’Roidvania: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde & Amagon | NES Works 121
1,105This episode's games share exactly two things in common: Both involve guys who hulk out and turn into massive ’roided rage monsters, and both are so terrible that they will make YOU want to hulk out as well. However, here is the interesting thing (for a certain value of "interesting"): Both are terrible in completely different ways!
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde takes a bizarre, almost experimental approach to game design, sending its protagonist on a journey across Victorian London, where he is beset by an endless succession of utterly mundane nuisances that drive him mad, causing him to collapse in fury. This sends him to a freakish parallel universe where he exists as a hideous, twisted effigy of a man who can shoot parabolic energy beams at evil babies and hopping meatballs. Just like in Robert Louis Stevenson's classic novel!
Amagon, on the other hand, presents you with a pretty compelling hook and some well-considered risk-reward design. Do you play as a weakling with a machine gun, or as the durable muscleman with a limited attack and a massive hitbox who can't accumulate bonus items? Unfortunately, the game goes way too eagerly for punishing, kaizo-style design, which doesn't pair well with the limited lives, lack of continues, and iffy controls....
Production notes:
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NES footage captured from Analogue Nt Mini. Video upscaled to 720 with xRGB Mini Framemeister. "Before the Storm" courtesy of Jacob Le.