still completely bonkers. This skeletal warrior dude with flowing hair, crossed swords, standing in what looks like the aftermath of some cosmic bar fight. Pure early 90s gothic nonsense, but the kind that makes you want to dim the lights and pretend you’re cooler than you actually are. The cartridge itself had that yellowed plastic thing going on that screams “I’ve survived three decades in Phoenix heat and somehow still work.”
I’d never actually read the DC comic it was based on – hell, I didn’t even know it WAS based on a comic until years later. The story’s pretty straightforward though: some arrogant swordsman claims he’s the best fighter who ever lived, so Death shows up personally and goes “oh really?” Next thing you know, our hero’s cursed to walk around as an undead warrior until he kills literally every evil thing in existence. It’s like making a wish on a monkey’s paw, except the monkey’s paw is the Grim Reaper and he’s got a sense of humor.
That opening sequence still hits different. The music alone… man, the Genesis sound chip was perfect for this kind of atmospheric horror. Those metallic, slightly detuned tones that sound like machinery slowly dying. Watching Chakan’s flesh melt away to reveal the skull underneath was genuinely disturbing in a way most 16-bit games never even attempted. This was 1992, remember – most platformers were still about collecting rings and jumping on things.
But here’s the thing about Chakan that made it stick in my brain for thirty years: it was absolutely, mercilessly cruel. Not Nintendo-hard in the traditional “memorize these patterns” way. This was something else entirely. Every single enemy encounter felt like an actual sword fight. You couldn’t button mash your way through anything – you had to study, learn, adapt, or die. Over and over and over.
The controls took forever to get used to. Chakan moved like he actually was undead – heavy, deliberate, powerful. No bouncy Mario physics here. When you swung a sword, it had weight behind it. The sound effects sold every impact, every clash of metal. Successfully landing a hit felt earned, not given.
The hub world system was weird and ambitious for the time. Instead of World 1-1, 1-2, whatever, you had this ethereal plane where Chakan could access different elemental realms through portals. Earth realm was all caves and stone passages. Air realm had floating platforms and winged demons. Each one looked and felt completely different, which was impressive given the hardware limitations.
The difficulty was just… savage doesn’t even cover it. This game would kill you on the first screen if you didn’t show proper respect. Enemies actually adapted to your movements instead of following predictable patterns. They’d force you into defensive positions, punish aggressive play, and generally make you feel like an idiot for thinking you could just run through swinging swords randomly.
And that hourglass system – Jesus. No traditional lives, just this timer slowly draining. Taking damage made it drain faster. When it emptied, that was it. Start over. No passwords, no battery save, just pure consequence. I spent entire weekends in high school trying to master single sections of this game.
There was this one part in the fire realm – I can still see it perfectly – where you had to navigate floating platforms while these demon birds dive-bombed you. The timing windows were absolutely brutal, and one mistake meant watching that hourglass tick down just a little bit faster. Modern gamers would uninstall after five minutes, but back then it felt like the game was genuinely testing whether you deserved to progress.
The weapon system added even more complexity. Different swords throughout the journey, each with unique properties. Some were fast but weak, others slow but devastating. Learning which weapon worked against which enemies became this whole strategic layer. You couldn’t just mash buttons – you had to think, plan, sometimes retreat and reassess.
Visually, Chakan was unlike anything else I owned. The color palette was deliberately oppressive – grays, dark blues, sickly yellows that created this genuinely unsettling atmosphere. The sprite animation was fluid and detailed, especially Chakan himself. His cape flowed naturally, sword strikes had proper follow-through, and his idle animations perfectly conveyed that eternal weariness. It wasn’t the most technically impressive Genesis game, but it had more style than anything else on the system.
The sound design was incredible beyond that opening theme. Each realm had its own musical identity that perfectly matched the visuals. Fire realm was all aggressive drums and harsh synth stabs. Water realm had these haunting, echo-heavy melodies that actually made you feel submerged. Sound effects were equally impressive – steel clashing, cape whooshing, otherworldly enemy death cries.
I can totally see why Chakan never sold well. Too dark, too difficult, too uncompromising for mainstream audiences. But that’s exactly what made it special. While most games were trying to appeal to everyone, Chakan was unapologetically niche. It knew what it wanted to be and executed that vision without compromise.
Playing it again on my Model 1 Genesis last week, I was surprised how well it holds up. Yeah, the difficulty is still punishing. Yeah, some design choices feel deliberately obtuse. But there’s something pure about a game that respects your intelligence enough to not hold your hand. Chakan expects you to rise to its challenge, and when you finally do – when you master its rhythms and overcome its trials – the satisfaction is genuine.
My kids walked by while I was playing and asked why I was subjecting myself to something that was clearly making me angry. How do you explain that sometimes the best games are the ones that make you want to throw the controller, but keep you coming back anyway? That the struggle itself is the point?
It’s the kind of game that reminds you why we fell in love with gaming in the first place, back when finishing something actually meant something.
Joe’s a history teacher who treats the console wars like actual history. A lifelong Sega devotee from Phoenix, he writes with passion, humor, and lingering heartbreak over the Dreamcast. Expect strong opinions, bad puns, and plenty of “blast processing.”
