Duration: 0:00

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4

0:00 Stage 1
3:34 Stage 2
9:06 Stage 3
18:02 Stage 4
25:00 Stage 5
27:47 Stage 6
33:11 Stage 7
41:42 Stage 8
47:14 Stage 9
57:24 Stage 10



It's no secret that you can continue your whole way through this game and just blast through stuff until you finally have mashed "YES" on the continue screen enough to get to the credit roll... YAWN..... BUT!! this game is one of the very best action games on the console if you resist the urge to continue. And, by watching this video, you can see proof that it is doable and way more rewarding than just spamming continues ("quarter feeding")!

disclaimer I had to pause a couple times because my 3 year old was bugging me for something. It's rare I can get through life for an hour without him needing something from me. I left the pause there but cut out the dead time so you don't have to wait (you can tell by the in game music skipping head). There are also a couple times where I pause so I can see my score and/or lives remaining since there is no HUD in this game. end disclaimer

ALSO DISCLAIMER no save states, rewind, tool assist, etc, used for this or practice

The game is a product of its time, a victim to the "lose your gun and you're dead" syndrome (just like Contra!), but it's still not hopeless if you die and lose your weapon. Your grenades seem to do more damage than any other weapon you get throughout the game (even the mighty F gun!). The initial machine gun is pretty terrible, admittedly, and doesn't even shoot full screen, but most levels have an L gun in there somewhere, which is totally sufficient. And you have unlimited grenades. They have an arc that you have to get used to but do a lot of damage.

Enemy behavior can be strange and specific throughout the entire game. Sometimes the army guys jump out of the tanks. Sometimes they don't! Sometimes the army guys run at you and run away. Sometimes they just bum rush you. Sometimes a guy with a rocket launcher will shoot at nothing over and over. Sometimes they seem to have precision aiming! You get the idea!

With that said, the game really doesn't require a lot of memorization. As long as you don't run as fast as you can blindly into danger, expecting everything to be fine, you'll see that enemies come in groups and are pretty manageable. You have to sort of "inch" you way through the level, which might not sound like that much fun, but this is a great game, so therefore it is. Sometimes in this run it probably seems like I am being overly cautious, but this game is very unforgiving.

The game seems to (SEEMS to, I have no proof!) reward your score with extra 1ups. Throughout my run I try to save as many hostages or do bonus things for points (shooting pigs, chickens, rats). This seems to increase the likelihood of 1ups in the levels. I've had times where the level will give me up to three 1up icons throughout the level, and other times where I only receive one. There's probably some kind of explanation for this, but I think it's due to score, which is why I try to be cautious about saving hostages and getting the bonus points. There are also a lot of instances where I blow up hostages due to being button happy and also "war is hell." I did what I could! One of the weirdest things about this game is you actually LOSE points if you kill a hostage on accident. I'm sure they exist out there, but i can't really think of another game that TAKES points from you for doing something wrong or accidental, especially when the score is tied to 1ups.

The last 2 stages are pretty taxing. If you lose your weapon, there are no more powerups (as far as I know!) and you are stuck with the default machine gun. This is actually a really good design choice. The game is forcing you to play fair and not rely on being overpowered or having some lucky powerup BS or something.

The final stage misleadingly makes it like all you have to do is beat the "leader". It has a slew of enemies never seen before, such as the burly guys that lay landmines, the blue army guys that apparently self destruct (and their explosion lingers and can kill you), and the turrets that all of a sudden have HOMING lasers. The final boss is even uglier than I remember and shoots a deadly unpredictable array of grenades, lasers, and blasts that took a lot of my lives. Thankfully, I earned a lot of lives throughout the rest of my run and barely squeaked by with 2 lives left when I was able to do enough damage against him.

The ending is actually really well done and entertaining unlike most NES games, which most people who have played the game have probably seen before due to continue spamming, so it's not exactly a spoiler.

All in all, one of the very best games on the NES. And I am happy to have achieved my 1cc goal!