Conan: The Mysteries of Time (NES) Playthrough - NintendoComplete
130A playthrough of Mindscape's 1990 NES game, Conan: The Mysteries of Time.
I'm not sure how well known a fact this is, but this Conan game wasn't an NES original. It's actually a port of System 3's Myth: History in the Making that was released in 1989 for the Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, Spectrum ZX, and the Amiga 500. It had nothing to do with Conan besides a few thematic similarities and a half-naked barbarian that kills stuff.
Mindscape really had a fetish for these games didn't they? Movie licensed games released years after the movie itself, I mean. They did it on the NES with Terminator, Mad Max, The Last Starfighter, and Dirty Harry as well.
This version looks to be using the C64 version as its source, and unfortunately, in the fast and cheap conversion done here, the NES version inherits the apparent weaknesses of the C64 graphics while neatly-sidestepping the good stuff that made C64 games look so good. Much of the background detail is missing, but notice how chunky and pixelated the environment graphics are? Yeah, that's exactly what I'm talking about. The music is nothing spectacular, but it's not too bad, and some of the digital effects are pretty cool.
Where this game really falls down, though, is in its controls. Once you master them, the game becomes quite easy, but dear god, why would anyone set up the controls for an NES game this way? To pick things up, you have to stand directly on top of them and hit forward/down or forward/back, but those commands also make you jump (?!), so if you aren't standing exactly in the right spot, you'll probably land in a pit or on an enemy. It's not really helped by the army of enemies that swarm you constantly, making matters just that much more difficult. Once you have it down, like I said, it's cake. But do you have the patience to last that long?
You might notice that I ignored all of the health power-ups until I got to the fat Medusa statue level. I was looking to see how long I could go without power-ups before I succumb to the bad guys and have to redo anything.
I'm probably sound a bit more harsh than I mean in talking about the game - I actually enjoy Conan. I think I might be the only one! It's *deeply* flawed, but if you are willing to sink some time and legit effort into it, it can be quite satisfying. Not as much as the Dino De Laurentiis epic, but fun nonetheless.
And hey, it allowed you to kill a boss with a decapitated but still lethal Medusa's head several years before God of War stylishly revisited the idea!
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
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