Putting the RPG figuratively into Kung-Fu Heroes.

It comes in all wiggly!

To Beat: Reach the ending
Played: 4/7/20 – 5/9/20
Difficulty: 8/10
My Difficulty: 8/10
My Video: Little Ninja Brothers Longplay (Part 1) (Part 2)

I was really looking forward to playing Little Ninja Brothers.  It was a game that I knew nothing about when I started collecting NES.  To find an action RPG I had never heard of was very intriguing, since no one talks about this game in various discussions on NES titles.  It wasn’t until I dug a little deeper that I discovered that this was the sequel to Kung-Fu Heroes.  All of these things made my interest grow more and more.  That to me is the real beauty of a long project like this.  Finding interesting, largely undiscussed games and playing through them to find out what they are really like.  On paper this seems like my kind of game, and in the end, I enjoyed my playthrough as I expected.

If you want a little more background on this game, check out my review of Kung-Fu Heroes.  Little Ninja Brothers is the second game in the Super Chinese series.  Super Chinese 2 was developed and published by Culture Brain in all regions.  It was first released in Japan on the Famicom in May 1989.  The North American version, localized as Little Ninja Brothers, came out in December 1990.  The European version released in 1991.  The game also saw a Virtual Console release on Wii U in PAL regions in 2015 and in North America in 2017.

This game has a simplistic story line.  An emergency TV broadcast goes out across Chinaland.  It is from Blu Boltar, lord of the Yoma Clan, who has captured the emperor.  The Little Ninja Brothers themselves, Jack and Ryu, set off on their quest to defeat Blu Boltar.  This adventure will take you all across Chinaland.  Simply follow the events of the story and conquer the Yoma Clan to beat the game.

Oh, his name is Blue because he is blue.

There are several options to choose from when starting the game from the RPG option on the title screen.  You can start from a new game or continue a previous game with your password.  Next, choose either a single player or a two player game.  Player 1 goes as the red-clad Jack, and Player 2 gets to play as the blue-dressed Ryu.  Then you can choose the text speed from either Fast, Normal, or Slow.  Finally, select the difficulty level between Hard, Normal, and Easy.  The neat thing is that you decide from all of these options every time you play the game.  For example, if you want a second player to join your saved game or switch the difficulty level around, you can do that as you see fit.  For all of my play sessions, I did single-player, fast message speed, and hard difficulty.  Finally, if you chose Password, you will enter that in here before play begins.  The passwords themselves are long and variable, usually ranging from 30-40 characters long, with the character set of capital letters, numbers, and some symbols.  Taking photos of the passwords was really helpful for a game like this.

At first, the game looks and feels like a turn-based RPG.  The game begins with an introductory cutscene explaining the base story.  Your adventure starts out on the map where you can walk around and explore.  You emerge out of a temple and there’s a town nearby.  You can go in the town and talk to people to figure out what you are supposed to do next, as well as buy items and equipment there to aid you.  All seems standard until you get into the battle scenes and the real fun begins.

Battles begin with images of the enemies you will be fighting as well as their relative experience level.  You can choose to Fight or Run away.  Should you end up in battle, now you are in a single-screen action arena with enemies emerging from the sides of the screen.  These battles are identical to the fighting in Kung-Fu Heroes.  You can walk in four directions with the D-pad.  The A button punches, causing you to lunge forward.  Holding a direction with the B button performs a moon sault kick.  For this move you leap into the air and hurt enemies by landing on them.  These are the basic moves you have at the beginning and they are more than enough to deal with the enemies at hand.  More enemies will spawn as you defeat them, but once you beat enough enemies the rest will run away and you will collect your experience points and money.

Battles are plentiful and dangers are high.

You can collect some items from your journey within the battle scenes.  Most of the arenas contain rocks that you can bash with your punches.  It is common for some of the rocks to generate items that float around the screen until you collect them with a punch.  Question balls are the most common item you’ll find.  They either give you an M adding to your M count at the top of the screen or a skull which depletes your M count back to 0.  When you have 6 M marks, you can use the Mighty Ball which makes you temporarily invincible.  Rocks may also hide treasure chests that contain various items shown as you collect them.  K marks add 5 Dragon Kicks to your stash.  These are performed by pressing B without any D-pad direction held to start.  Hearts restore some of your HP.  You can also collect throwing stars.  You can hold up to 8 in reserve for later use, but sometimes they activate immediately.  Throwing stars are tossed during punching when activated.  Another item collected in battle is a Boo Bomb.  When used, the screen shakes stunning most enemies in place.

To further enhance your fighting capabilities, you need to go to the towns and buy items and equipment to build yourself up.  There are several recurring stores throughout the villages of Chinaland.  The convenience store lets your perform configurations during your journey, such as changing the number of players, reviving your second player, viewing experience points to the next level, and viewing your password.  The tool shop lets you buy consumable items, such as sweet buns to restore HP, skateboards to allow you to escape during difficult battles, whirlybirds to teleport between towns you’ve visited, and batteries for the Dragstar allowing you to drive across the map quickly without any random battles.  There is also a weapon shop where you can buy equipable weapons and other items.  You can buy things such as throwing stars, punch power increases, robes, shields, amulets, and talismans.  These increase your battle capabilities, give you defense boosts, or debuff your enemies in various ways.  You can pick up a sword that you can swap with your punch attack in battle at any time.  The sword is more powerful and can defeat some enemies unharmed by punches, though you do not gain as many experience points from enemies when using the sword.  Finally, you can buy a few kinds of candles to light up darkened caves.

If you want to use some of your new items or equipment in battle, you can select them from the menu during battle.  Press either Start or A+B to bring up the menu.  You have two choices of Equipment or Items.  The Equipment menu is mainly used for switching between your punch and sword.  You also use this sub menu to summon the Mighty Ball if you have 6 M marks.  The item menu is where you use your consumable items, such as healing buns and throwing stars.  Another technique you have access to through the Item menu is the Surger.  The technique is gained whenever you purchase a new type of throwing star and it requires using a throwing star to activate.  The Surgers have different names throughout the adventure, usually named as some kind of wave.  Activate the Surger through the menu, then punch anywhere in the air to deal damage to all enemies on screen.  I believe you can use it throughout the entire battle multiple times, but I barely used it during my play so I’m not the expert on it.

It’s not a race … slow and steady!

There is also a menu that you can access from the world map screen or within towns and dungeons.  Just press A.  Here you can talk to someone in front of you, call an ally to help in a handful of specific situations, or access the subscreen which contains several options.  You can browse your items and use some consumables like your healing items.  Status displays your experience point, experience level, max HP, base attack power, and your current stash of money.  Equip lists out your equipment, simply enough.  The Treasure option shows some special items you’ve collected.  Finally, you can access the password at any time to continue play later on.

In a few places during the game, you may be asked to participate in some field training.  This takes places in a split screen view with some different controls.  In a two-player game, each player takes one half of the screen, while in single player you take the top half and the computer plays the bottom half.  This is a timed event where you have to run all the way to the right, sometimes collecting items or popping balloons along the way.  The controls are a little different here.  You run by mashing the A button.  You use the D-pad Up and Down to steer a little bit or Left to turn around if needed.  Kicks and dragon kicks are performed as normal.  While it appears you are racing against the other player, you are really just aiming to complete before the timer runs out.  These field events typically give you some kind of special item needed on your journey.  It is just a fun little diversion and I thought they were fairly easy to clear.  (Dragon kicks are your friend!)

As if all the RPG trappings of this game weren’t enough, this game takes it all the way there with the occasional turn-based battle.  Primarily these are boss battles but in some situations you’ll go up against normal strength enemies.  You have pretty much the full complement of moves that you have in the action scenes at your disposal in the turn-based combat.  You can punch, kick, dragon kick, and use items like your sword, throwing stars, surgers, and even the mighty ball.  With two players, both of our heroes get a turn, but in single player you can call your partner to join the battle, which you absolutely should do right away.  This computer-controlled partner mimics many of your choices and will default to an attack otherwise.  The fights are shown animated so you can see which attacks land and which ones miss.

Occasional turn-based battles turn this into a classic RPG.

The progression in this game is straightforward but your journey doesn’t have to be.  The primary objective is to collect seven bells that are used to open up the way to the final boss in order to save Chinaland.  You will most likely go about this in order.  The map is somewhat linear but you do have some freedom to explore.  You can skip towns and caves that are required and save them for later, but you probably won’t want to.  The enemy levels out in the field jump up pretty high if you travel too far, guiding you back to something easier.  Make sure to use all the hints from the townspeople to take the easiest way through by hitting all the major landmarks roughly in order.  This is a pretty tough game as it is, so you don’t want to make it harder on yourself.  There was one place in particular, a dark cave, that I explored way too early and spent a lot of extra time figuring out early.  The only penalty for death is losing half of your money, so if that’s not a big deal to you, feel free to explore as you like.

This was my first time playing Little Ninja Brothers.  As previously mentioned, this was one I was looking forward to trying after not knowing about it before collecting.  This is an uncommon game that has risen in price.  Cart copies sell now for around $50.  I bought mine on eBay for $20 shipped along with Bart Vs. The Space Mutants and Ninja Gaiden, which really was a nice deal looking back on it.

I would say my playthrough of the game was a little rocky.  The first thing I noticed is that gaining levels goes slowly in the game.  You need a lot of experience, the battles can be lengthy, and the reward for winning isn’t that high.  There are other things that slow the game down.  Many battle scenes have water which drains half your health should you fall in.  Losing money on death was a little annoying early on, particularly early in the game when I was grinding for equipment.  It took several failures and losses to earn enough to get what I wanted.  The screen scrolling is a little annoying in the game.  You have to get pretty near the edge to scroll, and there are graphical artifacts on the sides as you scroll before the game engine begins drawing the proper tiles.  You have to go out of your way to reach some dungeon areas that contain items you need.  A few hours in I reached my first turn-based battle and it was a huge upturn in difficulty.  Some bosses have a stun attack that block you from taking turns, and if you have bad luck you can get stuck for a long time.  Once or twice, I got stunned for what felt like a dozen turns, enough to put me in the grave without being able to fight back.  This game is out to get you for sure.

Plenty of sights to see in Chinaland!

With all that said, there were some good things about this playthrough that I am happy about.  The first is minor, but the entire game took me 16 hours to complete, which was fewer hours than I would have expected.  The game has a quirky sense of humor that caused me to legit laugh out loud at least once during my playthrough.  It isn’t common for games of this vintage to not take themselves too seriously.  The best part was at the very end when I beat the final boss.  The last section leading up to the final encounter is a real slog.  Small spoilers ahead.  First you go through a long, winding, dark maze with plenty of tough fights.  Past that you have to go up a mountain path with all new enemy encounters as well as doorways that can send you backward.  Finally, you reach the end, probably depleted of health and items, and have to go up against the hardest boss.  I had to repeat the lead up to this fight a few times, but luck saved me and I only needed one try at the boss.  The start of the fight was rough as both I and my partner got stunned and I took some hits early on.  I didn’t have any healing items left either.  Good thing for me the stunlocks were very short and I put him away when I was one hit away from death.  When I looked up the final boss in an FAQ after I beat him, I saw that he has a healing move that he didn’t use.  He would have beaten me for sure had he healed, so I really got away with one there.

Little Ninja Brothers takes the base game of Kung-Fu Heroes and turns it into an RPG-style adventure, one that I really had a fun time with.  I would say the graphics are average or a bit above.  I like the character portraits during important conversations and some of the enemy designs are cool, some only appearing one time in the game.  The music is upbeat and cheery for the most part, even in the caves.  The controls feel tighter than in the original game and don’t have any touchy controls like unsheathing the sword in Kung-Fu Heroes.  Gameplay has a lot of variety from the field training stages, RPG battles, and top-down action.  The one major knock on this game is that the base fighting gets repetitive and you need to grind out lots of battles to level up.  The difficulty is up there even when you level up a lot, and that may also be a turn-off.  I thought this game was fun and definitely worth playing, living up to the hype I had for it.

#154 – Little Ninja Brothers

Possibly the most detailed and comprehensive NES baseball game.

Pronounced “one thousand,” not “one dot oh oh oh.”

To Beat: Win a season
What I Did: Went undefeated in a short season in the Ultra League
Played: 10/15/18 – 10/20/18
Difficulty: 1/10
My Difficulty: 3/10
My Video: Baseball Simulator 1.000 Final Game

There are so many baseball games on the NES that each one should have something interesting or unique to offer. At least, I would hope that’s true. R.B.I. Baseball is always the nostalgic choice for all the good memories I’ve had playing games with friends. Bases Loaded emulates the grind of a long season. Baseball Simulator 1.000 hits along both of those lines but dials it up even further in a few different ways. While I did not spend a huge amount of time playing Baseball Simulator 1.000, it is definitely in the running for my new favorite NES baseball game.

Baseball Simulator 1.000 was developed and published by Culture Brain. The Famicom version was first, releasing in October 1989 under the name Choujin Ultra Baseball. The NES version came out in March 1990. There are several other games in this series, all on Super Famicom. The only other game to get a US release was Super Baseball Simulator 1.000 for SNES in 1991. In Japan it is known as Super Ultra Baseball. A direct sequel on Super Famicom was released in 1994. The other three games were Japan-only baseball games named Ultra Baseball Jitsumeiban. These games have the same structure as the others but include licensed rosters from the Japan’s NPB league.

Baseball Simulator 1.000 has several game modes with a wide variety of configuration options. You can play a simple exhibition game by yourself or with a friend, or you can play a full season. There are three leagues of teams to choose from for playing a season, one of which is the Ultra league where players have super skills that can be strategically deployed. You can create your own teams or even your own league. In season play, statistics are calculated for the duration of the season. Things like batting average, home runs, and ERA are tabulated and you can see how your players stack up with the rest of the league. To beat the game, simply be the league champion at the end of a season.

Lots of stats in this one!

The first menu screen presents you with five options that do a pretty good job of outlining what features to expect in the game. Exhibition mode lets you play a simple game. You can play this game with either one or two players. In single player this is just one game, but for two players you can also choose to play a best-of-seven series. Season mode is the primary mode in the game. You can choose the number of games you’ll play in the season from either 5, 30, 60, or a whopping 165 games. Season play is contained in one league of six teams all vying for the best record. Edit mode lets you take an existing team and edit it in many ways to create a brand new team. In the New League option, you can take any six teams you want in the game and combine them together into a new league that you can play in the Season mode. Finally, if you just want to sit back and watch the computer go at it, you can select Watch and just watch a game.

The in-game controls are largely the same as in R.B.I. Baseball, so I recommend reading my review there if you want more detail. I’ll cover the highlights. Batting and baserunning I believe is exactly the game. You can move your batter around the batter’s box with the D-pad and press A to swing the bat, tapping A to bunt. While baserunning, the D-pad points to whichever base you want. Press B with a base direction to advance a runner and use A instead to go back.

On defense, you both pitch and play the field. For pitching, you can move the pitcher left or right prior to starting the pitch with A. You can use the D-pad to influence the direction and movement of the pitch both prior to the pitch and when the pitch is on the way to the plate. A quirk about this game is the “pinch” indicator which sometimes turns on during a crucial plate appearance. The pitcher will start to sweat and can have an effect on his performance, either positively or negatively at random. On defense, you control most of the fielders at the same time, but more specifically the ones closest to where the ball is headed. Move on top of the ball to grab it, then press A and a direction to throw the ball to that base. Press B and a direction to run the ball there yourself. In this game, you can press A to jump or dive for a ball that is just out of reach.

Get a view of some fielding stats and make adjustments.

You can do player substitutions. Before a pitcher winds up, either team can press Start to call time. While batting, you can choose a pinch hitter. He will play the field wherever you sub him, no problem. Well, unless you are hitting for a pitcher, in which case both pinch hitter and pitcher are out of the game and you must choose a new relief pitcher after the half inning. On defense, you can sub out either the pitcher or any fielder. This brings up a view of the entire field with a small table for each player. Select a player, then choose Change from the box on the lower right. One thing you cannot do is swap two fielders already in the lineup; you must sub in a brand new player. If you choose a player and select Move, you can shift the fielder to just about any position on the field you want no matter what position they currently play. So, for example, if you know the batter will probably hit the ball to right field, you can move several fielders out there for a better chance of making a play. The custom fielding positions reset back to default after that batter is finished. There are a few limitations. You cannot move either the pitcher or the catcher, you can’t put a fielder in between the pitcher and catcher, and you can’t put a fielder in foul territory.

The main feature that sets this baseball game apart is included in the Ultra League. In this league, pitchers can use Ultra Pitches, batters can perform Ultra Hitting, and fielders can do Ultra Fielding. These are special, supercharged moves that can really swing the game in an instant. Each team in the Ultra League has a set number of Ultra Points for each game played, and performing an Ultra Play requires spending some of those points. Ultra Pitchers and Ultra Hitting costs 3 points each, while an Ultra Fielding play costs 5 points. To choose an Ultra Pitch, press Up twice before the windup. You will see an icon appear next to the pitcher. Then press Up or Down to choose the Ultra Pitch you want. While batting, press B to show the Ultra Hitting icon, then swing normally with A to use it. To perform an Ultra Fielding move, press B while the fielder is near the ball.

The Ultra moves can be intense

The Ultra moves themselves are fun to use with a wide variety of interesting effects. There are pitches with all sorts of movement, including a snaking pitch and a super fastball. You can throw a stop ball that freezes on the way to the plate by pressing A. You can throw a pitch that splits up into many balls. There’s a pitch that disappears on the way to the batter, and another that is a heavy ball that the batter has to hit just right to put it into play. On the hitting side, you can simply do an Ultra move that hits the ball with more power. There’s a hit that casts multiple shadows on the ground so it’s tougher to see where the ball will land. There’s a hit that spins the ball off in a drastically different direction when it hits the ground. There’s a missile hit that pushes the fielder back far, sometimes even through the outfield wall. For fielding, you can jump super high or do a super dive. You can also throw the ball extra fast to help catch a runner between bases. This isn’t a full list, but a good summary of the kinds of things you can do in the Ultra League.

There are six different stadiums in the game. You can pick which one you want to play in an exhibition game, or in a season you can assign each of the six teams to any stadium you want as their home field. The stadiums have different dimensions and characteristics, just like baseball stadiums in professional leagues. One stadium that stands out from the rest is the space stadium. Graphically it is unique, but here there is less gravity so the ball can really carry. It’s possible to hit some long homeruns, especially in the Ultra League.

Baseball Simulator 1.000 features a full Edit mode where you can build a team. To start, you must pick one of the eighteen built-in teams as a base. When creating an Ultra team, you have to use one of the existing Ultra teams as a base. You also can’t have the original team and the edited version of that team in the same league together. Other than that, there’s a lot you can change. You can rename the team and any of the players. You get to distribute both batting stats and pitching stats. You can a base amount for the entire team in each category and you can distribute those points as you see fit. You can edit things like their contact ability, power, running speed, position on the field, and fielding ability. For pitchers, you can choose if he is left or right handed, pitching speed, stamina, and strength of breaking pitches. Pitchers all have the same, weak hitting stats that cannot be changed. If you are editing an Ultra team, you can also choose and distribute the Ultra moves. You can create up to six new teams altogether.

Good idea to have the ball hit directly to the pitcher.

Season play is also a comprehensive mode. While only one season can be saved at a time, there are many ways you can choose to go through it. For a new season, first select a league. This can be one of the three built-in leagues or the fourth custom league. Then assign home stadiums to each team in the league. Next, choose the season length from either 5, 30, 60, or 165 games. Since there are six teams, each team will play against each of the five other teams the same number of times. For each team, you then select which teams are played automatically by the computer and which ones are played manually by a player. You can play an entire season automatically if you want. The game will generate a schedule of the order of games played and go through them one at a time. If a team is set to Manual, then that game will be played with a player at the helm. If both teams are set to Auto, you can then choose if you want to watch the game or skip it. Skipping a game simulates the contest more quickly than watching the game play out. All stats are kept and calculated from the simulated game.

The season ends whenever a team clinches the league championship. As the season draws to a close, the standings will display the Magic Number. This number is wins by the first place team or losses by the second place team needed to secure the league title. A Magic Number of 0 means that team wins the league no matter how the rest of the games play out. You then see a victory celebration for the winning team. If two or more teams are tied after season play, there will be playoffs to determine the winner. The playoff bracket is set up automatically and are single elimination games. Most likely there will only be two teams tie, so in that case a single game determines league champion.

This was my first time playing through Baseball Simulator 1.000. I do like baseball quite a lot but I’m not so interested in baseball video games, so this has sat on my shelf for some time. This is the first game with a battery backup I’ve played in a little while, and thankfully my battery was still good. I probably picked this game up in a lot of games for next to nothing. A cart-only copy costs around $6, so it’s quite affordable for baseball fans.

This poor fielder is getting knocked into the wall by an Ultra hit.

I figured that if I’m going to play this game, I might as well play in the Ultra League to check out the enhanced features. The ending is the same no matter what. I also decided on a short, five-game season. A friend of mine suggested I play with the team called Heroes, which is the team with the icon of a smiling baseball abbreviated HE. (You can read his review of the game.) This team is likely the best team in the game for a few reasons. The team has the most Ultra points of any team in the league. The starting pitching is very strong and each pitcher can last several innings. This team also has two players that are borderline ludicrous. The leadoff hitter, Boyd, is the fastest player in the game easily. Anything hit on the ground is a guaranteed hit, and usually more. In one game, using an Ultra Hit, I performed an unheard-of infield inside-the-park home run. Yes, he’s that fast. The fifth hitter, Bret, has some of the best power in the game. When combined with Ultra Hitting, you should mostly hit home runs with him. I only hit nine homers with him in five games since I was a bit conservative with spending Ultra points, although he did have one four-homer game.

I went undefeated in a short season and all the games but one were blowouts. This game has the same rule from R.B.I. Baseball where games are called if one team is winning by 10 or more after any inning. The first four games went as follows: A 12-2 win in 5 innings, a 15-1 win in 6 innings, another 12-2 win in 7 innings, and a 14-0 shutout in only 3 innings. I hit nine home runs in both the first and fourth games. Game 2 was the four-homer game by Bret, and Game 4 was played in the space stadium which explains all the home runs there. The fifth and final game of the season was the biggest test by. Both teams were undefeated so it functioned the same as a one-game playoff for the title. I played a full 9 inning game and won 7-4. It got a little scary at the end because I gave up a three-run homer in the bottom of the 9th and they had the tying run at the plate. I just barely held on. That team had really good pitching and they messed up my rhythm. I also played conservatively with the Ultra moves the entire season. I rarely used Ultra Pitches or Ultra Fielding, spending most of my points on Ultra Hitting. Even then, I mostly utilized Ultra Hitting when I had runners on base. The idea was to keep the rally going or go for the big home run. I had an easy time with the game up until that final game, but it still wasn’t too tough.

Sponsored by Kung-Fu Heroes

Baseball Simulator gets a 1/10 difficulty because you can trigger the ending without playing a single game. You are allowed to play a full season with every game played automatically. The winner of the league gets the victory screen no matter who it is. I know this is true because I played out a separate 5-game season automatically, just to make sure. I’m sure you can see the same ending screens if you play a full season and don’t win. The end of my winning season and the end of the simulated season were both completely identical from what I could tell. If you are going to play the game at all, then you might as well try to win it, but here you can lose and just tell people you won, and they would be none the wiser. I try to go about it honestly. The game gets a 3/10 from me because I made the effort to win and it wasn’t too challenging in the Ultra League.

It’s a little early to say, but I think Baseball Simulator 1.000 might well be the best baseball game on the NES. If not, it’s certainly one that is overlooked. The gameplay is rock solid and easy to play. The graphics and music are nice. The controls work well. What sets this game apart is the huge number of features for such a game, such as custom teams, custom league, the Ultra League, statistics tracking, and full season play. I think the Ultra League is the real draw here as you can spice up the gameplay dramatically. Hitting a home run off a tough pitch or spoiling an Ultra Hit with a great play is very satisfying. The only thing I don’t like about the game is how long it takes to simulate unplayed games in a season. Even when skipping a game, it takes about five minutes of real time for it to play out entirely. All you are left to do is watch the scoreboard for updates and twiddle your thumbs. Or look at your phone like I did. I suppose that is the price to pay for tracking every pitch, every hit, and every out, all with cumulative statistics. I did not expect to get all of this out of an NES baseball game, but I’m happy I did.

#103 – Baseball Simulator 1.000

Punch, kick, and flip your way through this challenging action game.

The title logo palette changes, I think this color looks best.

To Beat: Reach the ending
To Complete: Reach the ending without warping
What I Did: Completed the game
Played: 5/19/18 – 5/26/18
Difficulty: 9/10
My Difficulty: 9/10
My Video: Kung-Fu Heroes Longplay

As you may know, before I started Take On The NES Library, I generated a randomized list of games and I am clearing games in that order. Once that list was set, I have completely ignored it aside from revealing only the next game in the list as I finish new games. I love the mystery of it all and I’m glad I’m doing it this way. Still, there are a few games that I remember where they fall on that list. For no particular reason, I remembered that Kung-Fu Heroes appeared somewhere in the 80s. Well, here we are! Perhaps this game stuck out to me because I knew that it was a sneaky difficult game. Let’s jump in and see what I was up against.

Kung-Fu Heroes began as an arcade title named Chinese Hero. It was developed by Nihon Game and published by Taiyo System in Japan and Kitcorp in North America. It released in 1984. A Famicom port of the game released in 1986 under the name Super Chinese. That version was published by Namco under the Namcot label. The NES version wouldn’t come out until March 1989. The NES version was also developed by Nihon Game, but by then they had renamed the company to Culture Brain. They also published the game on NES. Kung-Fu Heroes is the first game in the Super Chinese series. There were three Famicom games in the series. Super Chinese 2 would release on the NES as Little Ninja Brothers, and Super Chinese 3 is exclusive to the Famicom.

Kung-Fu Heroes is a top-down action game. You’ve heard this kind of story before. Monsters come and capture Princess Min-Min while also taking away ten treasures. You control either Jacky or Lee to battle the monsters and restore peace. (I wonder where their names came from?) Kung-Fu Heroes has a two-player mode with simultaneous gameplay if you want to tackle the game with a friend. The game takes places over eight castles with four areas each. Your task is to defeat enough monsters in each area so that the door opens to the next area. Once you complete all 32 areas, you save the princess and beat the game.

A nice courtyard becomes a battleground.

The controls to this game are more complicated than they first appear. You walk with the D-pad, moving in the four cardinal directions. Press A to punch. You reach forward by stepping quickly ahead and back when you punch and enemies break apart completely when you defeat them. You can perform the moon sault kick by pressing the B button. This also acts as a jump button. Hold down a direction and press B to jump kick into the air. You can defeat some enemies while airborne, and others you can defeat when you land on top of them with the kick. If you press B while standing still, you will perform a special move called the miracle kick. During the miracle kick, you move really fast and can jump much further than with the moon sault kick. There are a few other things you can do under special circumstances that I’ll cover later.

It’s a little unclear what you have to do in this game when you first start playing the game, so I’ll clear that up first. All the action takes place on a single screen. Enemies will appear one at a time periodically from the sides of the screen. There will be no more than four enemies on the screen at one time. After defeating twelve enemies, the door at the top of the screen will open, accompanied by a loud beeping noise. Unfortunately, there is no indicator for how far you have progressed within a level. Sometimes you don’t need to defeat all twelve enemies. Either way, as soon as the door opens the enemies speed up significantly. You can continue to beat them up if you want. To end the level, walk through the open door.

The top of the screen contains most of the information you need during game play. The first row has a bunch of icons and counters. The first one is of a little face that displays how many lives you have remaining. The next one is a letter K which indicates how many miracle kicks you can use. The second player also has these indicators on the right side of the screen. There are three more counters in the middle that are shared between both players. E indicates the number of E-balls you have, the fist icon indicates your punching power, and the money bag displays how much money you have. The second row on the menu bar contains the score for each player. In the middle of the row is a space reserved for any permanent treasures you acquire.

Punch to collect treasures, for nothing is fist-safe.

As you can see, there are a lot of items and abilities in this game. Most of them are acquired through collecting items within each area. Many levels will contain several rocks or blocks. You can punch these blocks to reveal an item that emerges from the block as a bubble. Then punch the item to collect it. The most common item you will see is a treasure box. This will hold one of many different items or upgrades that may not be immediately apparent. It may upgrade your punching power one level, which caps out at three, and you need certain power levels to defeat certain enemies. It may give you five miracle kicks. It might give you a money bag, which you can hold up to six. It might also contain one of the ten treasures. A new treasure will appear blinking at the top of the screen when you get a new one.

Another item you can find is a key. Collecting this opens up a staircase on the block where the key came from. It will close up after some time, but you can enter the stairs before then to go to one of two areas. The more common area is the bonus room. This is a timed room that generates items for you to collect. Red apples just give you points. The E balls are better in that collecting five of them gives you an extra life. This is also what E balls do in the main levels, however collecting them in the bonus area is separate from collecting them during levels. Also, in the bonus areas are a stream of bullets that you should dodge. Dying in the bonus area just ends it early without losing a life. Besides the bonus room, stairs may also lead to a warp room. In this room there are two holes and you can jump in the one you want to advance either a few levels or several levels ahead.

Some levels contain a gun ball item. This is a ball with the letter G on it. When you collect it, you can fire gun balls when you punch for a short time. Firing horizontally causes the gun balls to bounce on the ground as they move ahead. Firing vertically throws them in a straight line very quickly. There are a few upsides to the gun ball. You can use this to kill enemies that usually require more difficult techniques to defeat. Enemies will run away from you while the gun ball is active, and they are unable to shoot projectiles of their own. A few enemies take several gun balls to defeat, so fighting them may not always be worth it.

Bonus rooms are full of items and bullets.

The final items you can collect are question balls and 1ups. Blocks that do not hold items any more, or blocks that don’t hold items at all, can still be interacted with in a couple of ways. Some blocks go flying when you punch them. You can shove the blocks into other enemies and defeat them for more points than with standard attacks. Otherwise, you can keep punching an empty, stationary block to eventually generate a question ball. This will either contain a money bag or an X ball. The X ball resets your money bag count to zero. These blocks are the easiest ways to collect money bags but it is risky. 1ups are uncommon items that tend to appear on empty spaces and you reveal them by punching the air. Makes sure to take note of these special locations if you happen to find one. Finally, the last thing you can find in the levels is another bonus area called Break Time. This takes you to a separate screen where you gain half a million points and can take a free 30-second break if you desire. You can’t control your character or do anything aside from leave early.

Money bags are used to trigger two special items. Simply collecting five money bags generates an E ball somewhere on screen, and remember, five E balls equals an extra life. If you have six money bags, you can redeem them for a P ball. Press A and B together while standing still to make the P ball appear. Be patient because the controls for this are very rigid and I think you have to press both A and B together on the exact same frame to get the P ball to appear. Collect the P ball to turn invincible to enemies for a little while. Enemies turn blue and will run away from you. You can defeat them by simply running into them. It’s a great way to help when clearing difficult rooms.

The ten treasures you find throughout the game all have various effects. Most of them boil down to making it easier either to defeat or to avoid certain enemies. A couple of them reveal hidden dangers in later levels. If you mysteriously die in some of the later levels, you might be missing a treasure that could help. One treasure is a sword. You unsheathe the sword by pressing both A and B at the same time while you are walking, and you put it away the same way. The trigger is similar to the P ball and it’s important to remember the difference so that you don’t accidentally reveal the P ball when you don’t need it. Our hero will hold the sword out while it is in use. There are a couple of enemies that are only vulnerable to the sword.

Uni-Gon is the closest thing to a boss in the game.

There is a wide variety of enemies in this game. Most of them have different attacks, too. The standard commando enemies can punch and kick just like you. There are spear men and gun men. There’s a coffin enemy that will hold you inside of him briefly. A couple enemies fire medusa beams that freeze you for a bit and leave you vulnerable. One enemy just pushes you around. There are two large enemies that you need to watch out for. Uni-Gon is a huge, mummy-like monster that pursues you alone. All other enemies leave when he shows up. He can also breath fire. You can defeat him by punching him five times, but it is extremely risky. I’ve only done it once and usually I just avoid him until he goes away. If you can defeat him, he will leave an E ball behind. The other large enemy is a dragon. He is only vulnerable to the sword and you also have to hit him five times.

There are other features to some levels. One useful feature is the quick passage. These are doors on the left and right edges of the screen and most levels have them. If you walk through the door you will wrap around to the other side of the screen. Some levels have two pairs of quick passage doors. These are most helpful in evading Uni-Gon, but enemies can use them too so that’s another thing to keep in mind. Some levels have wells in them. These are just like the holes you enter in the warp room, only these kill you if you fall in. Some levels have fireballs streaming out of these wells. They are deadly to the touch, even if you are jumping in the air or are invincible with the P ball. Stay away. Some levels have pools of water or lava, and those kill you too. Finally, a few of the later levels have moving or disappearing blocks within the water or lava. If you can get on top of those blocks for just a brief time you will earn a bunch of points as well as some E balls.

You start the game with five lives. You can earn up to nine through the various methods already described. It’s a little frustrating to get good enough at the game to go beyond nine lives only for them not to count. There are no continues to the game either. There is a continue code I found by holding A and pressing Start at the title screen. It will take you back to the first area of the castle you were on. However, it is not listed in the manual so it is off-limits for me. The only nice thing Kung-Fu Heroes does for you is that you will always start each new level with at least three lives. If you finish a level with one or two lives remaining, you will get three lives to start the next area. I believe this is a holdover from the arcade game. It’s very generous, but it also speaks to the difficulty of the game in that death is so swift and frequent that those extra lives don’t always help.

If you’re playing for score, don’t miss Break Time.

This was my first time beating Kung-Fu Heroes. This is a game I have tinkered with a little bit off and on. Mostly I didn’t get through the first castle before turning off the game, but it was fun to pick up and try out a few times. I also played this game for the NintendoAge contest a few years back, but I didn’t get much beyond the third castle. I remember buying my copy of the game at my local game store several years ago when prices were still cheap. This game is still cheap today if you are looking to buy a copy.

I was able to beat the game in about a week. I sure played the game a lot in that one week, however. I think it took me over thirty attempts to beat the game. I took detailed notes on item locations which I found helpful for learning the game. By the end, I had all the item locations memorized that I needed. The first couple days of attempts didn’t get me very far. This was because I was spending all the time combing levels for items while also properly learning how to fight the enemies. Soon enough I was getting to the 6th, 7th, and final castle somewhat regularly when I hit another wall. Many of the final areas have no items along with difficult sets of enemies. A few areas include enemies that cannot be defeated, so you have to wait for them to leave so they can be replaced with enemies you can attack. I could do the early game really well only for it all to be wiped out in a flash at the end. I resorted to warping just so I could quickly get to the end of the game to practice. I beat the game that way once, and then the next day I beat it again without warping. The game loops continuously after you beat it, but the difficulty does not seem to change and there’s no special ending beyond the first loop.

It gets tough when there are no items late in the game.

Beating this game requires good technique and strategy. I found each enemy has either a specific way to beat them or a preferred way to beat them. Mastering the moon sault kick is important since you can dodge enemy projectiles and even get a nice point bonus for jumping over attacks. Then you land on top of the enemy to defeat it. It’s dangerous to jump on enemies that can also jump since they will evade your attack. For them, I approach them from the side and punch them or slice them with the sword before they go airborne. Defensively, I always keep my finger on the B button to moon sault kick my way out of danger, such as when the lightning obstacle quickly appears. I didn’t have much use for miracle kicks offensively, but they are very helpful as an evasive maneuver since you move so fast. It might not be best practice, but I use miracle kicks sometimes to go straight at the open door when it’s surrounded by enemies. Miracle kicks are also useful in the bonus room and they are unlimited for that room only. I just avoid both Uni-Gon and the Dragon. Shuffling back and forth through the quick passage keeps Uni-Gon away pretty easily. I also came up with a nice strategy for the final area. I saved four E-balls and six money bags for that stage since it’s the hardest one. I spent the money bags on a P ball when there were four enemies on screen, and then I went to town wiping out as many enemies as possible using the quick passages. Uni-Gon appears here and I can beat him with the invincibility, and then he drops the fifth E ball I need for an extra life. This level is still awfully tough after that, but every little bit helps.

I enjoyed my time with Kung-Fu Heroes. It does feel a little out of place for a 1989 NES release. The graphics and aesthetic are nice. The music is catchy at its best, and a bit dull at its worst. The controls are fine aside from trying to press A and B together. The action is very quick. This is an easy game to pick up and play for a few minutes or to sit down and try to dig into it. This game is also part of a trend among early NES games I’ve noticed where there is more internal complexity to the game systems than it first lets on. All the treasures with different effects and all the other things to keep track of like miracle kicks and money bags seem so overwhelming for what looks like a simple action game at first glance. Therefore, this game is easy to start playing but tough to master. This is a game for people who like quick action games and don’t mind a challenge in the endgame, but I think it’s also a great NES game if you don’t take it too seriously and just want to carve up some enemies for a little while.

#86 – Kung-Fu Heroes

It’s known as one of the worst NES games, and that mostly holds up.

Love that over half of the title screen is text.

To Beat: Reach the ending
Played: 9/29/17 – 10/2/17
Difficulty: 5/10
My Difficulty: 5/10
Video: AD&D Heroes of the Lance Longplay

Clearly, I am a huge gaming nerd, especially when it comes to Nintendo and the NES. Mostly I go it alone and play single-player games, but occasionally I will play multiplayer games. Tabletop gaming has become quite popular, and I do like to get together with friends to play sometimes. I don’t take it much farther than that, and so I have never been interested in Dungeons and Dragons. Maybe it’s the idea of a long campaign with a group of people that doesn’t appeal to me and my single-player ways. The NES has four games bearing the Dungeons and Dragons name and I had no interest in them. I had originally planned to skip them in this project altogether. However, plans change, so here we are with the first game in the set. AD&D: Heroes of the Lance is generally regarded as a bad game, and having played it for myself I can see why.

Dungeons and Dragons, abbreviated D&D, is a tabletop RPG that takes place in a fantasy setting. Players choose characters and team up to battle monsters and solve puzzles in scenarios devised and managed by a Dungeon Master. The game was originally published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc., or TSR, but is now published by Wizards of the Coast as of 1997. D&D split early on with the lighter game keeping the name, while a more rules-heavy experience was called Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, or AD&D. The NES games fall under the AD&D banner. These two games merged back together when the 3rd Edition of D&D released in the year 2000, and this structure remains today.

Naturally, there were many video games created or spun off from D&D. It’s mindboggling how many different series and games there are under so many different names that I can’t even begin to make sense of it myself let alone try to explain it. There are different series of games that might have familiar names to you, such as the Gold Box series, Baldur’s Gate, and Neverwinter Nights. Some follow the strict D&D ruleset, while others only utilize the setting. Several games are not RPGs at all. The NES received four different AD&D games, and in order of release they are Heroes of the Lance, DragonStrike, Pool of Radiance, and Hillsfar.

This intro screen has more color than anything else in the game.

AD&D: Heroes of the Lance was released on many home computers beginning in January 1988. The NES port of the game was released in January 1991, and the Famicom version came next in March 1991. It was developed by U.S. Gold Ltd. and Strategic Systems, Inc. Natsume is also credited as a developer, but as far as I can tell they are only linked to the game’s soundtrack. The NES game was published by FCI, while Pony Canyon published the Famicom game. The sequel, Dragons of Flame, was released on the Famicom in February 1992 but did not make it to the NES.

The story is based on the Dragonlance novels written by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. In the land of Krynn, people have abandoned their traditions and faith, causing the Queen of Darkness, Takhisis, to awaken evil and take power in the land. The ruins of Xak Tsaroth hold the keys to restoring the traditions and regaining balance of power, and these keys are the Disks of Mishakal. Of course, Takhisis knows of the Disks and has sent the dragon Khisanth to protect them. You play the role of the party known as the Companions of the Lance, who must venture into Xak Tsaroth to fight the dragon, recover the disks, and restore the land of Krynn. After entering the ruins of Xak Tsaroth, the warrior Goldmoon of the Companions entrusted her blue crystal staff to a statue of the goddess Mishakal, who then blessed the staff and offered her power to aid in recovering the disks. You got all that, right?

Heroes of the Lance is one of the D&D games that is not a strict RPG. Instead, it is a side-scrolling dungeon crawler. You control the entire party of eight Companions of the Lance through the maze of Xak Tsaroth. All the action takes place in the side scrolling view. You enter other rooms to different parts of the maze, and the goal is to find the entrance to the next level of the dungeon. There are only three levels in the game, culminating in the final battle with Khisanth. Along the way you will fight enemies, jump over pits, cast spells, and collect items. You can rearrange your party of eight characters in any order you choose, and each member has their own stats, abilities, and weapons that aid in completing the adventure.

Perhaps this first screen is what many players have seen the most.

The eight characters in the party are Goldmoon, Sturm, Raistlin, Caramon, Tanis, Tasslehoff, Riverwind, and Flint. Goldmoon has the blue crystal staff which is used to cast clerical spells. Sturm is a powerful knight who wields a magical Long Sword. Raistlin is a physically weak mage with powerful magical abilities using the Staff of Magius. Caramon is another powerful warrior armed with both a sword and throwing spear. Tanis is a half-elf armed with a sword and a bow. Tasslehoff is of a race called kender, and he is armed with a hoopak which can be used as a sling for long range attacks and as a staff for close range combat. Riverwind is another strong fighter armed with a sword and a bow. Finally, Flint is a dwarf who wields both a battle axe and throwing axes.

The controls are complex and they change somewhat depending on the situation. You walk left and right using the D-pad. If you walk in the same direction for a while you will start running, or you can run by holding Up combined with either Left or Right. While running you can jump with A. You can also duck while standing still by holding A and pressing Down. That isn’t intuitive, but it occasionally helps. There is a compass on the bottom left of the screen, and one of the directions lights up if you are standing by a door. You can proceed through the door by holding either Up or Down depending on which side the door is on. You must hold the button for a full second to go through the door. You can use the B button combined with a direction for the lead character to use ranged weapons. If enemies are too close then you can’t use ranged weapons, and you also have to equip them before you can use them in the first place. The Select button both brings up and exits the main menu.

Combat introduces some different controls. If an enemy is near enough, the word Combat will display on the bottom. You can’t use ranged weapons anymore when this indicator in on. You can still move, duck, jump, run, and enter the menu the same as above. To attack the enemy with the lead character, hold down the B button to swing your weapon. You need to be right next to the enemy to land any hits. You can keep the B button held to do continuous attacks. You can also attack high by holding the D-pad diagonally Up and toward the enemy, and attack low diagonally with Down. Some enemies can only be hit high or low. You will see a little circle whenever you land an attack, but you will miss about as often as you hit.

Well actually this is the screen you will see the most often.

You will spend a lot of time in the game menu. While in the menu, press A to choose an option, press B to cancel and go back, and press Select to leave the menu. The Hero Select option lets you view each character’s stats, health, and items. You also use Hero Select to move party members around. Press A to choose a party member, and press A again when a different party member is highlighted to swap the two characters. Magic User Spells lets you use Raistlin’s spells, and Clerical Staff Spells lets you use Goldmoon’s spells. More on spells in a bit. The Use command lets you use some items like potions and equip some items like bows. For example, to equip Caramon’s throwing spear, go to the Use command, select Caramon, and then select the spear. It will then appear next to the Using field on both the Use or Hero Select screen when successfully equipped. The Score option shows you how many of each enemy you have killed as well as your experience points and score. Yes, Heroes of the Lance has a scoring system. The Give, Drop, and Take commands all move items around. Use the Give command to trade items between party members just like how you switch characters around. Drop puts an item on the ground, and Take is used to pick items up. You can find items on the ground or even in the background during play. Stand near one and use the Take command to give it to whichever party member you want. You can save the game at almost any time using the Save command, or load a save file anytime with the Load command. There are three save slots that either display as Old if it has save data or New if it is empty.

To cast spells with Raistlin or Goldmoon, you have to do two things. First, you must equip each character with their staff with the Use command. Second, you have to put the spellcaster in the front row. On the screen, the top four characters are in the front row and the others are in the back row. Party alignment is also important because any of the front row characters can take damage during combat, although the lead character is most likely to take the hit. Use either of the spell commands in the menu to display the spells and select one to cast it. While exploring, if the spellcaster is the lead character, you can simply cast the last spell used with the B button as a long range attack. In combat range, you must use the menu to cast spells.

Trapping enemies and running past them is an effective strategy.

Raistlin is the only character that can use the Magic User Spells option. This option displays the spell list and the charge meter showing how much power is left in the staff. Each spell uses up a different amount of charge, and when this meter is empty you can no longer cast spells. The same goes for Goldmoon and her Clerical Staff Spells. Raistlin’s magic spells are primarily combat oriented. Charm, Sleep, and Web are all used to temporarily stop enemies. Magic Missile and Burning Hands are attack spells. Detect Magic highlights magical items in the field with sparkles, and Detect Invisible reveals invisible objects. The Final Strike spell uses up all the energy in the staff to defeat all monsters on screen, though Raistlin loses his life in the process. To use this spell, you have to put Raistlin in the lead and also be outside of close combat range.

Goldmoon can use all Clerical spells with her Blue Crystal Staff. She has two healing spells, Cure Light Wounds and Cure Critical Wounds. Protection from Evil weakens enemies near the party, while Prayer builds the party up temporarily. Find Traps shows any traps on screen, such as falling rocks. She has two combat spells. Hold Person can disable an enemy like the Charm or Sleep spells, and Spiritual Hammer is an attack spell. Goldmoon can revive defeated party members with the Raise Dead spell. If a character is killed in combat, their body remains on the ground. You can stand near it and use Raise Dead to revive the character with a few hit points. However, if you change screens before reviving the character or cause the lead party member to fall in a pit, they are gone for good. In this case, their character portrait shows a tombstone instead of being grayed out. The last spell is Deflect Dragon Breath, which causes the lead character to glow and avoid all damage from the acid spewed by dragon hatchlings. If Goldmoon is defeated, a few other characters can pick up her staff and perform a subset of Clerical spells.

There are quite a few items found in the dungeon. There are five colors of potions that do different effects, such as healing, party member protection, or holding enemies. A ring or a gem ring can be equipped with the Use command which makes the wearer harder to hit in combat. Raistlin can use a Scroll or a Wand to perform a long range attack without using power from his staff. The remaining items have no effect except for adding points to your score while you carry them. Such items are gems, coins, gold bars, chalices, and shields.

This waterfall is awfully pretty.

This was my first time playing through AD&D: Heroes of the Lance. At the beginning of my project, I put this game and many others near the end of the list which I call my snub list. Now I am bringing those games back into the fold occasionally as I see fit, and it had been awhile since I pulled one of my snubbed games into the forefront. I’m reasonably sure I bought this game at my local game store at the time when they were slow to keep up with price increases. I could bundle games and get every fourth game free, so I took advantage of that frequently. The price of this game hasn’t really moved though. I think it was an $8 game at that store and that’s in line with its current value. I have the manual for it that I got separately, although with a missing cover.

I gave the game a test drive just to check the battery, and in those few minutes I couldn’t get off the first screen. At a glance, it is an intimidating game to say the least. There are so many menu options and character statistics. Who are all these characters and what do they bring to the table? Spell casting doesn’t work right away. The first screen features a pit that I bet most players fall in right away trying to figure out what to do. I sure did. I see I can go through a door to the north and another to the south, but my character won’t go that way because I’m just pressing Up or Down instead of holding the direction button. The game has a bad reputation for all these reasons. The manual is an absolute must, and I’m guessing most people that have tried the game played without reading the manual, further souring their first impressions. I read through the manual several times, and I needed it by my side as I played before the game started to unfold.

One of my biggest gripes with Heroes of the Lance is the level layout. The compass is there to help orient you, but from room to room it can twist in various directions. Say you are in a room that runs north and south. The next room may also run north and south, so you know you are in a different room that runs parallel. Other times, the next room runs west to east, so you then start spreading out more. To make it more confusing, if this north to south hallway has an east door and a west door opposite each other, sometimes both doors lead to the same room and other times they lead to separate rooms. Both doors leading to the same room can make sense if you picture it as two perpendicular hallways that intersect, and you are simply reorienting your view by turning 90 degrees. It’s just that this is not evident at first. Most of the hallways looks the same anyway with the same drab gray colors. All this combined is the perfect recipe for getting lost. I am good at mental mapmaking, but it only took a few screens into the game before I needed to begin drawing. Even then, I ran into problems. The layout seems nonsensical at times. Sometimes the map has loops in it, and other times it appears that you are going in a direction that overlaps with something else in the level. It’s hard enough to map the dungeon without having to consider verticality. It’s ugly, unthoughtful design.

Basic platforming is also frustrating.

The good news is that there are clear, one-way transitions between the three levels of the dungeon. Go the correct way and you may see a short cutscene of your character falling to the level below. This is not a pit that kills you and you are going the right way when this happens. If you successfully map your way to that spot, then you effectively have that level solved. It’s not always easy getting there. There is one section in Level 2 that I am convinced is impossible to map out. It’s a door maze with several hallways, all with multiple doors. I started finding new items after going through many hallways, so I know I was hitting unique screens still. Fortunately, this section is not on the critical path and can (and should) be skipped completely.

Once I reached Level 3, I was running low on magic so I elected to start over. It was quick getting back there and I was in a much better state than my first try. The final level was the easiest area to map and I did so completely. It was straightforward to beat the game at that point. It took me about four hours to beat the game the first time. I knew I could beat the game much quicker than that, so I recorded a longplay. I admit, I really enjoyed blowing through the game again once I figured it all out. The second play lasted 20 minutes. The ending of the game teases you with the sequel, AD&D Dragons of Flame, which was never released on NES. Dragons of Flame did make it to Famicom, though I won’t be playing it.

Another aspect of this game’s reputation is that it is a difficult game, but I found that really wasn’t the case. The game seems so difficult at first for all the reasons mentioned here, and that’s true, it is difficult to start. You have a lot of learn and you will probably play poorly trying to get your bearings. This makes saving anywhere such a godsend. Take advantage of it by saving frequently and reloading if things don’t go well. Don’t go too long without saving so that if you need to reload you have a better chance of remembering where you are. Mapping the game on paper goes a long way as well, even if the map itself is crude like mine. Once you find the entrance to the next level and can get there from the start, you can do what I did and restart the game if things go south. The game is short with only the three levels and it isn’t a huge setback to start over with the knowledge gained. Sadly, Heroes of the Lance will permit you into situations where the game is unwinnable and you have to start over, but this is not much of a burden as it would appear. I would say the game begins like it has well above average difficulty and then becomes a low difficulty game at the end, depending on your aptitude for mapping. Suddenly a 5/10 rating seems about right!

Make sure to protect yourself when fighting the dragon hatchlings.

I know this review has gone on long enough, but I’m going to share my tips and strategy for beating Heroes of the Lance. I’m spoiling quite a lot here. I’ll begin with perhaps my biggest revelation about this game. Most of the content in this game means nothing. Other than health, the statistics do not tell you anything. The game can be beaten with only three characters and fewer than half the spells. You need to know how to kill enemies and jump a little. That’s all. Here’s how you do it. Set Caramon as your lead character and put Raistlin and Goldmoon in the third and fourth spots in the front row. Go to the Use command to equip both Raistlin’s staff and Goldmoon’s staff so you can cast spells. Most of the enemies in this game are affected by the Web spell. When these enemies are stuck in a web, you can kill them if you want or run right past them. Web didn’t work on short enemies or the dragon hatchlings, so you have to fight them. Use only downward attacks on the short enemies. You might be able to jump past them if you want to try that. The hatchlings are the biggest nuisance here. For them, use the Deflect Dragon Breath spell so you don’t get hurt by their acid and keep reapplying it when the spell wears off for as long as you battle them. They constantly back away from you in close range, so you have to step forward and take a stab or two. Just repeat that until you either kill them or move them far enough out of the way to get where you are going. In general, monitor your health and heal with the Cure Light Wounds spell as often as needed to keep your HP topped off. Save often, as much as you feel comfortable. The Prayer spell might come in handy for a few tricky screens, but it isn’t essential. At the final battle with the dragon Khisanth, first get close enough to engage him in battle. Set Goldmoon as the lead character and press both the B button and Right to throw the staff into the dragon killing him instantly. It is that simple, and it is not even a spoiler since the manual tells you to do this. Grab the disks, wait a few seconds, and enjoy the ending.

In conclusion, yes, AD&D: Heroes of the Lance is a bad game. Poor controls, sluggish movement, drab graphics, a confusing dungeon, and frivolous, unnecessary elements make for an unpleasant experience. I haven’t mentioned the music at all, which is easily the best part of this game. The composer Seiji Toda and arranger and programmer Iku Mizutani did an excellent job with the music and they both deserve far more credit than they have received. The music aside, I would not recommend this game. If you like map making, you might get a little enjoyment here, and it’s not the worst game to play solely by walkthrough if you want to go that route. As for me, I’m really pleased I conquered the game on my own. It feels like a big accomplishment, and that is such a good feeling that makes it all worth it.

#60 – Advanced Dungeons and Dragons: Heroes of the Lance