Millipede (NES) Playthrough - NintendoComplete
111A playthrough of HAL's 1988 arcade action game for the NES, Millipede.
The game has no ending, so I play until I get a game over on Round 39.
Though it didn't make it to retailers until 1987 in Japan and 1988 in America, the NES conversion of Millipede was created by HAL in 1983, alongside ports of Joust (https://youtu.be/mkdTLy-_6sA ) and Defender II. Nintendo had subcontracted with HAL to produce the games as part of a deal that licensed the international distribution rights of the Famicom to Atari. When that deal fell apart, the games ended up being shelved for four years.
Millipede isn't quite as true to its arcade source as Joust was - many reviews of the game criticize the size of the playfield and the sensitive controls - but this would've been an absolutely brilliant home conversion in 1983. It was still a good game when it finally did come out, but time had robbed it of its original luster.
I mean, really, it was a port of a 1982 arcade shooter that was only a couple of steps removed from Space Invaders. By the time Millipede was released for the Famicom in October of 1987, Xevious, Gradius, and R-Type had all happened. Things had moved on.
No matter how hopelessly dated it was, I remember thoroughly enjoying it as a kid in the late 80s. It was incredibly simple compared to the standard fare of the time, not to mention ugly, but there was something entrancing about the speed and rhythm about it. Millipede can be a super-intense experience, and the frenetic feeling of the arcade game is preserved reasonably well here.
The game plays a lot like Centipede (which was a favorite of mine on the 2600!). There are more enemies, bonus rounds, and DDT bombs to spice up the action, but the general idea is the same: shoot the you-know-whats out of anything coming from the top of the screen. There is no way to win - to play well is only to delay the inevitable - but if you can get into chasing after high scores, this one delivers.
The controls are a bit fidgety until you get used to them, but it doesn't take too long to figure out how to quickly and precisely zip to whatever spot you're aiming for. The d-pad doesn't do the job as well as the trackball did, but it's still good enough that you'll rack up some nice scores with a bit of practice.
It might not impress the arcade purists, but Millipede is a respectable showing of an Atari arcade classic, and one that can still be a lot of fun once you've scraped some of the crust off.
That early-NES title screen jingle is great, too, no matter how many games it shows up in!
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
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