As promised in the Nintendo Power episode, the next video James did for the Angry Video Game Nerd covered the NES game Fester’s Quest, a rather unique video game adaptation of the classic Addams Family franchise.
The entire episode is really a tribute to the Addams Family, with James playing all the members of the family in black and white skits interspersed between the game review segments. This was his most ambitious episode to date, in so far as general filming and editing effects went, but the end result is nice, and funny. It doesn’t try to be anything more than it is – the Nerd playing the Addams Family characters, while playing a game based on the Addams Family!
Honestly, it’s not a bad game. Just difficult and unforgiving.
Fester’s Quest itself is quite the subjective experience – it’s already an odd game premise, but gameplay wise, it actually isn’t too bad, but at the same rate it isn’t good in that it’s not forgiving. This is a game that straddles that range between being actually hard and just frustrating. It does play well though, barring the elements that make it frustrating. The music especially is a plus, but given the game was developed by Sunsoft, that’s to be expected (I could devote a whole article to Sunsoft NES games alone, they are that well known and loved!)
Oh, and yes, if you want to play it, get a turbo controller. It’s a necessity here, much as it is in Silver Surfer.
As for the Nerd’s review, he focuses on those frustrating elements of the game that put it on many gamers avoid lists – weapons that don’t work as well as they should, limted health, re-spawning enemies, and a continue system that’s damn near useless in some cases… Fester’s Quest is just a pain.
snap snap!
As a bonus we get a look at the Sega Genesis Addams Family game, which plays like a much more classic platformer than the top-down view shooter that Fester’s Quest was. It’s a short, straightforward “hey it’s not hard but the game has problems that make it hard” kind of review. A nice addition.
We end the episode with Kyle Justin as Cousin Itt performing a Nerd-themed version of the Addams Family theme song. It’s immature as all hell, but what else would you expect with this series?
Final Rating: 4.0/5
A solid, if short, Nerd episode. James really fit everything he needed to say about the games in, without going overboard, and the padding of the Addams Family skits works in the episodes favor. It’s not too short of a review and not too long, and always good for a quick laugh.