If the fortune cats (also known as lucky or begging cats) were less beneficial in increasing gold, I would be more reluctant to hit them. It is my belif that, as a cat lover, that it is a bad thing to try to hurt or make fun of cats. At least the game refers to that as "catching", so it is not as severe as it looks.
There are five types of swords that can be purchased in the weapons shop, which are Brave, Thunder, Laser, Jewel, and Alpha. Each sword is a red or blue variant of a certain length, with the Alpha sword being the most powerful and reaching about 1/3 of the screen, and the next one needed doubles in price of the last.
Recorded from a real TurboGrafx-16. If text needs to be read longer, the video can be paused. This was captured from a different attempt from Reverse Zone.