Xi You Ji

The Journey to the West is a side-scrolling beat'em up game.

It is based on an ancient Chinese novel of the same name in which a Buddhist monk, Xuanzang travels westwards to retrieve sacred texts, on his journey he is accompanied by three protectors. This is depicted in the title screen. Consequently in the game there are three characters to choose from of predominantly animal fighters who are going for a pilgrimage to India, as described in the novel. In single-player mode each marches from left to right across a scrolling background with devils of various kinds to defeat along the way. The game has three levels of difficulty: Easy, Middle and Hard. The player has three lives with which to score as high as possible.

The game has some English words in the configuration section, 'General Midi'; 'Soundblaster' etc but all other text is in Chinese (Traditional), there is no option to use any other language. This is a game for one or two players, it can be played by two players sharing a keyboard but a gamepad is also supported. There is in-game music but a scoreboard was not observed.