NES Game Review #5 – Castelian
Here’s a game I knew very little about. I was pleasantly surprised at how nice it looked but every time I’d played it, I couldn’t complete the first level and usually got cross and switched it off. Unfortunately that now wast an option.
The basic premise of the game is to scale a tower. One tower per level, get from bottom to the top, simple right? Unfortunately what awaits you on each tower, is a host of confusing lifts, doorways, enemies, falling floor tiles etc…. Believe me when I say that making a mistake in this game is very very punishing, did I say there was a time limit? Well there is, and its not very forgiving.
The challenge I don’t mind, what I hate is the relentless memory test. First time you play a level is just trial and error. Half the time the floor will fall from beneath you and you’ll tumble to a watery death. There’s no way to know which tiles will fall and which wont so you just have to memorise where to jump. One mistake and you’ll fall down multiple stages of the tower (the bottom being death), most of the time, due to the time loss, you may as well commit suicide.
You’ll end up repeating the levels over and over making small progress. Until all your lives are expended and it’s back to stage 1. Its insanely infuriating when a stupid mistake in a level you’ve completed countless times before, costs precious lives..
While insanely frustrating, for the most part it’s fair. That is until level eight! I assume it is a memory limitation but only 4 enemies can be active on any tower at any time. As you encounter new enemies, the ones below disappear. Up until level 8, this game mechanic hasnt presented an issue, however early on you’re required to make 4 continuous jumps, each with their own moving enemy. if they spawn in a certain time frame, they’ll move in unison with each other essentially making the jumping sequence impossible. Literally, it is impossible! I tried many many times.
Eventually I realized that you can manipulate how enemies spawn based on when you kill previous ones. When a game essentially has me program how it works while playing I’m had enough!
This game nearly finished me before I finished it!