You could think of this as a quote on quote "follow up" to my Haunted Halloween 85 review, with this obviously being the sequel
For those that either did not know this from my previous review (or anyone else review for that matter) to give you the run down, think River City Ransom art style, Mega Man precision platforming, and just a touch of double dragon as some sections play like beat em ups when you encounter foes, but just a tad faster paced
As a small note, some people may wonder why or how you can write a fair review with so much or so little time on record, some games need more time than others
Anyway, on to the review
The art style and gameplay pretty much remain the same, and the cheesy NES era 8 bit horror that gives off that "creepy crawley" for lack of a better term, is still there, a lot more catchy in my opinion
But as with most sequels, this game fixed some problems, added some new content and improved, left some problems untouched, and therefore, builds up to a "verdict" if you will
Lets talk about the pros, unchanged/neutral aspects, and cons of the game (aside from what was breifly mentioned)
Pros
1-Music-The music, at least in my opinion, is a lot more catchy and as mentioned beforehand, fits the vibe of the game even more, its as if the crappy Friday the 13th NES games suprisingly nice music, mixed with a tad of the memorable "skips and beats" of zombies ate my neighbors. Don't get me wrong, it's not groundbreaking, but its deffinately an improvement (last game had good music too, but this one has better music)
Longer levels, nice level design, and nice foe variety-Longer levels in a game like this are always nice, and are fitting to a game like this as long as the game feels right, the design feels nice and definately captures that "Nintendo hard" vibe, as cheesing your way through will 99% of the time cost u a life or get u injured, the foe variety compared to last game offer more strategies you need to come up with to confront and get around foes. (such as skeletons that throw bones, or bugs that can get back up, so you need to do low attacks and be quick before they get back up) With these things in mind, these are an improvement compared to the last game
The best positive aspect however is the upgradable abilities-The game implements a tiny bit (no pun intended) of a fighting game by allowing you to do combo moves with a combination of button rpesses or pressing and holding a button, remincisent of a fighting game, "modernized" 2-D platformer (a 2-D platformer with more in depth controls) or a more in depth beat em up, these are by far the funnest thing you can unlock as you progress through the game
I can also apprecaite that the game is available on cartridge and is able to be picked up for those that want a full 80s expereince or retro expereince and honestly feel like, while this game feels fine on the computer, is meant to be played on a cartridge
Neutral-The environments, from what I saw, were varied and some were interesting, but most of them felt like cheesy ghost story cliche environments, but this is neither a problem or benefit, as I can see it comes with the charm of a game like this, but also isn't anything groundbreaking
Cons
Character Variety-Being able to play as another character is fine and dandy, but playing as the girl (You can play either as Terri or Johnny) is no different aside from her looks and animations, it would have been MUCH nicer if the other character could have had different abilites, strengths, weaknesses, health, jumping distance etc..
No ability to save-Passwords are nice and fun, and can be nice to provide a challenge or provide a "retro route" to enjoy a game and skip some parts, that in itself isn't the problem. The problem is that there is no way to save a game and come back later, just like the last game (not trying to come off as whiny, just being honest about the game) and while the NES difficulty and nostalgia is there, not everyone has the time or energy to complete a game in one sitting (A funny note tho, I actually just guessed one of the passwords based on the character Johnny's name, and it turns out I by complete chance found a password to get to chapter 6 (which basically serve as level equivalents with some light story and different environments) (password was JOHNN btw)
The biggest problem I have however, is that the difficulty seems MAJORLY unbalanced, Easy seems only a BIT easier than normal, while normal feels hard and I can['t imagine how tough hard might be, don['t get me wrong, part of an old style NES title is to expect balls to the walls difficulty, but it shouldn't be hard to the point of being either barely noticable or too much a difference, not only that, but while I do well at platformers, the challenge should be from trial and error, adapting to foes on the screen and the environment/platforms around you, and finding out boss patterns, not from tweaking code for lack of a better term
With this in mind, I was only able to make it to the second half of chapter 1, while compared to the previous game, I made it to level 4 or five before I got a game over, if I remember correctly
Overall this game is a good game, and I do reccomend the game, but to be honest I feel as though Retrotainment might not have fully learned from the last games problems if you will, but at the same time, they made plenty of improvements that deffinately make the game a fun expereince and warrent the game being a sequel to the original
To conclude, this game is a good sequel and a good game, but it just barely "qualifies" as a good game tbh
