Milon's Secret Castle is an NES adventure game described as 'a challenging game for expert players' by the devs, and 'malevolent box of arbitrary difficulty' by people who've actually played it.The story is your basic princess-kidnapped-get-her-back affair, but the plot doesn't matter. Where the game really shines is in completely screwing you over:
- You don't get an invincibility grace period after being hit, so one enemy can take you completely out in a couple seconds. And the lack of lives means every time you die it's Game Over.
- Infinitely respawning enemies, all of which are tuned to your position, and usually faster than you. And can fly or shoot through walls, so no hiding behind anything.
- Everything that helps you is invisible. Bonus stages, power-ups, doors, money, and important paths are all hidden until you shoot the correct brick or, more often, slice of empty air.
- Hints are given out of order and without context, leaving you obsessively searching for an item that was mentioned on level 1, but doesn't actually show up until level 3.
- Rooms can be entered, but not necessarily completed, in any order. Leaving you with no option but to backtrack all the way out to search the other rooms for an item you missed.
- And much, much, MUCH more!
Level 1:
The game is broken into floors of the castle. Your castle, presumably, being Milon and all. I don't know why your own home is such a deathtrap pain in the ass to navigate, like shouldn't you have a secret elevator to the Princess somewhere, but hey. Maybe you just enjoy the thrill of living in a murderous death castle.
You start at the bottom, and can enter the rooms in any order. It's actually pretty linear, though, on account of the item requirements. So we'll start with the first door.
Here's our boy Milon, in his sweet overall and nightcap combo. You've got your basic health meter and money count in the left corner. The game doesn't even start you off with a full health meter, which is a pretty good sign of things to come.
Attackwise, you can throw bubbles at an awkward upward angle,
and an awkward downward angle. The collision detection is really fiddly, so you have to score a direct hit to actually kill anything.
Since there's no invincibility grace period, and because getting hit bounces you uncontrollably into the air, if you get hit under these bricks, it's pretty much game over.
So let's not do that. Enemies will sometimes give you life hearts when you kill them, so theoretically you can hang out at a respawn point and refill your meter, but you'll probably be killed by something else while you're waiting around.
Every room has a bonus stage where you can make money. You find the bonus box by bumping underneath a particular brick, which will look exactly like every other brick in the level. This wouldn't be a huge problem, except money is hard to come by otherwise, and you're required to buy items in order to progress through the game.
The story is, everyone in the kingdom communicates in music, except Milton, who's illiterate. He still owns this giant castle though, so I guess communication is overrated.
The drummer dude plays a little song while notes fly out of the floor and you catch them. The other dead-eyed little guys just stare and silently judge you.
Notes are worth one point, sharps three, and flats take away one. You mostly collect notes as they hit you in the ass, though, so there's not much strategy involved.
Hells yeah, 43 notes! That's gotta be worth some decent money, right?
SIIIIIIIGH.
So money is annoying, especially as the bonus levels become harder to find. There is this room filled with money up here, but you can't get to it until level 3. Not that anyone ever mentions it to you. For years I thought I just couldn't find the right door on this level.
Well anyway, let's collect all the cash in this room, so we can buy some stuff.
Money is hidden in bricks, so I hope you enjoy throwing bubbles at every single wall, floor, and platform in a level!
Oh yeah. After you kill enough enemies, a key appears somewhere in the room. You need this key to get out, but it doesn't always appear by the exit door. So you'd better get your kill on early in the level, to avoid having to backtrack through an entire room, looking for the damned key that you already passed before it was collectible.
Level exit doors are invisible until you hit them, although they're usually in fairly reasonable locations.
But we still have things to do in this level.
Enemies occasionally turn into parasols when you hit them. This gives you a firepower speed boost, but it's not much help.
Ground floor, locks, clocks, glocks, schlocks and lingerie. Also the store.
You know, they'd probably do much better business if their door wasn't hidden behind a brick.
And in the dangerous part of town.
And invisible.
This is the shopkeeper/Frank Zappa, who sells you the stuff you need to complete levels. He *also* charges twice as much for some items if you buy them in a certain store.
Just because you're the only person trying to rescue the princess is no reason not to rip you off, I guess.
Hints, however, are free. They're also totally worthless. The secret entrance he mentions can't be opened until you find the hammer up on level 2.
What box? Where? Do you want me to rescue your stupid kingdom or not?
What we really need is the spring shoes. These are required to get through most of the rooms to come. You can actually get these cheaper in another room, but it's a pain in the ass, so we're going the lazy route.
Just a few more things to do before we leave this level. Like: Life-refilling Honeycomb!
Yeah yeah yeah!
These are the springs that go with our new kicks. They may look like floating picnic tables, but no. Springs.
Another item hidden in most rooms is the Hudson bee, which shields you from a few hits.
It also moves faster than you, so good luck catching it if there's anything in your way, like enemies, bricks, air, etc.
That's everything we can find in this room. Time to blow this jerk stand!
And here we are back outside the castle, ready for the next room!
But first, there's a store in one of the windows that we should check out.
We need this to get into small areas. But it only works where there's a glove, so basically it amounts to the game forcing you to spend five bucks just to make sure you can't afford the lantern in the next shop.
Things like this are what make this game so bad. This would be fine if the 'mysterious power' became obvious when you find the crystal. BUT, what the clue actually refers to is that once you defeat the 1st boss, after you die, you can hold Left on the controller and hit Start, and you'll continue from whatever level you'd been on.
As far as I know, this was never mentioned again, and unless it was in the manual somewhere, which I doubt, because then why would we be treated to it in gameplay? This may well be the worst clue in NES history. Clues given in gameplay must take place in-game. You can't go all meta on us without establishing that's how you're gonna do things. And even if it wasn't referring to something completely outside the game, SOME CONTEXT WOULD BE NICE. I always thought that the power was opening the gate that let you to to the 2nd level. SO UNCOOL, MSC.
I forgot this is the Store of Useless Clues. So you can't get the Saw until you find the Hammer up on Level 2, then you have to head back down to Level 1, go through an invisible door in the front wall, which has a hidden store where you get the Saw. And oh by the way you need the Saw to complete Level 2, so get on that.
How gamers are expected to extrapolate all that from 'FIND A SAW' idk, but I guess that's why Fred Savage was The Wizard, and not me.
And there's one last big fuck you the game has for us outside. Here we are, just chillin out, catching our breath,
WHEN WITHOUT WARNING, LIGHTNING.
If you waste too much time scurrying around outside, lightning appears to wreck you. And a bolt will almost always spawn right underneath you, so you get hit at least once.
K, second room. It's short, but all the enemies have projectile attacks, so prepare to die a lot.
If you didn't buy the spring shoes in the first room, you can't make this jump.
Luckily, there's an alternate route, if you think to randomly throw bubbles at every wall until you find it.
And more fake bricks above.
OW FUCK STOP IT.
There's a hidden store here, which will definitely be worth the beating we just took.
Oh thanks, you're going to sell me back the power I just lost getting here.
Also, when I first played through this, even though I hadn't bought anything, there was still a SOLD box there. It's supposed to be the shrinking potion, in case you missed it in the first room. Anyway, the shoes are $5 cheaper here, if you didn't get all excited and buy them in the 1st room. If you did, well, LET THAT BE A LESSON TO YOU.
Goin' down.
And back up the other side. There's a bee hidden here,
but good luck catching it if you weren't already springing back up when it appeared.
Here's our first chance to try out the shrinking potion.
Whoo, look at that!
There's some money and another store hidden in these bricks. I would hate to have to run out for a carton of milk in this kingdom. What a pain.
I don't think it's possible to have enough money to buy the lantern at this point, and there was a honeycomb right outside, so you shouldn't need power. Maybe the hint will make up for it...
Hey, look at that! It didn't!
While we're still little, we can head to the bottom of the screen and get some cash, and then get out of this level.
We're ready to take on the first boss. I like that the lightning doesn't
reset while you're inside a room. That's a thoughtful touch of hatred on
the game's part.
The bosses in this game require an ungodly number of hits, aim right for you, and their rooms have no safe spots.
You just have to try to keep close and not get hit as he jumps around. IT'S PRETTY FUN.
Whoo!
And here's the 'mysterious crystal' Frank mentioned.
Which opens the door to level 2. And away we go!
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