Rodland

Rodland (aka Rod-Land or Rod Land) is a platformer developed and published by Jaleco in 1990 initially in arcades only. In the following years, it was ported to multiple other platforms, including Amiga, Atari ST, NES, Commodore 64, and ZX Spectrum by The Sales Curve. It has a sequel called Soldam, which is more of a puzzle game than Rod Land.

In this anime-style ladder climber, you take control of two sibling fairies who are on a quest to rescue their mother. Taking its own name quite literally, you use a magic wand, or rod if you will, and use it to defeat your enemies. You don’t necessarily whack the enemies with the rod directly, you grab them with magic and slam them on the ground until death. Brutality has never looked so adorable. The rod is not the only tool for enemy slaying as some enemies drop other weapons, such as bombs, once they die. Your wand can also be used to manifest ladders to climb around the levels with.

With bright, colorful graphics and quick gameplay, Rod Land is pleasing to the eye. It's clearly inspired by other popular arcades such as Bubble Bobble (you can collect fruits to get points or the letters EXTRA for an extra life) and of course it can be played by 2 players. The porting to Amiga was excellent and the fact that characters don't jump makes the game perfect for one-button joysticks.

There are also plenty of levels to keep you busy and lots of enemies to slam on the ground. Rod Land got decently high scores among critics and took home a couple of awards. Rod Land is cute, yet satisfyingly violent, fun.