Customer Reviews

Willow

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

 

 

Willow is a Zelda-style game, but there is more of a role-playing element to this game (weapons, shields, items, gold, exp. ect). The graphics are prety good, but they could be better, at times they seem too bland. The gameplay is easy to learn, but can be confusing at first.

This is just a game from the movie of the same title, but it's still a good game.

This is a fantastic game, based loosely on the Ron Howard/George Lucas movie of the same name. It is like Zelda I, but in my opinion better. Not only is it substantially longer, it really grabbed my attention from start to finish and I never got bored.

The only downside i can remember is that you do have to endure the old "defeat countless easy enemies in order to level up so you can progress successfully through the harder parts" routine - but that's more or less a given for these types of games, unfortunately.

Other than that one flaw, this game delivers hours upon hours of adventure fun! If you like good, long, CLASSIC RPG adventures, this game is definitely for you!

Willow is another NES game that is frequently and tragically overlooked, possibly due to its similarity to the Zelda games. However, I would like to point out that the sword swing, as opposed to a stab, makes its appearance here first. The two types of sword attacks (stab & swing) make combat a more strategic affair than similar games. You can come at your enemies from the side with swings, or at a distance with the longer-ranged stabs.

There's a wealth of items you have to obtain for success on your quest, which is hardly unusual. There's more of a fun treasure-hunt feel to the item collection, which is one of the things I like. Some of them are just lying around (usually in a dangerous maze) and just have to be picked up. I recall seeking out a crystal ball allegedly guarded by a fierce dragon. When I finally reached the dragon, he said he was too old and tired to fight me so he just gave it to me!

The graphics are quite nice. I especially like the ring of light that reflects off the top of Willow's blond hair. This even happens underground, where it's...um, torchlight. Yes. All the major players from the movie make appearences. There are even extra characters, expanding the fun. The developers took the feel of the movie and ran with it. It's probably my favorite of early movie-based video games.

I only have a few complaints. One is that data is saved with a password, not a battery. This can be nice, as some older batteries don't work so well anymore. However, the passwords only save exp levels, not points. Even worse, these points are reset whenever you die. So if you accumulate several thousand points and need only 4 additional points to reach the next level but die before you gain them, you now need several thousand (plus 4) points. That can be frustrating. Just don't die!

The second complaint is that an essential item is VERY easy to miss. If you don't speak to a specific person at a specific time, you'll be forced to complete nearly 3/4 of the game without any way to heal yourself in battle. If you advance the plot and then return to talk to this person, he won't give you the item. This doesn't make the game impossible...just incredibly hard.

All in all, very good. Every NES fan needs to play this game.

Willow
Four Stars - Capcom's take on "The Legend of Zelda"

Apparently George Lucas was so happy with Warwick Davis in his role as the lead Ewok in "Star Wars VI: The Return of the Jedi" that give years later he gave Davis the leading role in a film called "Willow", a rather standard fantasy movie with all the great fantasy archetypes - evil villian, halfings (hobbit wannabes), a rogue criminal who turns out to be a good guy (the Han Solo type character of Willow is played by Val Kilmer), and end of the world apocalypse overtones. The film was directed by Ron Howard. Like Star Wars and Indiana Jones, Lucas came up with the idea for the film in the early 1970s (in this instance, 1972), but he had to wait until the 1980s for technology to catch up with what he wanted to do visually.

Naturally, like any good franchise (or intellectual property that the creators of said property wanted to make money on ) worth its salt in the 1980s, video games followed. Three, in fact.

One was an Amiga game with had five minigames, of which all were terrible, and has no relationship whatsoever to the other two eletronic interpertations of Willow.

The second was an arcade title that was a platformer developed by Capcom. The game was six stages long - some levels featured Willow, some featured Madmartigan (Val Kilmer's character), and some allowed you to choose either character.

The third title obviously is the NES incarnation. Here, Capcom made a "Legend of Zelda" type game, which features overhead exploration, dungeon crawling, item gathering, fantasy boss battles, spells and magic, and RPG leveling. There is even a monster spell that allows you to transform into a monster to be able to talk to other monsters and get information spells from them.

One important thing to note is that early in the game, there is a villager in Dew who gives you a Wood Shiled and tells you to talk to the chief of the village. When you talk tot he chief, he tells you Bavmorda (the principal villain of the game) has turne dhis ftather into a demon and gives you the Healmace (the healing spell and probably the single most important spell in the game - just imagine ZELDA II without the Life spell and you get the idea). If you do not talk to the Wood Shield guy first before talking to the chief, you will not get the Healmace at all. While it does not make the game impossible, it makes the title much more difficult.

The game also features several weapons. Another interesting thing about the weapons is the swords ahve different weights, and the heavy ones require more energy for Willow to swing.

The Magic Cane is a rather ineffective weapon obtained early in the game. The fairy Cherlindrea gives Willow the cane at Lake Cheef. Once Willow reaches level 12, he will want to return to Fin Raziel and transform her. She will then strengthen the Magic Cane. Willow will fight Bavmorda twice; she is only vulnerable to the Magic Cane during the first battle.

The Devil Sword is an item which cannot be used as a weapon against living things, but is the only available weapon that can effectively harm undead and zombie creatures.

The Fireflor is a spell that the father of the chieftain of the village Dew will teach Willow once Willo cure him of his madness.

The Crest of the Spirits is a necessary item that allows Willow to finally confront Bavmorda, the game's final boss

As far as plot goes, the NES game Willow's plot has almost nothing to do with the movie. If source loyalty is important to you, than that will bother you playing through the game. It almost feels like Capcom was already developing the game and they got the Willow license so they just plugged Willow into an already existing game. The plot is that different. Another big difference is that Willow largely goes through the game alone, unlike the movie where he has several companions.

However, I wouldn't let the plot differences bother you (although plot differences do bother me greatly when comparing Tolkien's THE LORD OF THE RINGS and Peter Jackson's film interpertations, so I can sympathise with the players out there who are unhappy with the plot changes).

The game is a great Zelda-style adventure, the graphics are fantastic. Visually [and almost musically], this title easily outstrips the original Zelda. Musically this title stands up as well with the best of the NES games. Given how successful they handled Willow, Capcom proved themselves quite worthy to help Nintendo with the Zelda franchise itself, which they did with the two Orcale handheld titles.

I figure that "Willow" appeared on Capcom's resume when they were trying to get the contract from Nintendo to help with the handheld titles of Zelda, it's that good.

Overall the game stands proudly among the very best of the NES canon, along such heavy hitters as the Zelda games, Mario, Crystalis (Godslayer), Castlevania, Dragon Warrior, and Final Fantasy. It's easily one of the best NES movie licensed based games, and while that's admittedly not saying much, you would be amiss if you are an NES fan and haven't played this!

The video game website IGN rated this title as the 89th greatest game on their top 100 NES games of all time.

I LOVED the movie, but found myself disappointed in this game. I wasn't expecting the game to be the exact same, but the creators of the game took great liberties with the story - the story in here isn't much like the movie. Bavmorda isn't after Elora, she has a different goal in mind. You see all the familiar faces here - Madmartigan, Sorsha, Fin Raziel, Franjean and Rool, and a few new ones that were not in the movie. I have nothing against the new characters, but the story was so different that it was hard to get into.

The gameplay itself is smooth, so I can't complain about that. The items and weapons are a nice touch - this game plays like an RPG with level-ups, increased health and magic to go with said level-ups, different weapons and items, etc. The enemies and dungeons you find here are not much different from other NES RPGs, so if you like games like Final Fantasy or Legend of Zelda, you may enjoy this. Really, the only complaint I have is about the story itself, not the gameplay. I'd rate this game 4 out of 5 stars, but the story costs the game one star.

I agree with my fellow reviewers, it's not incredible, but it is HOURS and hours of fun, challenging scenerios, and great and interesting enemies. I had a blast.

this game is a simple classic RPG similar to zelda, but with a far more indepth story. the goal is simple, to progress through the map to defeat the evil queen Bavmorda but the game is simply delightful. if you own an NES, this is a must