Nightshade (NES review)

Developer: Beam Software

Publisher: Ultra Games

Released: 1992

Nightshade is an action-adventure game that's exclusive to the NES.

As Nightshade, your mission is to save Metro City from the evil crime boss Sutekh. There's over 100 screens and the gameplay involves searching for clues and picking up items to solves puzzles. You can wander freely around the city and pressing Select allows you to access your inventory, examine items and talk to strangers. The game immediately throws you in at the deep end, as you're tied to a chair and need to shuffle to the other side of a wall to avoid an exploding bomb. It's fun seeing developers take some chances by instantly throwing a life or death puzzle at you! Four lives are available and each time you die you're forced to play mini-games in order to survive. In one of these you're strapped to a moving conveyor belt that's heading towards a deadly press machine, and your only option is to quickly figure out how to escape! The city-based action is slow-paced and while none of the puzzles are particularly clever they're not too cryptic either. The world is huge and engaging, with tons of unique areas to explore, and interesting, yet bizarre characters to interact with! There's also some action elements such as having to rescue a girl from the outside of a burning building by climbing ladders and avoiding fire; moments like this break up the slow pace and add some variety. Occasionally you'll take part in combat screens where the objective is to drain your opponents' life-bar using punches and kicks. Some enemies have entertaining attack patterns (especially the bosses) but the controls are clunky and delayed. This leads to many lost lives and it doesn't help that the game has no save option!

 

Nightshade is unlike anything else I've played on the NES and it's great to see a game that would normally grace 8-bit computers find a home on a console. It does have some obvious flaws (especially the shoehorned combat mechanics) but as a whole it's a good adventure game with a large, open world and an intriguing plot.

 

 

 

Random trivia: This was supposed to be part one in a series of Nightshade games, but all subsequent titles were cancelled.

Metal Gear (NES review)

Developer: Konami

Publisher: Ultra Games

Released: 1988

Metal Gear is a stealth-action game that started on the MSX2 and was later ported to the NES without Hideo Kojima's involvement.

You play as Solid Snake and your mission is to overthrow Colonel Vermon CaTaffy and destroy a super weapon called Metal Gear. To do this you need to search five heavily armed strongholds and rescue hostages that reveal clues as to the weapon's whereabouts. Your standard attack is a punch but upgrades like Hand Guns and Rocket Launchers can be picked up. At times you'll also need to locate equipment such as a Gas Mask to pass through certain areas, as well as using Rations to refill your health. The gameplay usually involves hiding around corners, sneaking up on enemies and avoiding CCTV cameras. The stealth mechanic is weak though as there's seemingly no rhyme or reason as to why enemies spot you and walking slowly seems to have little effect. The level design is confusing and the developers did a poor job of directing players. There's also tons of areas where you're somehow supposed to know that punching hidden walls will open passages that progress the story. Enemies constantly respawn (especially when you exit a truck) and many times they'll shoot you immediately upon entering a room which is extremely cheap. The strongholds have hidden traps in the floor meaning lots of trial and error is involved; worse still, you die instantly and are taken back to a checkpoint that's miles away! While you do keep all your collected items the excessive backtracking is unnecessary. There are a few bosses but they're mostly uninteresting with simple attack patterns. The game is littered with typos and memorable lines include: "The truck have started to move!" and "I feel asleep!"

Metal Gear is a dreadful stealth-action game and either the developers intentionally set out to punish players by sending them on wild goose chases or the project wasn't properly planned from the outset. The level design and gameplay are lacking in quality and overall it's an exercise in pure frustration.

Random trivia: This version was heavily changed from the MSX2 original and series creator Hideo Kojima has since disowned it for straying too far from the source material.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game (NES review)

Developer: Konami
Publisher: Ultra
Released: 1990

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game is a beat-em-up that's based on the 1987 TMNT animated series.

There's ten levels and your mission is to rescue April O'Neil and defeat Shredder. All four turtles have a decent move set that includes a weapon slash, a jump kick and a jump slash that can be performed by pressing the A and B buttons together; the latter kills most enemies with one hit but for some reason it's a little hard to consistently pull off. Comparing it to the Arcade original it's seriously impressive how much was ported over and there's lots of cool touches including one level where April screams for help on a background TV! It's arguable that some areas had an influence on Streets of Rage 2 (1992, Mega Drive) as some sections suddenly scroll downwards and there's even a short elevator ride. Scene 4 sees you jumping on a skateboard and fighting heavily armed helicopters on the highway which adds some nice variety. This NES port has two exclusive levels; Snowy Central Park is gorgeous with its parallax scrolling, slow ploughs and robotic snowmen armed with homing missiles! House of Shogun takes place in a Japanese Dojo and once again it looks beautiful with bad guys jumping out from behind the doors. The game has many enemy types to stop things getting monotonous and some carry weapons such as dynamite, boomerangs and sledgehammers. Each boss is fun to fight and many familiar faces are featured including Bebop and Rocksteady. Despite the lengthy adventure the main downside is that it's incredibly tough as you're always massively outnumbered; even the manual states that there's over 700 total enemies to defeat so seeing later levels is a real challenge!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game is an incredible port with tons of content and some solid beat-em-up action. It is a bit too challenging but it plays well and each level adds something new to keep the combat feeling fresh and exciting.

Random trivia: Another beat-em-up in the series was released on the NES in 1992 called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (NES review)

Developer: Konami
Publisher: Ultra Games
Released: 1989

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is an action-platformer that's loosely based on the 1987 animated TV series.

There's five levels and you can switch between all four turtles at any point. They each have unique abilities but Raphael and Michaelangelo's standard attacks only work at short range. Leonardo and Donatello are the most useful as they have long range attacks and their weapons can hit enemies on higher platforms. Power-ups such as Shurikens and Boomerangs allow you to take out bad guys from a distance but ammo is limited. The top-down hub world is advanced for a 1989 game as it lets you wander freely and choose which sewer to enter next. There's some satisfying hack 'n' slash gameplay involved in each stage but enemies constantly respawn; it's annoying when you move the screen back to fight an enemy, kill him and then try to progress, only for him to reappear. Enemies also have a tendency to appear right next to you as soon as you climb a ladder which means you'll take unavoidable damage. There's tons of flicker and at times the screen jumps in a really jarring fashion. In the swimming sections you have to defuse all of the bombs against the clock. It's a great idea but the controls are awful; to swim upwards you have to mash the B button which makes it difficult to pull off precise movements. The difficulty is uneven throughout, especially later in the game as the final level inside the Technodrome is brutal but the encounter with Shredder is a breeze. Despite the unrefined gameplay and uneven difficulty there's just something inherently likeable about the game. There's a good amount of variety in both the level design and enemies and things never get stale or predictable.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was bested by its sequel but there's some great ideas in here such as the open world hub and the ability to change characters at will. The gameplay is decent but I just wish it was more polished to make the difficulty more reasonable and the enemy respawning less frequent!

Random trivia: The game was ported to various home computers including the Commodore 64 and Amiga, and it was also re-released on the Wii Virtual Console in 2007.

Operation C (Game Boy review)

Developer: Konami
Publisher: Ultra Games
Released: 1991

Operation C is a run 'n' gun game that was released as Contra in Japan and Probotector in PAL regions.

It reuses some stages from Konami's Super C (NES, 1988) but rather than being a straight port the levels have been tweaked to work better on the smaller screen. Stages 1, 3 and 5 take place in horizontally scrolling levels while Stages 2 and 4 mix things up a bit and introduce vertically scrolling levels, similar to the 1985 arcade game Commando. There's a decent amount of power-ups available including the Spread Gun, Fire Gun and Homing Gun. The latter weapon is a bit overpowering and once you have it you'll mow down enemies and most bosses with relative ease. The sprites are small but the expanded view makes it easier to plan for enemy attacks and allows you extra time to react to incoming fire. The amount of bullets on screen at any time is astonishing and you won't see any slowdown. Unfortunately there are only five stages and once you know what you're doing the entire game can be beaten in around 20 minutes. It's still tough (especially the final level) but it's generally a lot less hectic than its NES counterparts. The game is so much fun to play though and it controls beautifully - whenever you die you'll always feel like it was the result of a user error rather than a cheap hit. The graphics aren't anything special but there's some nice detail in the backgrounds such as the swaying palm trees in Stage 3. Some iconic music has been ported over from the original Contra (1987) including the awesome Stage 1 theme. The SFX are great with satisfying explosions and the sound of guns rattling as they spray out rapid-fire bullets across the screen.

Operation C is a classic Game Boy title that's only really let down by its short length. It's incredibly well designed and Konami did an amazing job getting the series onto Nintendo's handheld without sacrificing too much in the gameplay department.

Random trivia: Parts of the game were altered depending on the territory where it was released. For example, Japan had a stage select option on the title screen, the U.S. had a revised plot, and PAL regions saw the main character and enemies changed into robots!