I Played Your Guy

Deja Vu Part 3

2009-07-10T22:14:00.000-07:00

As promised, CRIME!

Jeffrey had been on the line with the hot Asian phone sex operator for 3 days straight, and thought he was finally getting somewhere with her when he died of acute dehydration. He didn't realize she was a recording. It took paramedics 12 hours and a gallon of industrial solvent to unstick him from the desk.

Ben Franklin called, he wants to know why you're using his fucking phone.

Luckily, he's dead, so I don't really care.

Corpse looting!

Oooh, a key! To his Bimmer! Sim simma!

I should steal from him some more.

Good place for it, I suppose. Let's take that.

HAW.

I could also break both my legs and never get to drive that dead guy's sweet car. PASS.

GLORIOUS.

I kind of think the dead guy was weirder, but yeah, chairs are pretty weird. I guess.

Trying to steal the jars, and being DENIED. The game lets you steal every other useless piece of shit you come across, but somehow jars are beneath you.

Empty capsules I find in the trash can are totally cool though, despite essentially being TINY EDIBLE JARS.

MAYBE I CAN PRESERVE TINY FRUITS AND VEGETABLES IN THEM.

"Let's put the obvious torture chair right next to the window. The light there is just lovely."

If you go to Dr. Giggles, maybe.

I don't care, where do you want to go, elevator?

Based on the angle of the wall here, I'm not sure I believe we're actually inside the elevator.

Morning, Johnson.

"Oh hey Bob, what's up with the elevator doors in your office?"

"...It's wall art."

"Really? But I saw Dave coming out of them the other day. Hey what're you doing with that knife, Bob come on, hey, HEY NOOOOOOO"

Back at the fire escape, we make that 9 foot hop down, break both our legs and die, alone and rat chewed in this desolate, brightly lit alley.

Luckily, a skirt happens by.

pay Joey a visit, but I only found his car, so I put a little something under the hood, something to even the score.
It's lucky I ran into you, I have a "surprise" for you in my purse. Wait while I pull it out.

'SCUSE ME WHILE I WHIP THIS OUT.

Exciting as that sounds, my attempts to TAKE, USE, and OPEN were denied, so HIT it is.

Yeah! Take that, unarmed woman! I may not remember myself yet, but I'm liking my style so far.

Fap fast, brave warrior. I steal $20 and Gun 2 from her, both of which are pretty useless. I also steal her cosmetic case, which is essential for a flawless matte finish.

I didn't ask, but OK. Actually, this is the car we got the key to earlier.
Just gonna cross grand theft auto off my list here...likin' myself more and more!

I steal a snapshot, a note, and a map from the glove compart- I mean, DASHBRD.
The note says the car belongs to the mysterious Joey Siegel, and the map is to his apartment. The photo is a little more interesting.

No way, I'm not into chub scouts.

I guess this is one of those Flinstones-powered BMWs.

I know that chick told me she left a "little surprise" under the hood to even that score, buuuuuut. Releasing the hood sounds so fucking exciting, I CAN'T RESIST!!!!!

I'm pretty sure Exploding Hood Release is not the oldest trick in the book.
But it was exciting, I'll grant you that.

Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah.

Next time we add B&E to our list of felonies, and maybe a little more theft and a nice assault cherry on the top of our custard of crime.

Deja Vu Part 2

2009-06-30T22:02:00.001-07:00

When we last left our hero, he was being eaten by an alligator.

So let's see if we fare better taking that door on the left.

Wait, wait, something's coming back to me...yes it's...it's...
21 RED, C'MON BABY POPPA NEEDS A NEW PAIR OF PANTS!

Bet me a C&E my good man! Chicken and eggs! We catch 'em, you eat 'em!!

I'm just getting warmed up! C'mon lucky number bananas!

Loosest slots in the sewer! I never met a fruit machine I couldn't beat.

Later...Later still...Much, much later.

Finally:
Well, that was fun, huh! But I guess I should probably blow. I've been down here for....6 days!? Oh well, I'm sure it's ok. I mean, I still have amnesia, but now I also have...18 coins!
I hope that's enough to get my gun out of hock...Ah whatever, let's head back up to that staircase we saw in the bar.

Hokay. Back at the plot. Let's just investigate...let's just...just..

YEAH YEAH YEAH!!! SHOW ME SEVENS BAY-BEE!!!

Three days later
Ok ok yeah no I'm working here. Anyway. Hallway.

Let's check those out then.

Posters of sweaty...half-naked dudes...turning you...on.

Between crawling around in a sewer, the alligator, and the compulsive gambling for a week straight, I think I'm doing pretty good, thanks.

Wow! This amnesia must be more serious than I thought, because I certainly don't remember being a brunette with huge cans.

He destroyed Big Bird in the 5th with a massive uppercut, then went on to win the Creepy Giant Yellow Puppet Tournament.

GET IT?!?!?!?!?!?

Why do I smell 'Brut'?

Let's see what we can grab here.

Everything is NORMAL. Do not be ALARMED.

Illiterates may find its pretty clicky noises good accompaniment to their jug and washboard bass. In fact, in certain areas the typewriter is referred to as the "word piany"

Well let's see if we can open it then, even though the angle of the corner there suggests that the desk is actually positioned halfway through that wall.

But we're already in the office.

It may look like an ordinary envelope but the damn thing gets us killed later on.

Theft and mail tampering! I am en fuego today!

Sounds like a party!

Wait, something else is coming back to me....pacifier...glowsticks...Hello Kitty shaped backpack full of E. NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Join me next time when we finally find some crime that hasn't been committed by me!

Deja Vu Part 1

2009-06-28T23:34:00.001-07:00

Deja Vu is one of the classic 80's MacVenture games, along with Shadowgate and Uninvited. Unfortunately, it's also the only of the three that doesn't break into nerdy mythology or sci-fi, and the game suffers for it. It follows a pretty standard detective noir plot, and frankly could have used a few centaurs running around the place to liven things up.

You play as Ace Harding, a P.I. suffering from a serious case of TV Amnesia. As you explore the game you discover a number of clues that add up to you being framed for kidnapping and murder, and must find a way to clear your name and bring in the people behind the blah de blah, etc etc etc. One notable thing about this game is that the graphics somehow managed to be more detailed and atmospheric in screamingly neon DOS.

Bolded text is in-game narration, everything else is me being a dick. I'll try to show most of the interesting interactions and deaths, but this game's much more linear and harder to die in than the other Kemco adventures, so there's not a ton of options.

*As an extra-super-exciting-bonus, you can play the Game Boy Color version online here.*

A more honest tagline would be "A Series of Increasingly Cliche Film Noir Tropes, Doled Out Slowly and in Low Res.

That'll teach whoever it was to do whatever they did to whoever I am!

Yeah! So far this nightmare is going pretty well.

You feel a sharp pain on

As long as the only pricks involved were the needle kind...

Whatsoever?? Shit, this is serious! Let's take a look around, then. Maybe there's CLUES.

Ooh, toilet paper? Charming!

Apparently I'm a snappy dresser, that's good to know. Guess we should take the coat...

Oh ho! And what's that behind it?

Can't argue with that.

A quick examination of the lump in my pocket reveals a wallet with money, a key, and some sort of card. Also, it sure was considerate of the dudes who rolled me to leave me my cash and my piece.

Hells yeah! I'm either a high roller, or will be robbing the shit out of one shortly!
Let's look at some of the other crap in my coat.

Detective Siegel, aka the Sugarless Gumshoe, a.k.a. The Carefree Crimefighter, a.k.a. The Dentyne Dick, a.k.a. The Juicy Fruit...wait, scratch that last one.

That's the distinctive characteristic of sunglasses, all right.

Checking out the light... And here I thought it couldn't get any fancier than the TP. This may be the classiest stall I've ever been left for dead in.

My favorite place. Let's go.

Hmmm, no trouble in here. Nothing to steal, either, so let's check out the mirror.

Jesus. Apparently I'm The Grimace.
The game won't let you leave the room until you look in the mirror, even though it told you literally two minutes ago that you have amnesia. Moving on out of the bathroom.

What about that puddle, that's standard issue? What kind of place is this? Oh man I hope that's a water puddle...

EXPLODING BLADDER TROUBLE

Suck it, ladies. You should see the fabulous Baroque sconces we got in the men's can.

Still hoping it's just water...

Uh...why am I investigating this, exactly?

You have no idea. Let's head out and try that other door.

Hmmm...I guess this scene was drawn as day for night.

Booze seltzer?

Luckily, I have just the thing.

THRILL! As our hero CHEWS...SOME...GUM!! SPILL!! As he DISLIKES...A...BEVERAGE!!

I'D BETTER INVESTIGATE.

This calls for further investigation!

I'll start drinking there and by the time I make it down to the rat feces encrusted bottles, I'll be too wasted to care.

Peculiar!

THIS TAP SEEMS PECULIAR.

I try every action I can on the wine, but nothing happens. f I can't drink all of someone else's wine in a bar I broke into in the middle of the night, then no one can!

TAKE THAT, UNCOOPERATIVE BEVERAGE!!

Unless it is a secret passage to drunk I am not interested.

Screw that, let's check out the dark hole in the floor instead.

After the luxurious bathroom earlier, I was expecting better from you, sewer.

It's cool, I'm pretty sure I can take him.

Well, I guess it's really my fault for laying down lengthwise in his mouth.

Indeed I have. Next time, the game noirs it up a notch with a mysterious torture room, random dead guy, and more things that are PECULIAR.

Milon's Secret Castle Floors 3 & 4

2009-02-20T16:24:00.000-08:00

The 4th floor is just the boss room, so this is the last real floor, and it has some excitement in store, I'm sure.

First thing's first though: some unfinished business from the first floor.

We can FINALLY get into this room. Climbing in and out of the well, getting the hammer so we can get the saw, so we can fight all the crappy bosses, all that shit for a lousy 15 bucks. Sigh.
The door leads to a store, where we get the blimp, which just lets you fall more slowly. Which is actually pretty useful, so ok.

OH DAMN. IT. Naturally, the store's entrance is on the 3rd floor, but somehow defying all laws of physics and common sense, the exit is on the 1st floor.
So after trekking back up to the 3rd floor, we enter our first room, this tacky grape-and-avocado box of ugly.

I actually find it kind of interesting that all the rooms seem to have been designed by the colorblind. There's no logical reason for it; plenty of 8-bit games are quite pleasant to look at. No, this is most decidedly the work of people who want you to suffer, and in every way possible.

Once again, info that would be so much more useful if I had any idea what they were talking about. Even assuming I knew there was a tower in my future, 'trap' is pretty fucking vague. Speed trap? Chick-with-dick trap? Admiral Ackbar trap? What are we talking about here?

Also, shouldn't that be 'west tower'? What if he means stage left, and I'm coming at it audience left? I foresee many problems with this entire operation.

WHAT ABOUT IT, MOTHERFUCKER????

BTW, there's only one elevator, and you don't actually need this to get to the top of the elevator shaft. But it's cool, since I know you wanted to grind yourself crazy in the one room in the entire game that has reclaimable money, since you're wasting all you have on useless shit. Also, way to spell 'lose' wrong, bro.

This room is mostly just evil trapdoors, which drop you the instant you touch them- no hopping off before they fall. Also, as you may have noticed, this is just an even lazier version of the 'hudson' room from level 2. I guess thinking up as many as 7-10 unique rooms for a video game is asking a bit much. So let's get out of here before I lose my goddamned mind.

While all rooms in the game are replayable, this is the only one with regenerating money. Which means you'll be seeing a lot of it. Especially since only $11 or so are actually recoverable.

It's a pretty standard i.e. poorly designed and terribly colored level, but it has my favorite villains of the whole game, the little Hekkyl and Jekkyl crows, and the Cubone dudes. So that's alright. Plus the weird green paneling on the walls reminds me of a 70's rec room, so I feel rather at home here.
Right-o, I'll keep that in mind if I see him. Assuming, of course, someone tells me who that is. I'm just gonna assume he's the Musicland version of The Highlander and look for a dude in a loincloth.

Hey, that's fairly straightforward! THERE MUST BE A CATCH. Is 'crown and cane' code for something? 'Cause the only things I can think of that fit the description are things I really hope it's not.

I feel like there must be some secret room somewhere where the missing half of all these clues are. Things like 'you'll find the waterpot I mention in the lower left-hand corner of the room with the ice blocks." I'm all for solving puzzles, but I'm also all for puzzles where you have most, if not all the pieces to work with. Handing me confetti and calling it a puzzle does not good game make.

Hmm. This is different.

You have to shoot your way through the Albino Twizzler Forest to get to the other side of the room.

Where you find a floating door! I'm down with this room so far.

And here's the 'elevators' we paid $35 to ride. You can also get to the door just as easily, and much quicker, by jumping off the top Twizzler and holding 'UP'.

So let's see what totally worthwhile things we wasted our money to get to.

Alrighty, I'll keep my eyes peeled. But isn't it dangerous to make me paranoid about a phony princess without telling me how to tell the fake from the real one, preferably before I blast it?
Oh well, I'm sure it'll be no problem.

What's that? My bubble? My god man, have you lost your senses?? THIS IS A USEFUL ITEM!

Our new bubble cuts the number of hits you have to score on the bosses in half, which is really really really important, since boss fights are tedious and difficult enough as is.

I grab the bonus box in this room, since it's an easy one. You'll notice the further you progress in the game, the more of the little dudes have instruments. This doesn't affect the difficulty of the bonus in any way, and doesn't really have anything to do with anything, but there you are. Just in case you were wondering.

If you've got the time and patience, you can bubble out the entire right-hand side of the screen. I don't recommend it, though, as all you get is some insultingly unnecessary direction.

Let's get out of here. The key is surprisingly convenient this time, considering all the horrible places it could be hidden. Is the game getting soft on us?
Of course not, don't ask such stupid questions. We hit up the right tower next, entering through the solid brick wall, and not the window, which somehow spits us out on the 1st floor. Damn space-time anomalies. They really need to get someone up here to look at that.
We drop down into an ice room first.

The blocks melt out from under you as you touch them, and you can't move side to side, so unless you're exceptionally lucky there's really no good way to get to the honeycomb on your first trip through here.

Lucky thing we don't need it. Cheating was invented for games like this. Also, not being able to move from side to side means you'd better not pick a row with stone at the bottom, or you're stuck. You see, this is special ice which only melts from the top down.

At the bottom we drop through a trapdoor into an electrified room. Seems like installing live wires in a room full of ice would be violate some building codes, but I guess the inspector was easily bribed.
At the bottom of this room is yet another bland, same-y boss fight.

Which is easily won. They really didn't waste their energy designing these things.
And in return for finishing off the last of an endangered prehistoric species, we get the canteen! Time to head back to the room with the fireplace and do some ass kicking!
Oh wait, I forgot we have to play the worst room ever created, first.

You got your basic tower staircase here, you run offscreen on one side, you appear one level down on the other side. Simple. Of course, there's a trick to getting out of here, which is fair enough. What else are you gonna do with a room like this, right?

So we take off running.

And running.

Aaaaaand running. When you finally hit the bottom is when things get dicky.

There's a trapdoor here that sends you back to the top of the room. Still so far, so good. Where things get obnoxious is in the solution to this puzzle.

Once you get back to the top, it's up to you to somehow divine the solution, which of course hinges on hidden blocks and random-bubble-throwing.

You need to knock out these three bricks, then jump through the hole they create. But, you have to do it on your second run through the room. They won't be there any other times, meaning it's death for you if you accidentally pass the first screen on your second run through the room. Also, this is never mentioned anywhere. Fun times!

And we're treated to another recycled boss, this time the Taz dustball type thing. I think the devs actually believed that by alternating the gargoyle with dirtball guy, we would be fooled into thinking they'd designed more than 3 characters.

The gate in that room dumps us from the sky and through several trapdoors into what may be the most hideous room yet. Hellen Keller on a meth bender could have decorated her house with more harmony and aesthetics than this.

This is yet another room that delights in surprise-fucking you. If you fall through the invisible trapdoors all the way to the bottom of the room, you have to go back outside the castle and fight your way back through the ice rooms to in here again. So you know, watch out for those invisible trapdoors.

And speaking of invisible, if you didn't buy the paint earlier, the bricks you see here are completely invisible. Not a huge problem, except as usual, they don't exist at all 'till you hit them with a bubble, which is pain in the ass enough when you can see the results of throwing bubbles at every pixel in the room. Climbing to the top of a room on invisible ledges is an activity best summed up as 'trial, error, FAIL. FAIL. FAIL'.

Oh hey, finally. Fucking princess. You'd better appreciate all the shit I went through to rescue your ass, bitch.

Hey what's up, yeah, I know, I'm coming, I'm coming, I'm coming.
OH WHAT IS THIS NOW.
You're actually a giant glowing crow, ok sure why not. Just get back here so I can kill you.

What's interesting about this guy is you can't kill him unless you have the canteen. Why that is, I can't even begin to fathom. I guess since these crows live indoors, they're not used to getting wet. Once again, the game holds out on important info to make our journey even more annoying.
So this must be the crown Shopkeeper Ripoff mentioned. Which means I'll probably have to get the cane from and equally tedious and bland room. Lookin' forward to it!
The 3rd Floor East Tower somehow deposited me on the west side of the 2nd floor. Huh.

So we trudge back up here again.

Is that a Slowpoke above me?

This is the fireplace. Could also be a outhouse, adobe building, brick oven, etc etc. I didn't really connect that it was the fireplace 'till the floating fire dude came out of it.Hey, haven't I seen him somewhere before..?

Thankfully, we don't actually have to beat him, so let's just hightail it down to the fireplace room.

Aw geez.

Fiiiine, now where to?
This just seems unecessarily ardous. The fire guy, the gargoyle, and now another crow fight? Too many consecutive boss fights to be fair, if you ask me.

Well, that's the last item. Let's end this aggrivating game!

IT APPEARS YOU CANNOT, SIR.
Back outside, and in the last room for, oboy, another gargoyle fight. The bosses all have the exact same attack, the only thing that varies is the number of hits they can take. For as many of these things as we have to fight, you'd think there'd be some effort put into their design.
And here we are! Fucking finally.

The final fight is actually a series of four connected rooms. One of them will have the real Marihuito, and the other three, fake ones. You can play them in any order, but the the real boss is randomly assigned, so whatever.

The rooms are full of crows, who shoot shit at you as you fight Marshmallow in unpleasantly close confines.
Aright, sweet!

Oh damn. It.Fine, next room. Some of the rooms have a glove so you can shrink, which is sort of helpful, less surface area and all.

AGAIN? Argh. At least you don't have to kill the crow to advance.
Hokay, third time's the charm.
This wouldn't take nearly so long if I didn't have to wait for him to briefly open his arms to score a hit.
Oh SHIT! THAT'S RIGHT, MOTHERFUCKER!
Oboy oboy oboy, after all that aggrivation, this ending has gotta be awesome!
WHAT. That? That's it? That's all I get for dealing with the Incredible Useless Shopkeeper, all the backtracking and rooms that sent me back down to the bottom of the castle for no good reason? The boring grinding for money because you didn't tell me what items were useless, the constant shooting of every available surface in the never-ending hunt for invisible blocks?

Yeah, I guess this is pretty worth it.
And that's the end. You can replay the game, with faster, more aggressive enemies, and fewer power-ups, but I can't imagine why you'd want to bother. And if your OCD os really acting up, you can beat it eight times in a row for a "special" message from the developers. Although I can't imagine any message special enough to be worth that kind of insanity.

Milon's Secret Castle, Floor 2

2009-02-09T00:10:00.001-08:00

Well, we made it through floor one, and we're used to the game world now, so things should be much easier from here on out, right? RIGHT.

I have to give the game credit, some of the rooms are terrible in fairly new and inventive ways.

This one, for instance, is made up of lots of one-way trapdoors, which could theoretically be used to create an interesting little maze.
But because the game hates us and wants us to suffer, there's actually only the one way out, and it involves finding invisible false walls. The trapdoors are just there to fulfill the backtracking obligations any truly obnoxious game is required to have.
The damned trapdoors are placed so that if you jump just a teensy bit too high, you ricochet off the ceiling and back down to the outside of the room. Which means running all the way up and around to get back to the starting point, to fucking start that shit over again.
There's no actual strategy involved, it's just one big path full of holes around where you need to be.
So essentially, you're playing the 8-bit equivalent of a hamster wheel.
Also, the springy floors look exactly like the false floors. I'm not sure if this is an especially hateful design element, or just laziness on the designers' part. I'm guessing a little of both.
There's a hidden shop, once you finally work your way to the middle of the room and randomly spew bubbles until you find the door.

Here you can buy the Lantern, which has been marked down from $50 to $15. How exciting. The game doesn't tell you what you'll need it for, I guess it just assumes you've already used your telepathic brain powers to figure out not to go in the well before you buy this.

If not, well,

Yeah good luck with that well. I'm sure it'll be eminently climbable when all the ledges are invisible in the dark.
I don't remember what the balloon he mentions is, but the bubble is yours. Sadly by 'bigger' he means 'exactly the same'.
That's all we needed in this room, time to hit the next one! And oh hey, more trapdoors.
Well, I suppose it's difficult to come up with new gameplay elements in between bonghits and blowjobs. Seriously, did anyone actually play this thing before they released it?
There's a message cleverly hidden on the bottom floor of this room. See if you can find it!
Oh ho ho! You scamps you. I see what you were doing instead of designing entertaining levels.
There's a shop here, too, where we get the vest Frank mentioned earlier.

Alright, finally, SOMETHING USEFUL.
WHAT.

God damnit. Maybe this other shop has something that actually does its job.
Huh. We'll take the $10. Interestingly, power is only $5 in all other shops, making me wonder once again, WHY IS THIS GUY HELL BENT ON RIPPING US OFF? He must hate the fucking princess, because I cannot afford to rescue her if he's going to continue to fuck me every other time I enter his shop. Times are tough all over, buddy.
Ok, at least that's a fairly specific hint. Thanks. I guess.
Time to hit up the well. When I played this as a kid, it took me forever to figure out I could go down the well at right, because again, UNMARKED FAKE BLOCKS.

Plus, it didn't seem like a great idea to jump headlong into a well. This was around the time in the late '80's when kids were getting stuck in wells left and right, and I was way smarter than those assholes.

And this is what it looks like with the lantern. Good luck trying to distinguish between ledge and background in this zero-contrast stack of teal and green.

This isn't so bad. Just more of the fake brick action we've come to hate.

Oh hey! This must be the aforementioned fire room. How exciting!
GOOD THING I GOT MY NOT-ENTIRELY-FIREPROOF VEST ON, NAR.
I'm assuming the reason for the vest not being 100% fireproof would be that even your best quality vest only covers 30% of your body, tops.
Which is actually pretty logical, except that if your lower body is burned off, it's going to be slow goings, no matter how fireproof your upper half is.
So I fight my way through the flames to the lower part of the room, where OH GOD WHAT DEAD END WHY.

Backtracking to the top of the room and throwing some bubbles around reveals the fake wall I should have guessed would be the actual way out.

Fiiiiine. Have it your way, game.

This game encourages exploration in the same way being stabbed in a parking lot encourages jogging. I just can't get excited about false floors and invisible stores when not finding them means aggravation and death.

Take this guy. Normally, you'd think finding a boss character in a dead end area of a game would mean time for a fight. HOWEVER, since we don't have the canteen yet, we can't actually beat this guy. BUT that's not mentioned everywhere, so most likely what will happen is you'll throw bubbles at this thing for a half hour before giving up and just letting it have its way with you.

Instead, it's another one of those fake wall deals, which leads to the actual boss. Now that the fire dude and vest-related quality control issues have raped your health meter.

I like to think of this guy as Pigpen from Peanuts. It makes his death much more satisfying, somehow. How was that kid even allowed in school like that? He had to have been living in a trailer out back or something.

Ohh, free hammer! Excellent, I remember that being mentioned at some point.
That's right, we need to find a store there or somthing. Great, let's head out and do that!

OH COME ON.

Yep, we have to climb all the way back out.

The trapdoors are even more fun on the way up.

And although it looks like the ledge is on the right side of the screen, you actually have to crank left as you jump out, or you'll fall all the way back to the bottom of the screen.

Some time later...

Let's check out this secret wall stuff. Aaaaaand...

what the...huh. So that entrance is some sort of vortex to the exact place you came from. Odd thing to install in the front wall of your castle.

Let's see if we have better luck up here.

Success!

I can now enter windows! You couldn't have just given me the saw in the first place? This is a very inefficiently run retail chain here.

With my newfound window-entering abilities, I can get to the boss on the 2nd floor.

He's probably the hardest one of the game, because of our current crappy weaponry and his absurdly high hit count.

Good thing that's not a problem we need to concern ourselves with.

On to floor 3!

Milon's Secret Castle, Floor 1

2009-02-03T19:31:00.000-08:00

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!

Still, it has inventive levels, decent graphics, a weird charm that brings you back even as it hands you your ass again and again.

Level 1:

The game is broken up by floors of the 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 thing. 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 goddamned key that you already passed before it was collectible.

Level exits 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 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' is a little beyond me, but I guess that's why I never finished the game.
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.
OK, 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 (or would have lost, if I wasn't cheating).
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, so we'll grab those and be on our way.

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 hated 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!