Not really a Quest… more of a walk down to the cleaner's.
+Adams' Family game
+Looks good
-Adams' Family license is only window dressing for an average game
-Generic weapons and powerups
-Insane difficulty
Ah, 1989. The Nintendo Entertainment System was big, Mario practically ruled the world with his popularity and the Adams' Family was just about to make a comeback with their motion picture debut – The Adams' Family. Of course, to capitalize upon this (and the 1960's TV show of the same name), a Nintendo game was made.
Fester's Quest, of course, focuses on Uncle Fester. As Fester, you go through the neighborhood and chase out an alien invasion – or so the opening cutscene tells you as the game starts up. Really, it seems a little odd for Fester to be chasing out something as strange as an alien invasion, especially considering the source material, but that odd plot sets the tone for much of the game itself.
Rather than have a platforming game, like the upcoming game tie-ins with the movies would have, the developers decided to take a few pages out of the Legend of Zelda and Contra books. That's right, Uncle Fester is running around with what looks like a musket rifle, taking down aliens of all shapes and forms. And he also uses a whip later on, depending on if you can find it.
As Fester moves through the maze-like neighborhood, the enemies he kills will drop items that can be considered useful in some areas. Lightbulbs will light up the darkened sewers, while keys will open the way into labyrinth-like houses where powerups and bosses can be found. Something to note are the 'Gun' and 'Whip' powerups, which will power your gun and whip up one slot (8 slots for the gun and 4 for the whip) – increasing the damage they can do, as well as the shape.
The gun will go between four different forms of power… but often times, the stronger a form is, the more it can suck as an actual weapon. While the first form is useful, firing in a straight line, the second form is almost useless in the tight confines of the sewer – stopping whenever it hits something resembling a wall. The third form has a habit of circling around enemies, which is about as far from helpful as it can get. Luckily if you can get all eight slots filled up, the player gets a gun that shoots a lot of bullets at once and travels in a straight line – perfect for any situation. The whip, meanwhile, will merely grow longer and stronger as you grab more powerups.
Unfortunately, this only applies to the BLUE powerups for the gun and whip. The RED forms of these powerups wind up depowering your gun and whip. And thanks to the size of these powerups, it's extremely hard to tell them apart in a collection and killing spree – not to mention that as the game nears the end blue versions are harder and harder to find. Needless to say, this starts to get really annoying.
Another oddity is that Uncle Fester starts off in the game with the ability to take only two hits from enemies before dying. This becomes a rather large problem when Fester has no bonus lives and when the player continues… starts over at the beginning of the area, if not the start of the game itself. While the player can increase their health to four hits, there's little way to heal Fester back up outside purchasing new health from food vendors along the way. It's inconvenient, but at least they let you re-gain health.
As well as regaining health through purchasing food, Fester will also run into members of his family along the way. Most will give Fester weaponry, like TNT or missiles… which give me the distinct impression that this was planned to be a different game before getting the Adams' Family name slapped onto it. And considering other licensed games on the NES, like Back to the Future, this is entirely possible.
A real problem with this game, though, is that it's far too short. The game can be beaten in no more than 5 hours if you know what you're doing, with the only thing keeping a new player from beating it that quickly being the difficulty level. Seriously, this game almost makes Contra look like a walk in the park.
Two hits, no extra lives, no Konami Code™, depowering your main weapon if you're not careful… and if certain enemies hit Fester, he's slowed down to a crawl for the rest of his life. Literally, Fester won't speed back up again until he dies – which is almost certain, considering he moves at a rate known as 'just faster than crawling.'
On the plus side, Fester's Quest looks good for the era. It's no Super Mario Brothers 3, but each sprite is detailed and very nice to look at. However, enemies wind up getting recycled and color-swapped quite a lot, which does wear quite a bit when you face about 5 different colors of hopping frogs at once.
There is also some nice pseudo-3D sections in the game Often times before a boss fight, Fester has to wander through a pseudo-3D mazes. However, these mazes are rather complex and all almost monochrome in their color schemes. It's easy to get lost in them, which gets to be a problem when the only way to gain more life segments and the bosses are hidden within these mazes.
While the 2D gameplay looks great, the 3D mazes are pretty cruddy. A 7 here.
The gameplay, however, is pretty average. Fester controls rather well, but his foot speed leaves much to be desired – especially after certain enemies slow him down. Fester's gun and whip upgrading is also a great idea, but the addition of items to downgrade them just overly complicate everything and the whole thing winds up being frustrating in the end.
The addition of bonus weapons and some Adams' Family specific items (the noose – which winds up summoning Lurch to take out everything onscreen) are nice, but most of the bonuses are overly generic and don't add much to the experience.
Better than average, this game nets a 6 in the gameplay department.
As for the music and effects, though… I honestly can't say much. The music is rather repetitive, with the game giving us only about 5 different musical tracks. And even worse, the music winds up repeating pretty quickly, grating on one's nerves rather quickly. The sound effects, meanwhile, are overly generic and almost nothing sounds different, despite what's being used.
While the music is catchy, there's way too little of it and it just doesn't work right. 4 out of 10.
It also doesn't help that there's not a whole lot to bring a player back to the game, either. The game's short, contains no passwords and there just isn't much to it. 4 out of 10.
Finally, while I liked the game, there just wasn't a whole lot for me to love about the game. 5 out of 10.
Really, though this game is actually pretty good looking, there's not a whole lot else to bring someone to this game – it's average for the era and not much else.
Gameplay: 6
Visuals: 7
Audio: 4
Replay Value: 4
Personal Tilt: 5
Final Score
5 out of 10