Retroulette Spooktober Spookstravaganza - Part 1

It has been too long, my friends. Many moons since I last delved into the festering pile of forgotten games. But Halloween is upon us, and it is at this time of the year that the nightmarish horrors we spend the rest of the time trying to forget claw themselves to the very forefront of our consciousness. Yes, bats and mummies, truly the bane of our existence.

Without my thoughts, I continue,
Without my free will, I continue,
Staring, staring into this abyss.

But we must face our fears! I have gathered here a small sampling of games that will test our resolve.

Up first is an NES game by the name of Frankenstein. Now, even with that very vague and non-descriptive title, I have a strange feeling that this game is a scary one.

It starts off benign enough.

A few thunder crashes here and there. I'm not sc-

Oh. OH.  

That Frankenstein.

OK, look. We're going to have to get something out of the way here. This game describes the monster as Frankenstein. The Frankenstein vs. Frankenstein's Monster debate has gone on for too long. So here's how we're going to settle that.


His name is Frankenstein. Get over it nerds.


So, with that settled, we can continue on with our adventure.


The game begins by asking me my character's name. This struck me as a particularly extraneous step in the process. It's the name of the game, after all. The realization that I would not be playing as a rampaging Frankenstein was a slow and sobering one.

The story is set up by way of the slowest text crawl I have ever seen. I'll save you many hours by posting the important bits here.

In summary, Frankenstein rises from his grave, implying this is a sequel to the original story. The surprisingly eloquent Frankenstein then steals a girl. This girl is apparently property of the entire village, so our hero is under a lot of pressure to get her back.


The game then begins in earnest. I play the role of this dipshit:

He begins his adventure to defeat an 8 foot tall undead monster with little more than the ability to jump a little bit and punch. Even with little warning, one suspects more thought could have been put into this plan. Still, he is somehow this village's only hope, which he is told many times. With no guards or armed protectors of any kind, you could say this village had this coming.

Continuing on, we are attacked on both sides by what I am going to assume are dogs of some kind.

Luckily for us, a single punch is all it takes to vaporize them. Though it seems both sides of the screen have no shortage of them.

Also terrorizing the town are troll-goblin-things.

They, too, succumb to the might punch.

Now, either Frankenstein has somehow come into command of an army of monsters and animals, or this is all unrelated. If so, it seems to me that Frankenstein is the least of their worries. In fact, having him come down every once in awhile to take a person or two could be written into the town ledger as an acceptable loss.

In any case, terrorizing might be too strong a word for these trolls. They simply walk from one side of the screen to the other. If I get in their way, sure, they'll do some damage, but at that point it almost seems like my fault.

At the end of this stage is the mighty Super Dog of Some Kind. He is like the other ones, except he takes slightly more punches to obliterate.

On second thought, maybe this guy knew what he was doing when he left the house unarmed.

On the next stage, which we will call "That Last Stage v.2", we are attacked by giant bees.

Now, as we all know, bees are generally not nocturnal. These bees are very tired and upset that animal-kind has declared war on this village so late. They fly at the top of the screen and occasionally lazily dive downward before shuffling off to sleep.

Occasionally as you wander the village you will encounter open doors. Walking into these will transition into interior levels, where you can occasionally find health and upgrades and the like. One of these doors leads to a sewer level. Because this is a video game, you see.

A particularly modern looking sewer.

At the end of this sewer lives a mighty dragon. He challenges me to a fight, as dragons are wont to do.

 I spend time jumping to avoid his fireballs for a time before realizing that going down into the water and punching the everloving shit out of him is a valid option. With my new strategy, he is defeated easily.

"Oh goddamn I thought you hu-mans were allergic to water!"

In his treasure chest is an item described as "More life". It is a mystery to me why he didn't use it himself.


Exiting the sewer and continuing on through the village, I reach the end of the stage where Death himself is waiting.

Just what in the hell did this village do to deserve the universe's wrath?

He kicks my ass for a while. I have to use my More Life, which refills all my health, only to have him take most of it away again.

But even Death is not immune to punches.



After defeating him, I am cast down into Hell.

Down here, we meet the aptly named Demon Horse.

I do not take his advice, and he kicks the shit out of me.

Demon Horse is immune to punches.

It is there the story ends. The only hope of a cursed village dead, the town's Emily still in the captivity of a monster.


Oh well. Next game.

I selected this game because the title led me to believe it could be like The Exorcist. 


It is nothing like that.

So, this Y asshole sees two happy people and decides "No. This cannot be". His preferred method of unhappification is to turn people into paddles, because sure. A ball falls from the sky for the same reason.

This is all a lazy setup for a very straightforward Arkanoid clone.

You see, two stone paddles and a blue sphere. All the work of demons and angels. The quest is, I assume, to smack a ball into Y and turn back into happy people. You laugh, but that ball is not fucking around.

Unfortunately for me, unlike other games where the ball is at least partially predictable and beholden to the laws of physics, this one does whatever the hell it wants, whenever it wants. You could take bets on whether it goes left or right when it hits a block, and you will be wrong every time.

"Kiss my ass, paddle jerks!"

And that's all there is to say, really. I didn't get very far in this game at all. I made it to some skeletons before the ball was like "To hell with this" and ran toward the bottom of the screen with brutal efficiency. The second and third times I didn't even make it that far. 

I wonder if perhaps that ball isn't Y in disguise.

"Yeah, try again idiots. HAHAHAHA"

And it is there our story ends. The happy couple cursed forever with a false hope that they can return to their normal lives.

To be Continued...