We’re at the final episode of The Angry Video Game Nerd Season 3 and to finish things off we’re looking at… Milon’s Secret Castle. Really? Milon’s Secret Castle? This is a strange one and a game that I would think, up until this episode was made back in 2009, not many people had even heard of! I actually had this game as a kid — I bought it based on the “3/4 of a Million sold in Japan” tagline on the box. Needless to say, I didn’t get very far in it.
So, the Nerd gets into it, covering the usual basic things that annoy him about the game, such as your attack and how the character moves. Simple stuff. Then comes the mystery aspects of the game. You very quickly realize this isn’t just a “go into a level, beat the bad guys, and get to the end” platformer, oh no, you have to figure it all out and damn is this game cryptic.
So cryptic you only have a few rooms to explore when you start. That’s it. Period. Unless you’re quite clever, you’re stuck — so stuck that Nintendo Power actually had a section in one issue of its magazine on simply getting started in the damn game!
So, with this knowledge in tow the Nerd can actually get somewhere, only to continue to be infuriated by the relative difficulty and sheer confusion of the game! Milon’s Secret Castle is one of those extremely hardcore puzzle titles that I can imagine only a select group would like — why it was released here in the US when so many other quality action games, by comparison, weren’t is beyond me, but I’m getting sidetracked — we’re here to look at the AVGN episode.
By the end of things after an encounter with some random lighting and a death at the second boss, the Nerd winds up back at the title screen and has had it. We get a pretty straightforward ending rant that, for Nerd material, is actually pretty on point. The game is simply cryptic as anything, and not enjoyable to the average gamer.
Final Rating: 3.5/5
This is one of those oddball games that makes for a pretty decent episode. My familiarity with the title may make me a little biased towards this one, but having played it I can say the Nerd’s rant is fair, his experience is genuine, and that alone makes the episode feel more “real” than some others where it seems to just have been made for the sake of it. Who knows, maybe James had this game as a kid as well and was annoyed by it as much as I was. Maybe not, but if he didn’t then, he sure was a decade ago when making this episode.