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Last issue we went over survival horror games for the Atari 2600. This issue I’ll be reviewing one of my favorite systems, the Nintendo 8-bit system. I swear to this day, that they still don’t make video game music like they did for this system. But this is not about music! This is about horror and blood, so let’s get on with it!
We’ll start off with one of my all time favorites, Konami’s 1987 release of Castlevania. In Castlevania you played Simon Belmont, a Vampire slayer whose family has a long history with Dracula. You had to venture through the Castle, which included dungeons, laboratories, and the dilapidated castle itself. In your path were zombies, crows, bats, and skeletons. At the end of each board you would fight a boss. These included giant bats, Medusa, and mummies. They gave you a life gauge, which was kind of new in my opinion, because with most games at the time it was one hit and you were dead. You also had a secondary weapon, which included boomerangs and daggers. Castlevania was defiantly a big influence in the horror games. Not to mention it had great music.
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My! What a big whip!
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Want to piss Dracula off? Pee on his gates!
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Next up! Shadow Gate! I saved up a whole summer of doing house chores to buy this game, and it was worth it. Shadow Gate was released for the Nintendo in 1989. This game was classified as a point and click. In the game you play a hero king, who has to defeat an evil warlock bent on summoning up a great behemoth. Within each room of Shadow Gate you are faced with a puzzle. There is a list of actions on the bottom of the screen for you to use in each room. If you pick the wrong choice it could mean instant death. One major part in the game was the torches, if they went out it was game over, so you constantly would have to have a lit torch. Shadow Gate also had outstanding music, and has always been a personal favorite.
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Note to self, don’t piss off the Gargoyle
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Smile! You’re at death door steps!
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Last up we have Ghost and Goblins. Orginally an arcade game, Capcom’s Ghost and Goblins was brought over to the Nintendo platform in 1985. This game brought me into the darkside. I would sneak downstairs when I was eight, and play this game til three in the morning. In the game you control Authur the knight. The game opens up with him and his princess hanging out in the cemetry (Cause that’s what people would do in medevil times... I guess). Anyway, this demon comes out of nowhere and swoops her up. The object was to battle through graveyards, haunted towns, and subterranean caves to get your lady back and defeat the Devil himself. This game had awsome music, and I can still hear those whiney ghosts in my head every now and then. One signture aspect of the game was the armor. If you got knocked out of it, you would be running around in your underwear untill you found another suit. A great game indeed.
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Love the old Capcom boxes with the 3-d grid.
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Just a normal Saturday night in the graveyard.
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There are definately more games I would like to cover in the 8-bit Nintendo section, maybe sometime down the road. But these games right here, in my opinion, were heavy hitters to the horror genre, and personal favorites of mine.
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review by:
crono
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© 2008 BthroughZ
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