Play Chakan Online

Summary

Chakan: The Forever Man landed on the Game Gear as a surprisingly dark spin on the era’s family‑friendly platformers. The game pulls its roots from Robert A. Kraus’s comic, and Ed Annunziata’s enthusiasm after meeting the creator at a convention helped push it onto Sega’s handheld. Independent contractor Paul Hutchinson, working from his home studio in Maryland, stripped the Genesis original down to fit the weaker hardware while preserving its core feel, even adding a synthesized voice that shouts the title on the opening screen.

The handheld version drops you into a central hub where you can pick one of four elemental planes—earth, air, fire, water—each offering three tightly designed levels. An hourglass at the bottom of the screen counts down the time you have to clear a plane, and while you have infinite lives, a death simply sends you back to the hub to try again. Along the way Chakan upgrades from his twin swords to element‑specific tools like a grappling hook or hammer, and you can mix potions for temporary elemental boosts or higher jumps.

What really sticks with me is the brutal difficulty; the game demands precise platforming and clever use of those buffs, which has earned it a small but passionate cult following. AllGame gave the Game Gear version a modest 3.5 out of 5, but fans still cite its challenging design and faithful adaptation as reasons to revisit it.

Storyline

Chakan, the eponymous warrior of the Game Gear title Chakan, boasts that even Death cannot best him in combat. Death appears, offering a wager: defeat the Grim Reaper and gain eternal life, or lose and become Death’s eternal servant. After several days of battle Chakan emerges victorious, and Death grants him immortality—but curses him to wander every corner of existence until every supernatural evil is eradicated. The game’s ultimate goal, as noted by its description, is to defeat all the bad‑guys and finally achieve inner‑peace. In the final confrontation the player receives a single chance to slay a cosmic supernatural foe; failure prompts Chakan’s line, “rest will come another day,” while success triggers an hourglass screen that, after fifteen minutes, displays the cryptic message “Not the end.”