There must be an explanation for such foolishness, and there is! Sort-of... Well, it starts with Deadly Towers. That's right! The very same Deadly Towers that acquired a reputation for being one of the worst NES games ever made. Originally, I had planned on covering it for the 2025 Special. I've played through worse, so this should've been no prob- actually no, this game is misery incarnate. It's like reaching into sack full of middle fingers to pull out a turd. It's Tower of Druaga made by people who hated Tower of Druaga.
Allow me to try and break down exactly what makes Deadly Towers such an ordeal.
1. Before I can even think about tackling the towers, I have to head to the dungeons. Each dungeon consists of over 100 rooms but has only one exit. The goal is to find the shop that sells the best healing items and farm enough cash to stock up.
2. Getting cash is the easy part, since I can just farm stacks of balls for several coins at once. The problem is finding the shop and the exit. Afterwards, I have to climb cliffs to reach the towers. These cliffs have spots where the protagonist can fall to his death, and monsters aren't shy about giving him a little nudge.
3. Once I reach the tower, I have to find the hidden zones to obtain the best equipment. The entrances are invisible and basically require a guide to find. The alternative is wandering into every corner of every floor. Hidden zones also tend to be packed with severely strong enemies who kill in just a few hits. This is where those healing items are put to use.
4. After all of the necessary equipment is obtained, then I can finish climbing the towers and defeat the bosses that lord over them. However, reaching this all-important step depends on whether or not I've already ran screaming from this rathole of a planet after repeating steps 1 through 3 a dozen times.
I'm not fucking with all of that. If there is a fan of Deadly Towers out there, then I hope that they can accept at least one of the thousand apologies I'm sending their way. If none of them are accepted, then they'll just have to settle with a look at Knight Quest. It was made by Lenar, the developer of Deadly Towers. It has to count for something!
Moving along. The goal of this Game Boy product is to serve your king with loyalty and honor. That's accomplished by killing all of his enemies. Were you expecting something else? Of course you weren't. Anyway, you'll be tasked with finding a villain's lair, sneaking past or fighting off their minions, and eliminating them in one-on-one combat. It's a basic formula repeated five times, with occasional detours adding the resemblance of spice. Take control of a young man named Will. He walks in four directions. His hobbies are fighting and shopping. As far as protagonists go, he's a mayonnaise sandwich.
The world of Knight Quest consists of a handful of maze-like areas, all of which packed with monsters that wander in predetermined paths or fly directly (but not speedily) at the hero. There is a very real level of thought put into this aspect of the game. You must decide whether to fight or evade. Fighting leads to gains in both cash and experience, and you'll need a lot of both to survive encounters with villains. However, fighting will drain your HP. Getting into too many fights might leave you too weak to achieve victory. The push & pull of this system is what gives its hook, providing just enough compulsion to keep the game from being just another mind-numbing process to waste a day or two on.
The battle system also has an interesting twist. Instead of just having a "Fight" command, there are four different attacks to choose from. Each type of enemy that you'll contend with is weak to only one of them, so a little bit of experimentation and memorization is required. Enemies also have a significant chance to strike first, so even if you can eliminate them in a round or two, it's still possible to lose a decent chunk of health. Consider this another reason to avoid unnecessary fighting. Grinding is a necessity, but it's just more convenient to take care of that business while next to an inn.
Besides choosing a method of attack or drinking a healing potion, Will can also use magic. These are consumable items that do a fixed amount of damage. Their usefulness for most of the game is negligible, unless you keep an inventory stocked with crystals. Crystals do around 125 damage to an enemy, and nothing you face will ever have more than 900 HP. Also, spells never seem to miss, a luxury not available to your normal attacks. If you show up to a boss battle carrying a stack of crystals, then that boss is dead.
If you're seriously craving a replay of Knight Quest, there might be some value in attempting to finish it at a lower level of experience. That would require avoiding more fights and being more careful with item usage. Otherwise, I can't imagine sticking around once that first play-through is over and done with. This is a short RPG, one where not a single dungeon consists of more than a few screens. The concept and execution are passable, but everything beyond that is just a mayonnaise sandwich with a few specks of pepper.
I suppose it's better to be relentlessly bland than irredeemably insufferable. Not sure if that's nearly enough to warrant a play-through, but at least you'll get to see some neat battle animations.
*Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.
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