"Majorly flawed, but it doesn't deserve a 1"

Here we have another NES game that's been ripped to shreds by the reviewers at GameFAQs. Having only a slightly higher average score than the dreadful Heroes of the Lance, it's been universally panned. Naturally, that means I just gotta play it!

There isn't much to learn in the way of controls. Move the Prince dude around with the D-pad, and shoot swords with the A button. A major restriction is that only one sword can be on-screen at one time. Thus, you've gotta get up close to your enemies in order to shoot rapidly. Fortunately, they freeze as they're being hit.

The graphics are...plain. Your character is one color, pukish green. The backgrounds are usually a single color too, although sometimes you'll see a moat and castle contrast each other. Not a piece of art that you'd find in the Lourve, that's for sure. The enemies are similarly minimalistic, mostly just blue and black blobs, puddles, and bats. However, you'll eventually run into vampires, ogres, and dragons, if you actually decide to play for more than two minutes.

Which I did! I actually sat down and gave this game a chance. And it actually gave me a chance to try to get through it, unlike Heroes, which doesn't. Some NES adventure games are large enough and complex enough that cartographical skill is necessary. Solstice. Zelda. Even Metroid. Deadly Towers is one of those games. Actually sitting down and carefully drawing a map will help, and help a lot.

But that's not to say I've found anything so far, except for a single shop which sells potions and a helmet which I can't afford yet. Another bothersome ''feature'' is the invisible teleports that transport you...um, somewhere. That somewhere has to be inside of a tower, I think, because there are parts of the game made up of one-screen rooms. I would assume this would be within the seven Deadly Towers. But I'm just guessing, right now. Looking at my map, I see a bunch of disjointed sets of rooms, which hopefully somehow connect together eventually. I guess I'm an optimist.

So we have confusion. And we have challenge. The challenge, however, isn't always of the fair variety. I'm afraid to walk into a room from the north, because chances are I'll get automatically hit by a monster in the middle of the room. Other monsters rush in from the side of the screen, leaving you little reaction time. Broken ledges mean instant death if you go near them. Taking a hit usually results in large amounts of HP being taken away. Your sword is pathetically weak. Basically, you have this schmuck of a hero, who has to fight through hundreds of more powerful, cheap enemies in a vast and confusing realm with little direction and guidance.

I can see how people could hate this game.

Yet somehow, I just honestly can't give it a 1. Despite everything that's wrong with it (and there's a lot of things), the quest is strangely compelling. I don't like looking at this unfinished map on the piece of paper in front of me. I'm curious what those circular seals in certain rooms mean. I'm hopeful that there's a shop somewhere that will sell some kick-butt stuff that will prevent me from being so weak.

Games like Heroes of the Lance and Fist of the North Star with their extremely pointless gameplay deserve 1's. Not this game.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 04/18/00, Updated 04/18/00