Category: skylerbartels

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Fester’s Quest – A “review”

OK. So. Like many kids back in the day, my family was cursed with this horrible, terrible game. Like, we’ve all seen the AVGN episode on this stupid beast, right? Well. Try as we might, we never came close to beating this thing as kids. I think maybe – MAYBE – we got past the second boss. Or got the whip after the first one at least. But that’s it. Now, some 20+ years later, and on a heavily modified NES Classic, with save states and the like, I have conquered this bitch. And? What do I think about it?

It sucks. But you know what? I still enjoyed it way more than I should.

Why is this a game about Fester, or this family at all? What do they have to do with aliens? Why does Fester have a gun? Why is he equipped to save the world? Now if this was a Mario 2 story, where this was some Japanese game that they changed for North American release? I’d be like “sure, this makes sense” – but I can find no evidence to suggest this is the case.

So, anyhow – you explore three maps – above ground, sewers, and an alien spacecraft – in a top-down Zelda style. You shoot a series of guns that range from straight-up-garbage to horrible shit. Until you kill enough monsters and level your gun up to Lvl 8 that is. Then, suddenly? You become unstoppable. Then the game gets kinda fun.

What you have probably experienced or heard or seen or read is that the monsters in this game hop around too much or are unfairly difficult or that the guns just dance around the enemies. This is all true. But with a fully leveled gun and whip? You can’t lose. That is until you get to the game’s insanely hard boss fights. And by “hard” I mean “cheap and impossible unless you have the right items”. These are found by entering the houses you see along the way to your next destination. For some reason each house has another member of the Addams Family inside, ready to give you nooses or potions or missiles. Something to help along the way.

And you will need help because this game offers no hand-holding. You will die from a ton of trial-and-error. You will die from frustration. You will die from getting lost. You will die from boredom. You will die from an unpredictable enemy doing unpredictable things. You will die from accidentally picking up a weapon downgrade at the wrong time. You will die from a boss moving just a pinch too fast. You will die from suicide over playing this game on original hardware without save states. Thats why you need the items.

Some of these heal you, some of these clear the screen of all enemies, and most importantly for some of the toughest bosses in the game, some of them provide limited I-Frames or enemy-seeking projectiles you can toss out from anywhere on the screen. These are all easy to use and can greatly assist in making it through the more difficult areas of the game: the sewers. These mazes are filled with slimes and annoying rats and the other awful creatures the game has to offer. But then you may make it to the alien spacecraft and all of that means nothing because those enemies are ten times worse.

And the bosses. Oh god. First off, aside from the item houses, the only other buildings you go in are monochromatic, first-person mazes. These have no helpful pathfinding markers or in-built tips. You just have to hope for the best. These are actually kind of amazing for the time, though. Aside from the terrible bosses. These big aliens take way too much damage and seeing as how you can only take two hits – three if you find some secrets – you can and will die if you don’t use some of those items I mentioned earlier. None of these are fund and without a Lvl 4 whip, you have no hope, even with those items.

So why did I say I like this game? Well, some of it has to simply do with having finally beaten it. Yes, I used a walkthrough. I ain’t taking the time, are you nuts? But really, once you understand how this game works, how the guns and items and enemy mechanics function together, once you know the right things to do and use at the right times and the right ways to traverse the various maps? Once you learn each weakness of each boss and once you get to see the final few, horrifying and gross rooms of the alien spacecraft? Once you see all the game actually has to offer?

Naw, its still shit. Nevermind, I hate this crap.