Game: Nuts & Milk
Console: Nintendo Famicom
Developer: Hudson Soft
Release Date: 28th July 1984
As the first third party game ever released on a Nintendo console, Nuts & Milk had a lot to live up to. It's a puzzle platformer where players control Milk (oddly the latter character in the title), on a quest to collect fruit and then meet up with his girlfriend, Yoghurt. Only his rival, Nuts and some small airships can stop Milk in his quest. Also there's a level editor which is a pretty nice feature.
While the home computer versions of Nuts & Milk featured a top down view, Hudson Soft went all out on the Famicom version, as it's a full 2D platformer. Milk has the ability to jump across platforms and climb ladders to get to his fruit. Nuts and any other obstacles must be avoided or jumped over in order not to lose a life. It's pretty simple stuff, but across the game's 50 levels it works nicely.
Graphically the game looks nice for 1984, though the characters are essentially just coloured blobs. The screen is wrapped so that going off the left hand side will result in appearing on the right, which can be useful in evading Nuts and his allies. Musically there's not only a theme before and after levels, but to accompany gameplay also which is rare for such an early game; the tunes are enjoyable and add to the playability.
Overall while Nuts & Milk isn't technically or visually impressive, it does a lot of things right and would definitely have stood out as one of the better games of the time. To have 50 levels, even if they're just single screens is impressive and the bonus levels offer a nice change of pace every 3 or 4 main levels. For the cuteness factor and for being ahead of its time, Hudson Soft did very well with the little game.
Rating: 62/100
Grade: C
Game: Flappy
Console: Nintendo Famicom
Developer: dB-Soft
Release Date: 14th June 1985
Flappy is a simple puzzling platform game that's notable for having 200 levels, far more than nearly any other NES game I can think of. Despite the simplicity of most levels, there's a good difficulty curve throughout the game, and codes to continue to progress once all lives have been lost. The aim of the game is to get a blue boulder to the blue platform, avoiding enemies and using regular boulders to your advantage to transport and protect the blue boulder or to squash the roaming enemies.
While there's probably too much of an AI presence in later levels to adequately solve the ever more complex puzzles, the game starts out fairly simple and those who enjoy this type of problem solving have plenty of work to do here. Personally I got a little bored after 10 or so levels, thanks to the single screen nature of the game and little attempt to change the visuals as the levels progress.
Graphically the game is dominated by the brickwork, with its repetitive colour and pattern. While its clear enough to see what needs to be done, there's definitely a hint of home computer style graphics rather than those of a dedicated console. There's looped music of a decent length behind the levels, although it's a little high pitched for my tastes, and the sound effects are fairly inoffensive.
Overall Flappy fits into the early category of games before the NES had really found its feet with blockbuster titles, back when the world was starting to move on from home programmed titles and small software companies releasing games. It's stuck inbetween the two worlds and perhaps a little too puzzle based for my liking.
Rating: 46/100
Grade: D
Game: Devil World
Console: Nintendo Entertainment System
Developer: Nintendo
Release Date: 15th July 1987
Devil World is a game that's as simple as you want it to be. If you can accept that it's a bit like Pac-man, except that players collect a cross to shoot enemies and at some point jam bibles into a central thingy then that's that. If you're looking for a deeper meaning behind it all then I'm afraid you'll have to come up with your own theory as to what's going on. The devil at the top of the screen points his finger in the way he wants the maze to go, and his minions shift it, meaning players must consider their movements so as not to get squashed.
Once all of the dots have been eaten in the first stage of play, there's then a round where 4 bibles, or books of some kind must be pushed into the central column. If this is done successfully then players move onto the bonus round where they collect more artifacts before the whole process restarts on a slightly more difficult level. The gameplay itself is pretty nice and easy to get used to, but there's no clue as to what we're trying to achieve.
Graphically the game is bright and colourful, with lots of things going on in all corners of the screen. At the top the devil directs the direction in which his minions (at the bottom) move the maze. Inside of the maze enemies patrol, and the light blue dots and crosses are there for collecting by the player who hatches from the green egg into a Bubble Bobble looking character. Soundwise the game has an interesting introductory tune, but sadly no music behind gameplay.
Overall Devil World is an interesting and somewhat unique game which incorporates many concepts and is, at the very least more fun than Pac-man. That said, there's still not a large amount of things to do and after a few levels the gimmicks will tend to wear off.
Rating: 61/100
Grade: D
Game: Bomberman
Console: Nintendo Entertainment System
Developer: Hudson Soft
Release Date: 1987
If you're a fan of slow and methodical gameplay which repeats over and over, then Bomberman is the game for you. I'm aware that this is where the Bomberman series started and that it's a popular games series, but I've honestly never seen the appeal. If the gameplay wasn't simply methodically bombing everything until you can find an exit, then trying to eliminate all of the enemies, then it might be more exciting, but the action here is almost non existent.
The controls aren't a problem; they're exactly as you'd expect, but the enemies are so slow and predictable in their patterns, it's almost too easy to avoid them. There are powerups for the player's bombs which make their range a little better, but even with the upgrade there's hardly any improvement in game speed.
Graphically the game is an unappealing mess of green and grey with a few red blobs moving around to signify enemies. There are unlicensed games which look better, and even Bomberman's own sprite is fairly unimpressive. The musical accompaniment develops somewhat as time continues, but the level doesn't end when the timer hits zero, so there's little point in building up to it.
Overall there's not a lot of reasons to enjoy Bomberman; the game is slow, the action is boring, the graphics are some of the least interesting on the NES and to complete the game takes at least half an hour at the slowest, and around an hour and a half at normal pace. This would be a good amount of content if there was actually something to enjoy.
Rating: 31/100
Grade: E
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