"Demon" mini-boss, Pickford could only use about three animation frames, as the sprite was large for the NES hardware. Pickford designed the "Worm" boss similar to the bosses found in R-Type, where a series of smaller sprites formed a snake or worm-like enemy; however, he commented that "it ended up in the game more like a giant floating head". Pickford drew inspiration from the thrones in Super Mario Bros. 3 in designing the final boss, Malkil. However, near the end of development, time constraints led the Pickford brothers to sell Zippo Games to Rare, in which Zippo was renamed Rare Manchester. With Rare as their boss, morale dropped for the development staff, and eventually everyone left the company before the game could be completed, thus shutting Rare Manchester down. According to Ste Pickford: "One of the programmers completed the game himself after the studio closed." Pickford included a cover, which consisted of a knight in a light-blue armor, in which he said "was just something I drew for fun". However, when the final version of the game was sent to Rare for approval after the studio's closing, they threw away the cover and added their own. According to Pickford, "The document came back with about two typos fixed, a new cover, and 'revised by Tim Stamper' in big letters on the title page, with all trace of myself or any of the Zippo Games names removed, so I guess Tim had a major role." The game was published by Acclaim Entertainment and released in North America in March 1992 and in Europe on January 21, 1993. The Pickford brothers included a couple of easter egg references. One of them revolved around the name of one of the tavern keepers, Newton N. Ridley, which is a play off the brewery Newton and Ridley from the British soap opera Coronation Street. Another easter egg reference was made to Dragon Warrior with regards to the princesses Kuros must save during the game. Upon saving a princess, she asks Kuros to marry her, prompting a yes/no response for the player; if the player selects "no", the princess responds with "If you refuse, my heart will surely break!" and prompts the yes/no response again - similar to the "but thou must" response in Dragon Warrior. In addition, as all three princesses will have committed to marrying all three forms of Kuros, the original plan for