Holy Diver Noir - Edition Collector

Holy Diver is a platform video game released in Japan in 1989 for the Famicom. The game was developed and published by Irem. The game was programmed to be released in North America and was even announced in Electronic Gaming Monthly, but for unknown reasons it was never released. The game shares the same name as Dio's first album and the main character is a representation of the singer and leader of this group, Ronnie James Dio. The game incorporates themes that are quite prevalent in Dio's music, as well as imagery similar to the Holy Diver music video. Also, at the end of the game, there are other musical references, such as King Crimson, Slayer, or Zakk W. and Randy R. (Zakk Wylde and Randy Rhoads, who were guitarists for Ozzy Osbourne.) Although Holy Diver was developed by Irem, it looks a lot like a Konami game. It is quite similar to Castlevania, and one of the levels features textures resembling those of Contra. The game was re-released in cartridge format for the NES US and EU by Retro-Bit in 2018 in a standard and collector's edition.