Power Blade 2 No-Death Playthrough (Actual NES Capture)

This is a capture of me playing through Power Blade 2 on the NES. This is not an emulator. This footage was captured directly from my front-loading NES using a real Power Blade 2 cartridge.

It has been just over 10 years since I posted my playthrough of the original Power Blade, but I have finally gotten around to recording the incredibly rare sequel.

I grew up playing Shatterhand on the NES, and one day I happened to spot Power Blade in the nearby video rental store. Since the box art looked similar to Shatterhand, I decided to rent it, and sure enough, Power Blade ended up being quite similar to Shatterhand (it was made by the same company). Although I found Power Blade to be fun, I didn’t think too much about it after that single rental.

Decades later, in early 2015, I then decided to buy the original Power Blade off eBay (for a relatively cheap price) and I quickly recorded a no-death playthrough. I never thought that I would be able to secure the outrageously expensive sequel, but in 2020, my channel did quite well with overall views and advertising revenue, and I decided to put some of the Youtube profits into buying more games (such as the Super Mario Advance sequels).

I found a complete and incredibly clean U.S. copy of Power Blade 2 on eBay, which was ironically being sold by a shop in the Netherlands. I managed to negotiate the price down a little bit, but I still paid a pretty penny to repatriate a highly collectible NES game. Although I immediately tested the cartridge to make sure it worked, I only recently got around to beating the game.

As a late NES game, Power Blade 2 takes some noticeable inspiration from the Mega Man titles because of its heavy focus on the new slide mechanic, as well as the inclusion of health and energy tanks. However, the new suits really steal the show and help prevent the game from feeling too derivative by incorporating additional platforming abilities such as wall climbing, swimming and flying.

Overall though, Power Blade 2 doesn’t deviate much from its predecessor. You still progress through a handful of stages (generally in the order you want) using the same boomerang attack while collecting power-ups dropped from enemies. But you no longer have to unlock the boss door by speaking to a hidden character in each stage.

The game does go overboard with the instant-kill ceilings and floors, but it’s still not that difficult. Enemy item drops are incredibly generous, and you receive more than enough health and energy tanks along the way. Boss patterns are also quite simple (though the bosses deal quite a bit of damage), and you even seem to get unlimited continues.

I do enjoy Power Blade 2 quite a bit, particularly with how it incorporates suit usage into the last two levels, but I think the excessive auto-scrolling stages slow the pacing down too much, and the music isn’t as good as the first game. So the sequel is a bit of a step down from the first Power Blade, but I still give it credit for innovating with the new suits.

Anyway, enjoy the footage.

Recorded with the Hauppauge HD PVR and a composite connection at 60 frames per second. I used a Toshiba model D-R550 DVD Recorder to upconvert the NES's native 240p signal to 480i so that the Hauppauge could capture the console's audio/video signal.

I'm using a standard NES controller.