Amagon (NES) Playthrough
382A playthrough of American Sammy's 1989 run-and-gun platformer for the game, Amagon.
This offbeat platformer was one that I used to play over at a friend's house, but we usually only popped it in once we had gone through everything else he had. It was always super hard and kinda meh, but it was another NES game to play. Fast forward 25 years, and what I thought was okay but mediocre way back then is... still okay but mediocre.
Amagon, developer Aicom’s first American released title, strands its titular hero on a mysterious island in the South Pacific. Several men have been sent to explore this isle that is rumored to harbor all sorts of horrible monsters, but none have returned alive.
Marine war hero Amagon arrives on assignment to check things out, but his plane crash lands on a beach. Machine gun in hand, Amagon must battle the endemic horrors of the tropics and make it to the rescue ship docked at the opposite end of the island.
Amagon provides twelve platforming stages split across six separate zones, each characterized by their terrain: the plains, the jungle, the river, the rain forest, the mountain, and the beach host a large assortment of bizarre enemies that fly at him in droves, including fire spitting wasps, giant lions, bipedal alligators, miniature cars, and aliens.
Ammo is in short supply, so you have to be careful with timing your shots. This can be difficult since enemies fly in erratic patterns, they constantly respawn, and the speed and arc of Amagon's jump turns accurate mid-air shooting into an exercise in frustration. But, the alternative is worse: when he runs out, Amagon will hold the gun over his head and swing it like a club at his enemies as his ammo stores slowly regenerates.
One hit kills Amagon and the slow gun swinging animation leaves him wide open, so if you've run out of ammo and don't have a power-up, you're better off hitting reset and starting again from the beginning.
There are several power ups that are dropped by killed monsters, like ammo, point bonuses, 1-ups, and the mega-key. If the player collects the mega-key and has a score of at least 5,000 points, the word “GO” will flash at the top of the screen – once this happens, you can hit Select to transform into his alter-ego, a huge, muscle-bound hulk named Megagon, a bit like the beast transformations in Sega’s arcade hit, Altered Beast.
Unlike regular Amagon, Megagon has a life bar that allows him to absorb several hits, and how many is determined by your score. For every 5,000 points, one bar will be added to his life gauge. Megagon is by far the best way to face the game's hairier sections thanks to his powerful punch and a wide laser beam, but these moves tend to trivialize any sense of challenge the game offers.
Amagon‘s graphics are clear, bright, and cheerful, but they're also pretty plain and flat looking. The regular enemies are tiny and lack detail. A few, like the gator men, stand out, but the screen-filling bosses are the stars. They're often as creepy as they are funny - why are we fighting a lion head with two faces and a flying hippo? The backdrops are mostly static, but Amagon stands out well against them since, in true 1980’s fashion, his hair, tank top, and daisy dukes are all rendered in the same delicate shade of neon pink.
And that death animation is hysterical.
The sound is okay. The music is catchy but it's a bit too high pitched and it suffers from a lot of noticeable dropout when sound effects play.
Amagon is about as middling an NES platformer as you're ever likely to play. The controls are rough, the difficulty lacks balance, and the game's weird personality can't compensate for its issues. There are several worse platformers on the NES, there are also many that trump Amagon in every conceivable way.
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
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