MANOS: The Hands of Fate ~ Director's Cut

Who is Manos, and why he's at the hands of fate.

MANOS the hands of fate serves to be like Dragon ball evolution: a awful movie with a fairly redeemable game adaptation. Despite the movie's terribly poorly received reception and status as being one of the worst movies in history, it went on to have a (ironic) cult following and this game shows it none the better. Manos (the game) is your run of the mill NES-style throwback in 8-16 bits, with platforming, shooting, and enemies & collectables galore. With various movie monsters of its era making cameo appearances, there's alot of charm into the creation of the game. Even moths (which unintentionally "cameo" in the original film itself as obstructive natural interruptions within the film's production on final cuts) are featured as enemies. most can be killed, but others cannot. The bosses also share alot of charm of classic 8-bit game sidescrollers. The story of Manos unfolds just as it mostly does in the film: you play the role of a estranged man named michael who is set on ensuring his only wife and daugher (as well as his pet dog) seek refuge from being stranded in the desert. they meet a straw-hat pilgrim named torgo, who is later revealed to actually be the loyal servant of a deranged quasi-vampiric overlord, "the master". When his dog is killed and both of his loved ones go missing, michael forges in himself to investigate the mysterious shack, and take back his wife and daughter from the evil clutches of the things that lurk at night. Serving as a tribute to cliche and bad movies of the 50s-70s, Manos features monsters that either have infamous reputation, are of a stock source, or fell into public domain like: slimes, the killer shrews, screaming skulls, flying eyeballs, crawling hands, hobgoblins, and Nilbogs! The bosses take a step further, having the master's pet giant doberman and even the giant claw (la cargne) and Ro-man square up against the protagonist. Exclusive to the director's cut is a extra side-scrolling level featuring UFO saucers and a couple of zombified humans as bosses. Though i have enjoyed managing to finally beat the game for once (which unlocks torgo as a playble character in a unique game run mode); its not without its fair share of extremely frustrating difficulties. Akin to games of its time, Manos is designed to be extremely unforgiving at times, throwing enemies, obstacles, and death pits at your every whim. you'll have to be quick or careful as to not loose any of your lives for as much as you can, or else you'll start all over from the beginning of the stage. Should you be challenge hungry however, completing the game allows you to unlock three additional difficulties: Hard, very hard, and hardcore. these can also be selected for torgo mode. to summarize; here's my pros and cons. Pros: -Fun and ingenious callbacks to tropes, cliches, and monsters of the 50s-70s film media -a compelling game design worthy to be home-brewed onto a actual NES system -a beautifully composed 8-16 bit soundtrack following the film's own eerie and symphonic musicals -levels with bright to dark colors of varying attentiveness, the sprites and backgrounds carved masterfully -engaging and well made cut-scenes that would make the average arcade classic blush in admiration -You can play as a freaky farming pilgrim with a laser pitchfork! Cons: -extremely challenging at times (even before unlocking additional difficulties) -unforgiving obstacles and swarms of threats -how did the devs get permission to use the giant claw and ro-man??? -rage-inducing auto-scroll levels -really should be on more consoles