Nosferatu

"Another great game that was overlooked..."

When someone plays Nosferatu for the first time, they see it as some sort of Dracula game. Though they are not correct, they are somewhat close. Nosferatu is taken from a book called The Vampire Book, and was eventually turned into a SNES game by Seta sometime in 1994. It is generally a creepy kind of action game, with many types of strategy twists involved. It is actually quite a shame that it was looked over by most gamers, as it is a fun, though very difficult game that would most likely please a large audience of gamers.

Nosferatu is placed in a generally dark and mysterious setting. In the game, you are taking control of a character named Kyle, and working your way through the various monsters, traps, puzzles that are constantly trying to put you down. It is played as a familiar side-scrolling game, and you are given a large variety of different attacks to destroy your foes. You do not use a weapon in this game at any point, and instead you fight with your bare fists. However, they are not to be underestimated, as they are plenty to help you through the game. You start the game off with only the simply abilities of a basic punch and a jump kick, but throughout the game you are given a chance to collect crystals that allow you to gain more special abilities to make your job easier. For instance, collecting a certain amount of special crystals allows you to perform powerful combos such as uppercuts, roundhouse kicks, and others. With these abilities, you are to explore Nosferatu's castle and destroy any zombies, mummies, or ghosts that stand in your way.

However, fighting isn't always the best thing to do. There are a great variety of different types of monsters, and some tend to be extremely tough to tackle. Usually, the hit-and-run technique is the best way to avoid getting hurt by these tough enemies. However, most enemies drop the special red crystals that help you to gain abilities, so constantly running away from your foes can very easily hurt you in the long run. But, on the other hand, you may lose one of these valuable crystals if you take a hard shot from an enemy, as well as some of your life meter. So, ultimately, the decision is up to you, just as many others are as well. What I am saying is that most of the six main levels have multiple paths to take, and each holds its own unique traps and treasures. Though some paths are much easier to go through, the other, more difficult ones hold many valuable treasures that can make the rest of the journey easier. The best way to get around this problem is to play through each level several times to find each split off path, and eventually figure out which one would be more beneficial to you.

Nosferatu is an incredibly difficult game. As most games generally do, Nosferatu starts out quite simple and easy, but it gradually gets more and more difficult. Nosferatu enforces this very well, as you might be able to tell from playing the game that it is extremely tough towards the end. Even the second level out of the six proves to be very puzzling and challenging. Many people who have played this game have even described some of the obstacles as “cheap”, and I honestly can't disagree with them too much. Every level is littered with various monsters (some being surprisingly tough) and a countless amount of traps, and most of the traps can't even be seen! A player might find that some kind of trap jumps out at you very suddenly out of every corner, and these are virtually inevitable if you are playing them for your first time. Though you can find special green crystals in treasure chests to boost your life meter up, your amount of life is usually not very high, and you can easily find yourself nearly dead just from walking down a hallway full of death traps. Among them include hands of the dead reaching up to grab you, a monster dropping from the ceiling, and a painting reaching out to swipe a hand at you from a picture frame. These traps, coupled with the various pits, puzzles, and tough enemies, turn Nosferatu into one extremely difficult video game.

The bosses are no better. Each boss stage usually starts out with a pair of weak minions for you to quickly dispose of, followed by the actual boss. The first few bosses are not too tough, but nevertheless, they will most likely give you some problems. By the time you reach the final boss, Nosferatu, you might as well be already slamming your controller down against the floor. He's one tough dude that doesn't go down easily, and instead he decides to float in the air for a majority of the time and pummel you with his mind control powers. The only thing needed when fighting bosses is patience, for no one will ever hope to accomplish anything without any patience. Luckily, you have an infinite amount of continues in the game, so that will surely allow you to take a sigh of relief.

The story behind Nosferatu is quite simple. There is an evil vampire in existence by the name of Nosferatu. Typically, he turns into a bat or a wolf every night to claim an innocent victim for its precious blood that Nosferatu seems to love so very much. Whenever he finds a victim, he decides to take them to his resting place, his deathly castle crawling with evil monsters and traps. Though no one has ever ventured near his castle and returned to speak of it, a young man named Kyle decides to go against all the odds to rescue his love, Erin, who was taken away by the vampire. And now you take his role, working your way through the creepy castle to save her and defeat Nosferatu.

I would say that the biggest gripe I had with the game is its controls. At times, Kyle doesn't respond all that quickly, and this may lead you into some very unfortunate deaths that involve spike traps. It becomes very frustrating sometimes when trying to jump up and grab onto a ledge, since you are required to stand perfectly aligned with the ledge to do it. Jumping is also pretty irritating as well, since it is rather difficult to maneuver your character while airborne, as well as effectively using actions such as sliding under a small column. With some practice, though, a player should be able to get used to the basic controls and be set for their quest, and hopefully the control doesn't get in the way of your fun with this game.

The graphics of Nosferatu are extremely well done. With the exception of Kyle himself, everything looks very detailed and realistic, and that includes the nice looking environments that you play within. As I mentioned, Kyle, who you play as, is not very detailed, and instead he looks just like a very basic little sprite. Thankfully, the other enemies, including the bosses, aren't lacking in detail at all, and instead they look very clear, sharp, and plain-old nice looking. The animation effects were also something good to point out, as you might be surprised with how well some of the lighting effects have come out in this game.

The music was excellent as well. Most of the music heard during gameplay blended in amazingly well with the rest of the game, creating an extremely creepy atmosphere that the game rightfully deserves. None of the sound was very memorable... instead, it seemed to get very irritating when you constantly listen to the same sound over and over again. (Ahem... skeleton laughter) However, I found the music to be extremely fitting and well done, and therefore I have little to complain about in that department.

Final Word
Nosferatu is a nice game to pick up for any old school gamer looking for a good 16-bit game. Since it seemed to be overlooked when it was released, I strongly urge you now to try and get your hands on a copy of this game, as I'm almost certain you will be pleased with it, even if its level of difficulty is quite high. Nevertheless, it's a fine game that is very much worth playing, so try it if you ever get the chance to do so.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 10/04/01, Updated 10/04/01