NES Games No One Played : Letter C
BEHOLD THE LETTER C!
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 C (Letter A can be found here and Letter B can be found here).
CASTELIAN | 1991
Ok, a lot to unpack here. First of all, Castelian (also known as Nebulus, Subline, and Tower Toppler) was adapted by a company called Triffix, who I have never heard of. According to their Wikipedia, they made two more games for the Super Nintendo andddddd that’s it. Secondly, I never looked at the cover art too closely so I just thought this was some knight saves the princess-medieval adventure. If I’d examined the game closer I would’ve seen that the protagonist is actually a weird half frog / half pig Q-Bert knock-off named “Pogo”. You guide Pogo up a glowing tower which rotates as you move. It’s a pretty great mechanic for an 8-bit game and I can’t think of any other game to use this other than Kirby’s Adventure which is solid company to keep.
Thirdly, there’s the game itself. Your goal is to make it up the tower while avoiding floating eyes, bouncing balls, and something that looks like a model of a molecule (at least in the first level called “The Tower of Eyes”, I never made it to Level 2). You have a bullet of some sort that works on some enemies and not others. That same button also jumps, but only if you’re pushing right or left. No idea why they couldn’t just make B shoot and A jump, but without fail you’re going to be trying to shoot an enemy and inevitably jump right into them like a total dumb dumb.
There is no music, only the cold silence of the tower followed by the constant repeating thud of the ball enemy bouncing up and down. It reminds me of the Simpsons episode where the kids have to wear uniforms that in turn crush their spirits and a row of children bounce balls in obedient unison.
When you get hit, you don’t die, you just spin slowly back down the tower, sometimes one level, and sometimes all the way back to the beginning. I’m unclear why this doesn’t just kill you because Castelian is TIMED, so when you fall to the bottom of the level the game doesn’t give you enough time to get back to the top before you die from lack of seconds. You might at well just take a break and grab a beer while you wait for the timer to run out. But while you’re up, just stay a while and then never ever come back to Castelian.
Similar Games: Snake Rattle and Roll, Q-Bert, Marble Madness (if all those games were awful).
CASTLE OF DRAGON | 1990
Yep, no “THE” needed here just simply “Castle of Dragon”. And you might say “if brevity is what they were after, why not call it ‘Castle Dragon’”? Well I suppose that would imply that the castle was also a dragon or maybe that the dragon was a castle in itself or that a person named Dragon lived in that Castle (which could also mean that a Dragon’s first name was “Castle”). ANYWAY.
There are some positives here: the music is really good, the main sprite is gigantic, and the levels are pretty colorful and detailed. I’ve seen and heard waaaaaayy worse. Also, I like that you can upgrade your weapons kind of like a shooter game or Power Blade, and that you can switch between a sword (which I think does more damage) and knives (which you can throw).
There’s just one problem with this game that takes it from passable to straight up pass on this: the combat is abysmal. TERRIBLE. You’re either fighting enemies where you just mash until they’re dead (and somehow the bad guys just all die before you do) or you fight enemies who just get right the fuck up next to you, just as close as possible so they’re sucking in your breath and licking your goddamn eyeballs, and then they ever so gently just run into you repeatedly until you die. And your character has no recovery time, so once they start damaging you, you’re bound to get hit multiple times in a row before you can jump away. Except that they also follow you so closely that even if you jump away and ever so awkwardly turn around to hit them, you only get one chance to weakly stab them before they start dry humping you to death. The first bad guy of the 3rd level is like a roly-poly so not only does he do all of the above evil, but he’s also low to the ground which means: you get hit, you jump away, you slowly turn, you duck, annnnnnnd you’re super dead.
Oh yeah, and you only have one life with no continues so once you die it’s back to the start screen. BYEEEEEEEEEEE!
I’m really not trying to just pick shitty games and critique them, there are tons of people out there on the internet that’ve already done that and only one of them is worth a damn. These games are 30 years old and even the absolute worst NES games around are still way better than any game I could make. But if you had to choose between this and 700 other NES titles, then pick one of those other 700. Well, probably at least a hundred are worse than Castle of Dragon so 600 options? Not bad! So it’s got that going for it right?
Similar Games: Dragon Fighter, Astyanax, Sword Master
CASTLEQUEST | 1989
And the “castle” adventures continue! Of course I wouldn’t cover the Castlevania series here because those games rule and I have played them many, many times. Castlequest on the other hand…
You play as the tiniest little lute player who jumps around this dungeon gathering different colored keys and opening different colored doors. I mean I say “lute player” because he’s got one of those big old-timey floppy hats and and he’s rocking all pink, but who knows maybe he’s a musketeer or something. You have a sword, pathetically stubby as it is, and like Castelian you can’t use it unless you’re also pressing left or right which means you can’t wait for the enemies to come to you (thankfully unlike Castelian there’s a separate button for jumping).
The layout of this game is kind of like an early 80s arcade version of Legacy of the Wizard in that there’s a ton of exploring and different paths to choose, albeit very simplified in comparison. One thing I love about Castlequest is that when you enter each room, it gives you a paused chance to look around so that you can get your bearings and strategize your plan of avoidance. It’s a pretty cool mechanic that I can’t remember having seen in many games of this era. Each room is kind of a mix of platforming and light puzzle solving, and since there are various exits for every screen you’ll have to leave and return to places multiple times.
I gotta say, Castlequest is actually pretty rad! It’s described as an early Metroidvania game and those are my favorite types of 2D games. The graphics, controls, and sound/music are pretty meh but the overall ideas and experience are way more fun than I was expecting. Plus, unlike pretty much every 3 lives or 1 life or limited continues title in the NES library, Castlequest gives you the most massive of breathing rooms: 49 LIVES. FORTY NINE!!! Which for a game that’s basically “try, try again” is a huge bonus.
Similar Games: Legacy of the Wizard, Fire and Ice, Solomon’s Key
CLIFFHANGER | 1993
UHHHHH. This game. is. so. bad. Like it may be one of the worst games in the entire NES library. Eat shit Castelian!
This game came out in 1993, four years after Castlequest, and it looks worse than most Gameboy titles. The sprites are ever so delicately tiny, there are THREE colors used at all times, the controls are of course so so bad, and the music sounds like it was designed to play on a calculator and then translated back into the NES. It is insanely grating.
Speaking of controls, I got to a part right at the beginning of the game where there’s a jump you just cannot make. I tried over and over and over. Turns out, you can run! But only if you hold down UP + LEFT or RIGHT for several seconds, and yes it is absolutely as awkward as it sounds. Why couldn’t you just hold down a button or double tap the direction like every other game in the history of time? Also, there are ropes that cross some of these chasms and you’d think with the game being about rock climbers that this would be something you could do easily and often but wooooo boy not in Cliffhanger. I’ve tried to do this repeatedly but cannot get it and I recommend everyone who hasn’t played this cursed cartridge to download it (please do not buy it) and then try their hardest to show me how easy it is. I DARE YOU.
I’m a big Stallone fan, everything from Deathrace 2000 to Cobra to Demolition Man to every Rocky movie including Rocky Balboa and the Creed series. He’s a legend of big dumb action movies but unlike the Schwarzenegger’s and the Seagal’s, he’s really good at adding a bit of heart and sympathy to his characters. Even in Cliffhanger, which is for sure not one of his best, he still lends some charm. As a result the only positive thing I will say about Cliffhanger for the NES is that when you get the Game Over screen, there’s a sweet Gameboy Camera level quality picture of ol’ Sly that greets you. Look hard into his sad, broken eyes and then walk far, far away from this game.
Similar Games: Karate Kid, Rambo, Last Action Hero
COOL WORLD | 1993
Now this is what a game released in 1993 should look like. I mean it’s still terrible, but compared to the child’s finger-painting that is Cliffhanger, Cool World is the fucking Mona Lisa.
You play as Brad Pitt’s character “Harris” who looks more like Lou Reed dressed as Leisure Suit Larry. This would make more sense if it was portraying Gabriel Byrne’s character from the film who kinda looks like that but I checked and no, it’s the Pittmeister. You kind of have weapons (a pen, and eraser, and a nickel?) but when you press the B button it also ducks so 1 in 5 times Harris uses the weapon and the other four he just drops down like he’s doing the worm. You can choose from 4 levels which I didn’t realize at first since you use select to choose between them, so until I watched a video online I was just playing that first stage over and over. Each board is extremely long and all you do is run left to right (in one level you skate but it’s the same experience just with added frustration). Even if you could hit the enemies, it’s so easy to just continuously jump and avoid them that why even bother trying. The levels look like they’re adventure style with doors leading somewhere and maybe some object puzzles, but this is a ruse as those doors lead nowhere. This game has more in common with something like Bart vs the Space Mutants than it does with say Nightshade.
The music would be decent enough but good lord that backing track is like the death screams of a broken NES. Whenever your character jumps it causes the main melody, which is pretty normal sounding, to cut out which means mostly you’re stuck listening to the mating call of two rusty clock gears in heat.
I didn’t play this game to the end, but apparently you fight Kim Basinger’s “Holli Would” by launching balloons at her from below, which is about the least cool thing I’ve ever written down about an activity I didn’t have the patience to do. SPOILER ALERT!
Similar Games: Blues Brothers, Bart vs the Space Mutants
OTHER LETTER C GAMES (CLASSICS)
Castlevania I II III, Contra, Crystalis, Cabal, Cobra Triangle, Clash at Demonhead, Conquest of the Crystal Palace
OTHER LETTER C GAMES WORTH TRYING
Crash and the Boys Street Challenge, Captain America and the Avengers, Caveman Games, Contra Force, Cowboy Kid
OTHER LETTER C GAMES WORTH AVOIDING
Captain Planet and the Planeteers, Cobra Command, Conan: The Mysteries of Time, Color a Dinosaur