Customer Reviews

A Nightmare on Elm Street

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I've been playing this game since I wore diapers (I'm serious). This is really fun and entertaining. I love it! The only down side is with muliple players. If you have a really good player and a bad one, you will most likely end up losing your soul to Freddy. The reason for that is that the two people need to be in the screen. No split screens in this game. For information on the game, it is roughly based on the movie A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. Another version, but completely different, was released for Commodor 64 & PC. Just to wrap this up, it is a great game even with poor graphics, (give the designers a break! they didn't have high-tech HD computers and fancy tools like today) so give it a chance and play. You won't regret.

Of all the three LJN licensed horror movie games (Friday the 13th, Jaws, and A Nightmare on Elm Street), this particular title I believe to be the weakest of the three. With Friday the 13th we have a decent action game and with Jaws we have some RPG elements, A Nightmare on Elm Street feels like a minimal effort platformer with little imagination. Don't get me wrong, I've played it several times over the years and I usually enjoy myself, but I will concede that it is a bit of a disappointment because of its lack of imagination.

This is one of the few games that attempted to utilize the NES 4-Score, a controller adaptor that would allow up to four players to play simultaneously. Unfortunately, this game is hard enough as a one player game. If you happen to be a master of this game and play with someone of equal skill, it might be playable, but more than two players is asking for a rough gaming experience due to having to deal with recovering from player's failed jumps, sharing power-ups, etc.

The game starts off with the player on Elm Street where there is a layout of 3 houses, a junkyard, a graveyard, a boarded-up house, and Elm Street High School. The enemies are pretty lackluster in the form of snakes, bats, ghosts, frankenstein monsters, spiders, rats, and stuff that falls from overhead to hurt you. You don't get a lifemeter, instead you are restricted to losing a life every 4 hits with no visual of how many hits you have taken. The only meter you do have is the "Zzzz" meter, which indicated how close you are to falling asleep. If you are asleep, the enemies are tougher and maybe more numerous. If you are asleep too long, you have to fight Freddy Kreuger in the boiler room (after hearing the jumprope song). He's pretty simple and just walks back and forth slashing in a predictable pattern. Land a few hits and he leaves the screen, your character wakes up. If you find a boombox, your character will wake up from the loud noise. If you find a cup of coffee, you can refill your Zzzz meter.

When asleep, if you collected Dream Icons while awake, you can transform into either the Acrobat, the Shadow Warrior, or the Necromancer. The Acrobat is pretty solid, has a good somersault jump and throws javelins. The Shadow Warrior can throw shurikens and has a great jump because his jump is actually a flying kick, allowing you to actually jump and attack at the same time. The Necromancer sucks. His magic projectile has poor collision detection and misses pretty often, and he supposedly has a good jump that allows him to fall a little slower. Keeping it simple, the Shadow Warrior is without a doubt the best.

So you first go through the normal houses, where you just jump around collecting Freddy's bones while dodging enemies. You can not advance to the next part of the house until you have collected all the bones. At the end you fight some incarnation of Freddy on a chain, or as a bat or ghost or a bouncing slashing glove. It feels like kind of a cop-out that these incarnations of Freddy are the end-stage bosses instead of something more horrific or cooler. After the first few houses, you then go to the junkyard and then the graveyard. These stages are linear and much easier, but following them you then go to the boarded up house and the high school. These last two levels are total juggernauts and very difficult. To beat these levels you need to be an expert on platform jumping, plain and simple.

At the end of the High School, you have to fight all the bosses again, back-to-back. It's not difficult, but definitely an endurance round. Once you've defeated all them, you then find yourself in front of the furnace fighting Freddy in the same manner you would fight him if you had been asleep for too long. He moves back and forth and slashes with his glove in a predictable pattern. This is definitely an anti-climactic final boss for the end of the game, and the only real challenge posed by the game is the onslaught of trick jumps you have to accomplish to complete the last two levels.

So the game takes elements of the third movie, The Dream Warriors, and attempts to make a game out of it. The "collecting the bones" theme coupled with being able to transform into a dream character are both from the Dream Warriors movie, but instead of taking place at a mental institution the game takes place on Elm Street and in the houses.

This game really isn't for everyone. I for one, am pretty disappointed in the final product, but many will argue that if the game did not bear the name A Nightmare On Elm Street, that it might not have been so poorly received. Kind of a moot point, but play at your own risk regardless.

Nightmare on Elm street for the nes is an action platformer much like the vast majority of games on the nes. While the premise might not be the most inspired, the little details make this game worth your time especially if you enjoy this franchise as much as I do.

First and foremost, the graphics really do a good job of conveying the movie's atmosphere well. From the high school to the junkyard and then finally Freddy's house, everything is drawn with a creepy halloween asthetic that really follows in line with the spirit of the movie. The graphics are colorful and detailed although a few things are really screwy with this street, the best example being the graveyard that appears to be a series of islands stuck in the middle of a lake.

Secondly, you have the music. All the tunes are terrific for an nes game. Most of it is original with the exception of Freddy's theme music. It really draws you in and all the original music is very catchy and tries hard to transend the limited sound output of the nintendo.

Lastly, you have the gameplay which is the most interesting draw. You have a sleep meter which slowly ticks down until you fall asleep but you can avoid this if you pick up coffee icons along the way. When you do fall asleep, you gain several powers such as becoming an acrobat, a sorceror, and my favorite a high flying ninja.

The whole thing real adds some strategy, do you stay awake and fight weak enemies, or do you go to sleep and face tougher foes with your powers intact? The only real problem here is the bone collecting which turns the game into a bit of a scavenger hunt.

Nightmare is a good game, one that I'm glad to add to my collection. If you enjoy the movies and look past the ridiculous bone collecting,I think you'll like this. With the Elm st remake on the way, I can't think of a better way to celebrate than powering up the old nes and ninja kicking Freddy in the boiler room.

At the time of its release I played this game with my friends and is really fun. You can play up to four players at once too! I considered this one really scary along with friday the 13th when I was younger, but now they are pretty much laughable. Its a side scroller and you try to defeat Freddy Krueger by shooting knifes or punching at him or other enemies. You can also collect power ups to transform into a karate or ninja, which is similiar to that one Freddy Krueger movie about the kids turning into warriors. Overall try this game if you still have a nintendo!

This game is super scary and the music is amazing, it really sets the mood. The gameplay is great, the monsters are cool and of course Freddy rules.

its a really good game if ur a noes fan u have to get this