Friday the 13th (NES) Playthrough
607A playthrough of LJN's 1989 license based action-platformer for the NES, Friday the 13th.
Friday the 13th isn't a day that often falls in October, so I thought I'd celebrate with a look back at one of NES library's most notorious games.
Appearing on shelves a few months before the theatrical release of Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, this Atlus-developed NES adaptation of the franchise was clearly meant to capitalize on the hype surrounding cinema's most celebrated serial killer of the 1980s.
This rendition of Friday the 13th takes most of its cues from the second film in the series. Jason Vorhees is determined to avenge the death of his mother, and he has the hapless campers and counselors at Camp Crystal Lake firmly in his sights.
You take control of six controllable counselors, each with his/her own strengths and weaknesses, and over the course of three days, it's your job to protect the fifteen kids staying at the camp while arming yourself for the inevitable showdown with Jason himself.
Jason regularly patrols the camp, and when he comes across an occupied cabin, the alarm sounds. That's your cue to rush in and fight him off before he can make mincemeat of his target. If all of the counselors or all of the campers die, it's game over.
Between attacks, you'll be running around scouring the camp for hints and weapons. You kill zombies as you follow the paths that wind around the camp as well as explore the interior areas from an over-the-shoulder 3D perspective, and you'd best stay on your toes. Jason can ambush you anywhere, any time.
A big hint: if you really want to gain the upper hand, find the altar where Jason keeps his mother's severed head and steal the sweater! It will halve the damage taken by the counselor wearing it.
Friday the 13th has been savaged by both critics and the gaming public in the years since its release, and while game has its share of faults - the gameplay loop is repetitive, the mechanics are difficult to figure out without the manual, the controls are loose, and the outdoor music's endless four-second music loop is grating - it's not a total write-off. The creative ways in which it draws inspiration from the film's setting and the non-linear structure of the gameplay suit the theme well and help to build tension, and the number of secrets to be uncovered gives it a fair amount of replayability.
As a kid, I couldn't figure it out and usually wound up bored and frustrated after a few minutes, but as an adult armed with patience and an instruction manual, I have fun with it. It's not great, but it is interesting to see such a novel approach to adapting a horror movie, and to see how it takes tentative steps toward establishing concepts that would later become defining elements of the survival horror genre.
Happy Friday the 13th!
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