Blades of Vengeance

Blades of Vengeance is a platform game that was developed by Beam Software and published by Electronic Arts for the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis. In this game, one or two players can select one of three fantasy warriors to fight through a large range of platform levels in order to defeat the forces of darkness.
Gameplay.
At the beginning of the game, the player (or players) choose from one of three characters. From there, the player/s are thrown into the levels one at a time with a warning about the boss at the end of each one. 
The player/s can collect items such as silver coins, potions and magic they could access in their inventory through the pause screen. While still in the pause screen, the players are able to get a better view of their surroundings by holding the C button and moving the screen around the player character with the directional pad. All of the levels are large enough to explore and many of them have secret areas that would award the player with additional pick-up items, such as potions of healing, invisibility, force fields, poison gas immunity, scrolls that increase player strength, keys, armor for additional attacks and strength per player, the Midas Ring which turns all enemies into bags of money and the Blast Wand which destroys all on-screen enemies.
The levels were divided into three portions with the third being the boss level, similar to "Sonic the Hedgehog". After every boss battle, the players were taken to a shop where they could spend their silver coins on additional items for their inventory for the next levels. The players started with a certain number of lives, and continues were only available after scoring many points or defeating many enemies; extra lives could be purchased in the shop at the end of each world once they passed the second one. Once the lives and any obtained continues were gone, it was game over.
Plot.
The evil Mannax the Dark Lady has conquered the Kingdom. To "restore order and goodness to the land", three adventurers serving the good wizard The Master's embark to seek out and kill her. Once Mannax, who takes the form of a dragon for the final battle, is slain, The Master uses his returned full powers to destroy all forces of darkness through the land.
Reception.
Betty Hallock of "VideoGames" awarded "Blades of Vengeance" the overall review score of 8/10 (the other editors gave it two scores of 7/10 and two of 8/10), especially praising it for "practically superb" graphics and "excellent" control system. Other scores included 86% from "Electronic Games" and a lower 64% from "HobbyConsolas".