NES Friday the 13th

Uh Happy Friday the 13^th. I guess. Not really a holiday per-say but plenty of superstitious folk and fans of Voorhees are all excited. Yup Brandon I am still doing this almost every Friday the 13^th.

Well, I was going to review the 2017 survival horror, time-trial multi-player game buuuut, funds weren't available. Yeah I know, a two year old game out of reach. So with that in mind I thought I could slough through the LJN (The Karate Kid, Jaws, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Spider-Man and Venom: Maximum Carnage, Alien 3, Wolverine) faux pas and see how easy it was to beat.  This is Friday the 13^th NES.

Lord Humongous! RUN GEORGE!

Released in 1989, a year after at the height of Friday the 13^th Part VII: The New Blood and a few months before Friday the 13^th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan the cover resembles Jason from Part 7 in his rotted zombie hillbilly mongoloid self and we have seven camp counselors watching over the kids, enjoy the lake and all the wildlife and lush forest.

Of course we can't have the counselors getting some nookie, beer or weed because...Nintendo is a family friendly console. So why do a Horror game? Got me. So Jason is on a rampage and you must protect the kids and look out for your fellow counselors. Let's talk weapons! Yeah!

Rocks! Yeah fricking rocks! With a half-assed 30 degree lobbing arc, you have ROCKS! Against a near 7 foot tall murder machine with terrifying strength, a big machete and whatever other melee weapons he could have and you have rocks. But wait! There's also an infinite supply of what appears to be LL Bean hunting knife that you can chuck at Jason. Of course one hit and you lose that weapon so, NO TOUCHY!!! As you go the madcap maze of the woods, you can also get a hurling axe and you can use fire on Jason as well. After all, fire bad.

Eat...rock.  Yeah it still sounds pathetic.

Well now it gets nutty. Yeah in addition to Jason being a serious massacre waiting to happen, Crystal Lake is overflowing with scourge of zombies, killer crows that look like Heckel & Jeckel, bats, wolves and Jason's mother's severed head. Yeah she flies right at you and bonks you like the damn Medusa heads from Castlevania.

If I had to guess, Crystal Lake resident pilgrims slaughtered the naive and innocent Native Americans and dumps the bodies in the lake rendering them to soap. How cursed could this chunk of land be??

Hot side scrolling action, the main goal is to defeat Jason three times. Not too different with LJN's Jaws. Little interesting how Jason looks to be almost 9 feet tall, wearing a glow in the dark hockey mask and a purple jumpsuit. Swinging massive fists like Mike Tyson's Punch-Out and yeah you guessed it; me stuck with ROCKS!!!

Aside from having the option of swapping out to different counselors who have different speeds and strengths, ultimately if all the counselors are dead, it's game over. Now a strange addition (LJN never cared about source material), Jason can end up threatening and murdering kids. Teens and 20 somethings, even 30 somethings playing teens will die by Voorhees' hands but he doesn't gack kids. Could have something to do with his tragic drowning forever changing his life and undead status.

Zombie depth charge!

This two repetitive soundtracks and sound effects were developed by composer Hirohiko Takayama (The Karate Kid, King of Kings, Ghostbusters II, Time Zone, Trax and Bonk's Adventure) and yeah that continuous looping of music you can't shut it off, change it so it was just turn down the sound. Similar to Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, there is transition from day to night and vice versa.

This single-player survival horror game is...well kinda dull. I beat it in 25 minutes. I am told that is still not that fastest it has be bested at.

Nostalgia wise, this game has a place in pop culture, in 2013 NECA (National Entertainment Collectibles Association Inc.) released an exclusive action figure based on this game's appearance with his purple jumpsuit, an axe, machete and his glow in the dark hockey mask. If you think that looks silly, Freddy Krueger has orange sweater, pants and blades coming out of his fingers and a brown hat.

Naturally the critics took in the name and immediately crapped on it. Complaining about the repetition of the music and the game play was too frustrating. Aside from not giving a damn about the source material, it's just a survival horror game. The first real horror franchise for NES era.

Much better. Eat knife ya zombastich!