I'm not going to be posting reviews like crazy, but a year or so ago I wrote a couple after de-stressing with a couple retro games, so I thought I'd at least share them with the community. This and my Adventure Island review is all actually.
Racketboy.com's list of hidden NES Gems inspired my next gaming choice. Clash at Demonhead was hardly a blip on my gaming radar, but Racketboy seems to think it is a hidden gem among the NES game collection. It definitely has some interesting box art--looks like something I might have picked up at the local rental shop for some weekend gaming. Yeah, I learned quickly from experience not to expect anything in a game to resemble its box art. Whatever. I loaded it up, and from what I gathered from the intro scene, the hero, Bang, has to rescue the kidnapped inventor of a Doomsday bomb, Professor Plum (one of the suspects from the board game Clue?)
The very first gaming screen is a overworld map. I select the only route available from the beginning. I can only shoot straight forward, and my character isn't exactly nimble, so I can already tell I'm gonna be in for some annoying segments. A skeleton dude is waiting for me, and attacks when I approach, but then it takes me to a dialogue scene. The dialogue scene consists of two talking heads that show emotion and everything, which is kinda cool. I don't know if it was one of those translation quirks or what, but the scene has text in the middle that reads, "Talking Time!" Haha ok, a little awkward.
The skeleton guy tells me basically everything I need to do to beat him and where to find him. Somehow I don't think that's the smartest idea. Regardless, he takes off and I move on. Somewhat overwhelmed by the world map, I head north. One thing I am gradually noticing is the strange enemy designs. The game has a strange mix of monsters, robots, and humans, that seem more like a mashup of enemies from other platformers of the late 80s, but don't really seem to belong in this game. Reminds me of the random enemies in Legacy of the Wizard, but at least those seemed to somehow fit the dungeon atmosphere.
Ok, this guy's moves really piss me off. I can only shoot in one direction, whereas enemies shoot in every direction. This makes for a lot of annoying segments where I am getting shot at, but can't get in position to kill the bad guy. He fires slow, sort of like the earlier Mega Man games, so I seem to miss a lot. If I wasn't already frustrated by the ability to shoot in one direction, the other major problem, AND PROBABLY THE MOST FRUSTRATING THING ABOUT THIS GAME, is the enemy placement. The enemies aren't placed where the player has to be strategic and move quickly, they are placed in cheap spots WHERE I CAN'T AVOID TAKING DAMAGE! What the hell is this all about?! Going from one screen to the other shouldn't ever kill you. Ever!
There are some walls that you have the ability to climb, but there is no way to jump off of them. I can only sort of fall off which means I have to climb higher than the ledge THAT IS RIGHT NEXT TO ME so that I can get far enough over when I fall. On top of that, enemies are usually placed above me when I am climbing. With no way of shooting, I am forced just to take damage to advance the level.
After running around for a bit, I just want to advance in the freaking game without running around like a jackass. I fire up trusty gamefaqs.com again. All the walkthroughs are kind of annoying for this game because of its open-endedness, but I am able to figure out what to do next. I go along advancing the storyline while experiencing some awkward, confusing dialogues and continuing to get frustrated at the cheap enemy placement. I began to basically run through levels shooting what I can, but just dealing with the damage. Dying in this game isn't the worst thing ever. I just start from the beginning of the short levels with full health.
The bosses in this game are inconsistent. Some are teeth-grinding hard, and some are way too easy. One thing I really noticed in the boss battles was that the area right above my head takes damage. It's really freaking annoying to die in the middle of a battle because a fireball goes right over your head, and the game's really freaking bad hit detection thinks you are dead.
The unlimited continues make it not so hard, so I pushed through to the end of this game. There's a few times I had to go back and forth on the world map, which is pretty annoying. All the levels are called routes, and the game refers to different numbered routes. For the most part, they're predictably numbered, but in some instances they are way off, and that makes finding the appropriate route frustrating. Why couldn't they at least mark on the world map the routes you've been through? An open ended platformer was probably pretty cool at the time, but the novelty wears off after a while.
I did a little searching around on this game and some people seem to think this game has an interesting story because of some plot twists and such. One guy in particular who does playthroughs with commentary and posts to Youtube, mentions this in the info section of his video. I really hope he is saying that it makes the plot interesting relative to other NES games of the time, because the awkward "Talking Time!" doesn't always explain things well, and the plot twists are so random. Plus, a twist ending that adds nothing to the story is as uncool as expected.
There's a complex store and item system that I never mentioned. It's kinda cool, but you'll probably underuse it like I did. Another thing that was nice was the fact that the game had an actual ending. So many games of the time would've just flashed a message that read, "You have saved Professor Plum and stopped the Doomsday Bomb. Congratulations! The End..." There were actually a few things to do after I beat the final boss, and some decent, though still awkward, dialogue. Despite these positives, I felt more frustrated playing through this game than anything due to the cheap enemies and limited options to take them out. I can understand why this game would make the "Hidden Gems" list, however, as it is still very playable, decent game that not many people have heard of.