NES Games No One Played: Letter D
I’ve got a pretty extensive NES collection and have for years been writing about the best games for the system while also trying to collect every title. As such, I feel like I’ve spent tons of time playing all the great games while the lesser known titles usually come in the mail and go straight onto the shelf. I wanted to make more of an effort to explore the entire library of the NES, not just the classics, and so I’m trying out some buddies I either popped in and immediately out or never played in the first place. Since I’ve got them organized alphabetically, let’s continue on with the Letter D (Letter A can be found here | Letter B can be found here | Letter C can be found here).
DARKMAN | 1991
There are actually a ton of NES games that begin with the Letter D and I think I’ve probably only played about half of them more than once. Darkman for instance I for sure remember playing and being impressed by, but not so impressed that I ever ever played it again. Which is a shame because unlike most of the movie licensed titles on the system, Darkman has a lot to offer.
Continuing the trend of super violent adult films bizarrely translated into a gaming system aimed mostly at preteens (Friday the 13th, Predator, The Untouchables etc.), Darkman the game manages to follow the plot, style, and tone of Sam Raimi’s bizarre 1990 “superhero” film pretty well. I’m impressed honestly, especially having recently reviewed hot garbage like Cliffhanger which barely resembles it’s source material . I mean as soon as you turn the game on you go “holy shit, they actually made a game out of Darkman, look at this!” Aside from the visuals, there’s several sections in the game where you photograph your enemies in order to fabricate their skin and go undercover as them. That’s a huge part of the film and it’s pretty crazy that they made the extra effort to include it here. Rambo fights snakes, the Nightmare on Elm Street kids fight snakes, Darkman fights and impersonates a bad guy with one leg who moves by hopping! Amazing!
Darkman has some of the most impressive graphics on the system. The select screen at the beginning where you choose using a grotesque bandaged hand is one of the best menu screens on the NES and the animation here alone is better than 90% of the library. Likewise, the Game Over screen which features a gigantic closeup of Liam Neeson’s face crying tadpole tears is just unbelievable. There’s even some faux-minecart levels that while not Bucky O’Hare / Battletoads speed are still extremely quick paced. Just watch some footage from this game and then play something like Mappy Land and find yourself in disbelief about how these games exist on the same system. On top of that, the music is multi-layered, varied and super catchy. I mean you’re not going to see a cover band do an all Darkman set or anything, but for sure this is solid soundtrack work here.
There’s just one issue with Darkman, and it’s the problem that plagues so so many games through out the ages: controls. You spend all this time making a game that looks and sounds like a Super Nintendo title at times, but when it came to making the game play well they must’ve gotten sleepy and taken a nap.
You’ll spend an hour navigating the first level because your character responds to you the same way your drunk friend does when you’re trying to get him into a Lyft. Liam Neeson suffers from a constant problem in bad platformers, something I call “Hot Butter Feet”, where you’ve got extra momentum from running that you can’t control, meaning you’ll be running right off every edge you come upon. Also, Darkman has the “Rock-Paper-Scissors” style of combat when you’re fighting enemies. As soon as you get close to hit someone, there’s a completely random chance of whether you’ll hit them or they’ll hit you. I’ve attempted that first level 100 times and tried the same approach every time: mash punch as fast as possible. Sometimes I knock the guy out with four straight whammers, sometimes we go 50–50, sometimes he hits me repeatedly til I die. While this is for sure a common component of bad game design in the early action titles, here it’s made all the more frustrating because these enemies only appear near ledges which means if you are unlucky (and you will be) the bad guys will for sure send you flailing pathetically into a nearby pit. Over and over and over again.
Similar Games: Golgo 13, Vice: Project Doom
DEFENDERS OF DYNATRON CITY | 1990
You know how something like the infamous Cheetahmen was obviously designed to be the first step in a series of licensed cash ins, everything from cartoons to action figures to breakfast cereals? Well, as soon as you boot up Defenders of Dynatron City and see all those TM symbols next to the character’s names you know exactly what this game is going for. It’s for sure a sad attempt at fabricating the next Ninja Turtles and it even had a Saturday Morning Cartoon pilot that bizarrely echoes the themes of atmoci energy, gene enhancement, and utopian society found in future games like Fallout and Bioshock. Weird.
Defenders of Dynatron City is setup like an adventure game, where you start with one of three characters “Jet Headstrong” who slow shoots his own head (Decapattack style), Ms. Megawatt who is pretty fast, shoots lightning, and is not married apparently, and Radium Dog who is a..um..dog that looks like Superman’s pet Krypto but with an exaggerated bite that reminds me of when that dog puts on the Mask in Jim Carrey’s “The Mask”. I didn’t realize until I died with Ms. Megawatt (“captured” is what the screen reads) that you actually have THREE OTHER CHARACTERS TO CHOOSE FROM. And you can switch to them at any time by pausing. I had no idea! So in addition to those original three dorks, there’s also Toolbox, Buzzsaw Girl, and the award winningly named “Monkey Kid” a chimp that lobs exploding bananas at people. CLASSIC.
The game gives you pretty clear goals (destroy a blimp, collect some stuff), after which you travel from street to street clearing out all the evil robots. Once you’ve done this you can enter some of the shop doors where you’ll find more robots and some indistinct items you can only pick up 25% of the time. Defenders of Dynatron City was designed by Lucasfilm Games who also made motherfucking Maniac Mansion, so you figure there’s going to be tons of inventory based puzzles here but all I could figure out was that you just awkwardly destroy every enemy and then keep moving. On repeat.
I can’t shit on DDC too much, I mean it’s pretty ambitious in its scope and its use of multiple protagonists but while the overall product is better than most, it’s just not a very fun game. Most of these characters are either slow as shit or have an attack with a range so short that you have to be pantsing distance to kill an enemy. Seriously, pick the hammerhead guy “Toolbox” and try to clear an entire screen of robots, you’ll be very slowly following robobros and banging your head aimlessly for eternity. Only the two female characters (who are fast and use projectiles) are worth a damn and even then it’s only half a damn. That’s because the fighting area of each screen isn’t just simple sidescrolling, it’s setup like Streets of Rage or Golden Axe where you can move up and down as well as left and right. Unfortunately this necessitates that you be at the exact perfect same plane as the enemies in order to hit them which is way easier said than done, yet they will for sure done you way easier than said. On top of this, Dynatron has one of those Fester’s Quest style guidance systems where you go down one way but end up somewhere entirely different than what it showed on the map. Simply pointing your character down the bottom of the level twice doesn’t send you down two screens, it sends you down once and then back up once. It’s fucking maddening.
After what seems like an hour of alluding random items, walking down the same streets over and over and over, and generally having mixed success against your enemies, you’ll realize that this game is timed. TIMED. Defenders of Dynatron City is an adventure game, a genre that’s fun because it encourages exploring, and it limits the amount of time you have to look around. And yet, you need to explore all the locations in order to progress. What the fuck.
Similar Games: Nightshade, The Adventures of Rad Gravity
DR. CHAOS | 1988
UGGHHH. Just the other day I was wondering “what if there was a game that took all the frustrating things about Goonies II, amplified them to infinity, then dumbed down the graphics, sound, controls, hit detection, and everything else that made that game fun.” Well, dreams do come true!
Dr. Chaos was made by FCI / Marionette, but on the title screen it says “Pony Canyon” which sounds like an insufferably pretentious indie-pop band opening for Imagine Dragons or something. Marionette also made one of the Dungeons and Dragons games and Phantom Fighter which unfortunately we’ll probably revisit come the Letter P.
You start the game in a side scrolling level with ultra generic bad guys like rats and bats that kind of reminds me of the Sega Master System title “Ghost House”, and for sure like that game, Dr. Chaos would’ve scared the shit out of me as a child. We didn’t all play Silent Hill at age 6 back then and games like this or Friday the 13th or even Castlevania were kinda definitely pretty scary.
Once the game starts all you see is doors, DOORS ARE EVERYWHERE. What happens when you enter a door? You get a first person view like Golgo 13 or Fester’s Quest but you can only turn the four directions. Each direction has cabinets that contain guns and mystery fluids and also MORE DOORS but of course you can’t go through these doors, oh no! Eventually you are greeted by two straight up horror nightmares, either a Frankenstein Big Foot who’s lungs are on the outside of his body, or a stumpy giant mouthed aunt who’s allllllll lips. They’re polite monsters though and they wait til you’re back outside the 3-D rooms before they attack you.
If you ever want to experience your brain completely shutoff, play this game, get frustrated, and then like me watch a walkthrough that’s even slower and less satisfying than playing the game in the first place even when you fast forward. I feel like of all the titles on this list, some people out there probably played Dr. Chaos growing up and thus might have some positive nostalgia about it since it’s a pretty common NES title. And if that is the case, I am so very very sorry for you. All the other kids who grew up playing Blades of Steel, Super Mario Bros 3, and Legend of Zelda are now CEOs and entrepreneurs and rock stars while you, Kid Chaos, spend your days repeatedly opening doors. And then once inside, opening other doors. And after that? Opening more doors within those doors.
And yet the saddest thing? The doors never, ever open for you.
Similar Games: Goonies II
DRAGON FIGHTER | 1992
Oh snap, finally a good game! Dragon Fighter was developed by Natsume who are like the unsung heroes of the NES library with titles like Shatterhand, Shadow of the Ninja, S.C.A.T., Abadox, and the almighty Power Blade 1 & 2. Seriously, if you’ve made your way through all the games Nintendo, Konami, Capcom, and Taito released you’ll find that the Natsume games are all the hidden gems you were missing. Except for Dungeon Magic, a first person 3-D RPG which I almost reviewed in this week’s edition but I just couldn’t get far enough into it to say anything one way or another (P.S. it sucks).
Anyway, when you start playing Dragon Fighter you may be wondering “hey, why is my human sprite so comically small but the screen is so huge?” Well, that’s because this game is half platforming/action and half shoot-em up! Once you merk enough bears and snowflakes, you can transform into a flying dragon at which point the screen starts automatically scrolling a la Gradius or Lifeforce and your character can access all areas of the level. It’s a super cool mechanic seen in other games like Monster Party, but executed so much more smoothly here. Unfortunately like Monster Party you can only stay in dragon form for a limited time so you need to be strategic about when you switch between the two forms. It’s a really fun gameplay mechanic done especially well here.
My only complaint with Dragon Fighter is that the levels can be accomplished without ever changing into the dragon. They are of course more difficult, but not impossible. How cool would this be if there were sections where you could only fly as the dragon or had to walk as the man like in Blaster Master? Seriously, some extra level design would take this from barely known title to at least a revered hidden gem.
Despite or perhaps because of its incredibly generic title, Dragon Fighter is one of the rarest NES games in existence commonly going for $200–300. I tried to verify where it places in the overall value/rareness category but it was much harder than I thought, even with Nintendo Age and Pricecharting. Generally I’d place it in the “not sought after but still very expensive” realm occupied by other weirdo titles like Cowboy Kid and Sword Master. Of course in order to unlock this awesome pricing knowledge you’d have to reach the level of eBay wizardry achieved only by myself and a select few other plastic hoarders. Don’t despair however, we are hosting a seminar next week on how to reach this unbelievable elevation! Simply bring two friends and a money order for $50 to the Cobb County Civic Center and we will SHOW YOU HOWWWWWWW!
Similar Games: Xexyz, Monster Party, Dynowars: The Destruction of Spondylus
DRAGON POWER | 1988
You’d never know it by the cover art or the title of the game, but Dragon Power is the “American’s have probably never heard of this anime” conversion of Dragon Ball. What’s that, you’ve never heard of Dragon Ball? Yeah, I’m not surprised, it’s pretty obscure ;)
You play as Son Goku, who occasionally looks like the normal humanesque character during cutscenes but in game he looks more like a full on monkey man. Bulma’s here, yelling up a storm, and I think that’s Master Roshi and his turtle except he’s got a huge beard and looks less like a goofy pervert and more like he’s gonna ferry you on to the land of the dead. The gameplay is pretty straight forward, you walk around punching dog people, occasionally wandering into caves where you receive items with little effect, then there will be a boss fight which you should be able to win every time by simply walking up to them and mashing attack til they die. You’ve got a pretty decent amount of health, so if you keep it high before these fights you’ll have no problem. Dragon Power is one of those games where your health is also a timer of sorts so that as you walk around your health decreases. I’m assuming this is a allusion to the show where Goku’s hungry all the time and thus he needs to keep eating in order to keep fighting.
The game itself is…pretty underwhelming in every area from music and graphics to gameplay and story, but this was 1988 and they didn’t have Kirby’s Adventure or anything to compare it to then. I bet if I’d owned Dragon Power when it came out I would’ve been all about it because it is pretty accessible, charming, and (for what it is) a fun playthrough. Plus, nothing beats the awkward dialogue of the cutscenes, they’re pure dynamite! For example, let me set the scene (and believe me, I transcribed this exactly including punctuation):
Goku and Bulma follow the Turtle until they are introduced to a strange bearded old man.
Old Man: “Hi! I am hermit. Who helped him?”
Turtle (ever so slowly): “This boy helped me.”
Hermit: “To thank him,I’m giving him a gift. Come on! Swift Cloud!! Jump on well.”
Bulma: “I want it too.”
Hermit (looking pissed): “Ok. Give me your sandwich.”
Turtle: “Why do you and hermit want it?”
Hermit (still pissed): “Quiet!”
Bulma: “Okay! Here!”
The hermit, looking mega pissed, stands in the middle of the screen while six triangle shaped sandwhiches float and rotate around him mystically. The background shifts from black to bright red.
Bulma: “Will you give me your crystal ball?”
Hermit: “Ok.”
Bulma (doing her happy dance which is half pee-pee / half boot scootin boogie): “We did it! This makes four
SCENE
Similar Games: Legend of Zelda mixed with Kung Fu
DYNOWARZ: THE DESTRUCTION OF SPONDYLUS | 1990
This game sounds like one of those young adult books I’ve never heard of but you know it’s part of a huge series because its got a subtitle. Ol’ Harry Potter is responsible for this recent trend, but for a while there every other movie was made out to be the first of a Lord of the Rings style epic. Sadly, I have actually watched all the Percy Jackson, Divergent, Maze Runner, Hunger Gamesy-style movies and not just on an airplane. <Sigh>
Anyway, Dynowarz is kind of similar to Dragon Fighter in that you switch between a human character and a much larger dinosaur (larger in theory at least, in the game your sprites are the exact same size). Instead of switching between the two at any time, you kind of do a mission as the guy and then jump into the head of your Zord which in the cutscreen does look pretty bad ass. I went looking for more info about the story on Wikipedia, but this quote says it all “The player controls either Professor Proteus in his battlesuit, or Cyborasaurus, a truly devastating Robosaur.” Sexy!
So you beat up other “robosaurs” for a while, then Professor Proteus hops out, destroys a Mother Brain or two before heading back and jumping into Cyborsaurus again (God damn that’s so satisfying to type that out). Once you return back into your Zord, you hop onto this little platform and then get shot straight up and off the screen. All I could think about was the Simpsons where Poochie dies on the way back to his home planet. I might’ve been a little drunk, but this made me laugh out loud for way too long.
The main bummer about Dynowarz (and honestly it’s not that bad of a game) is that your dinosaur sucks. SUCKS. He’s slower than the human, he can’t jump as high, and he’s overall way less fun to play. That just shouldn’t be the case! Voltron doesn’t get less interesting when the average humans jump into the massive superweapon robots, it gets way more badass!
Although your dinosaur can get shoot em’ up style upgrades, they are all fucking useless. The launch fist upgrade is like a boomerang, except that right as it’s about to return to you it goes up, then left, then back down again. IT TAKES FOREVER. Even if you shoot someone super close to you, it still bothers to go way over your head before returning to you. And the bomb? Well it’s one of those weapons with a HUGE throwing arc so when there’s an enemy really close to you or that’s low to the ground forget about it, the bomb will not touch them. The regular fire balls are the best, but even those are like these pea size spitballs that take some finesse to use effectively.
And guess what? Once an upgrade drops, it does not disappear. Since your robosaur can only jump over the tiniest of puddles, avoiding an unwanted upgrade is waaaaay harder than it should be. At one point while I was playing, the dreaded bomb landed just to the left of a pit meaning I could either get the upgrade and suffer, or jump in the pit and die. Instead I just turned the game off and went to bed. Adulting!
Similar Games: Air Fortress, Dragon Fighter, Xexyz
OTHER LETTER D GAMES (CLASSICS)
Duck Tales 1 & 2, Double Dragon I-III, Double Dribble, Dr. Mario, Disney’s Darkwing Duck, Deja Vu, Dragon Warrior I-IV, Donkey Kong I III JR. & Classics
OTHER LETTER D GAMES WORTH TRYING
Dragon Spirit, Dash Galaxy in the Alien Asylum, Dusty Diamond’s All-Star Softball, Disney’s Little Mermaid, Disney’s Jungle Book, Desert Commander
OTHER LETTER D GAMES WORTH AVOIDING
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dick Tracy, Dragon’s Lair, Dirty Harry, Destination Earthstar, Double Dare, Demon Sword, Day Dreamin’ Davey, Deadly Towers
NES Games No One Played