James Bond Jr. (NES) Playthrough
306A playthrough of THQ's 1992 license-based platformer for the NES, James Bond Jr.
This video shows both loops of the game for the true ending. The second loop begins at 1:28:19.
The name is Bond. James Bond. Junior.
Based on the 007 franchise, James Bond Jr. was a short-lived but fun cartoon that originally ran from the Fall of 1991 to the Spring of 1992. The show follows the exploits of the teenaged nephew of England's favorite super spy who, when not busy attending class at Warfield Academy, occupies himself with foiling the many plots of S.C.U.M., a giant criminal organization that thrives on wreaking havoc.
Even with such a busy schedule, the boy wonder somehow found the time to star in not just one, but two separate video games in the Fall of 1992. The Gray Matter-developed Super Nintendo game (https://youtu.be/WRp6FozSamw) released about a month behind Eurocom's NES title.
James Bond Jr. on the NES begins with James parachuting down to an island in the Caribbean where the S.C.U.M. Lord is suspected of building up a stockpile of missiles. It's your job, as James, to infiltrate the facility, hack into S.C.U.M.'s computers, and disable the missiles before they launch.
The island base is a sprawling maze of underground passages and bunkers crawling with machine gun-toting henchman, guys with jetpacks, and attack robots, and once you've fought your way to one of the computers, you'll have to solve a puzzle to disable the missile. If you succeed in disabling them all, you'll face off against a boss before setting off on your next mission.
There are four lengthy missions in total, and they all follow the same general pattern as the first. Thankfully, the game features passwords so you don't have to finish it all in one sitting, and that's a very good thing, since even by NES standards, James Bond Jr. is an extraordinarily difficult and unforgiving game.
It has all the makings of a good cart. The moody graphics are excellent: they're loaded with detail, many of the enemies and backgrounds sport some nifty animations, the parallax effects are buttery smooth, and the heavy use of purples and yellows is surprisingly effective at setting the tone for each stage. If you've played Magician, also by Eurocom, you'll probably notice the similar ways in which the games make use of the NES's color palette. The soundtrack, composed by the supremely talented Neil Baldwin, is equally as good - there's not a single duff tune in the set. The game's concept is sound, too, and the levels are thoughtfully laid out and interesting to explore.
And you get to turn James into a werewolf. That's a major highlight.
Unfortunately, the gameplay ends up being James Bond Jr.'s undoing. The controls are responsive, but you have to hold Select and hit up or down in order to switch weapons, and since you can't change items if the game is paused or if you're moving, you can expect to take plenty of hits as you fumble through your inventory. Ammo is absurdly scarce (whiff too many shots and you'll find yourself scrambling in the worst possible way!), you take damage from falling from too high, the enemies are bullet sponges that constantly fire at you from off-screen, and there is no period of invulnerability when you take a hit, so you get bounced back and forth like a pinball. The list of issues goes on and on.
And if you stick with it all the way to the end, you get told to go back and do it again to see the real ending. Nothing changes on the second loop, so it feels like the game is taking the piss as it wastes your time making you repeat it all.
That hilariously derpy ending screen almost makes it worthwhile, though. Almost! (2:50:58... yeah, see what I mean?)
But all things considered, for me, it's too demanding, and ultimately, too frustrating to find much fun in playing it. I used to enjoy it, but my tolerance for BS seems to have evaporated over the years. It is a shame, because buried somewhere in here is a really good game. If only the designers had concerned themselves as much with making it fun as they did with making it difficult, we might've had a real classic in James Bond Jr.
It is, however, the most professionally produced NES game to bear the THQ logo. That has to count for something, right?
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
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