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Fester's Quest was a weird game, wasn't it?

S

Seraphis Cain

bad gameplay lol
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When you think about it, wasn't Fester's Quest for the NES a weird game? It was released in 1989, two years before the Addams Family movie, at a time when the franchise wasn't exactly at the height of its popularity. And the game is basically the Addams family versus...aliens? What? I'm struggling to come up with any sort of reasonable explanation as to why this game ever existed in the first place. Who pitched this idea to Sunsoft? And who at Sunsoft thought "Yeah, that's a great idea!"?

And then the gameplay...most of the game is essentially a romhack of the top-down sections of Blaster Master (and not a very good one at that). But then there's weird first-person dungeon crawling segments for no reason whatsoever. And the boss battles were essentially ripped straight out of Blaster Master too. Honestly this game kinda feels like it was meant to be Blaster Master 2 or something, but halfway through development they got the Addams Family license and figured "hey, why not?!". But hey, at least the music was awesome.

I don't know. Maybe I'm just overthinking a shitty NES game, but I kinda grew up with it and actually really liked it as a kid. But now that I think back on it, the fact that it existed at all is just a bit baffling.
 
It's also insanely hard. 2 hits and it's game over, and when you continue, you start at the BEGINNING of the game, and have to trek ALL the way back to where you died to continue.
 
Is it possible it was going to be something else and then somehow someone thought it would be a good idea to change it into something "more popular" in the west?
 
It's a weird game, but kind of shitty at the same time. Blaster master style boss fights were cool. The maze stuff is not executed that well. Items are overly complex, and it's just unforgiving.

Fuck the sewers. Fuck the Whip. Fuck the hotdog stand. Fuck starting over from the beginning. Fuck respawning enemies, and downgrading weapons.

Rygar 8 Bit said:
the first person parts used to scare me when i was a kid :( was a great game though
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They were pretty atmospheric. Not knowing what could happen. Sadly, nothing did happen besides the boss.
 
I think you might be onto something with the idea that it was not originally meant to be an Addams family -themed game. That's what I've always thought anyway. That sort of thing wasn't uncommon on the NES.

Also this game is awesome. Don't know why people seem to think it was shitty. (AVGN?) It is quite balls to the wall when it comes to difficulty though.
 
vocab said:
It's a weird game, but kind of shitty at the same time. Blaster master style boss fights were cool. The maze stuff is not executed that well. Items are overly complex, and it's just unforgiving.

Fuck the sewers. Fuck the Whip. Fuck the hotdog stand. Fuck starting over from the beginning. Fuck respawning enemies, and downgrading weapons.
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The sewers still give me nightmares. And the Whip...ugh. One of the most useless weapons ever. And the hot dog stand...what was even up with that? I don't seem to remember Fester ever having a particular liking for hot dogs.

The worst thing, though, were the weapon "upgrades". Specifically, how many of them utilized a "wave" pattern that frequently made it HARDER to hit enemies than with the basic gun. Once you got to the spike gun thing, you were okay (and even that had a bit of a wave pattern to it, if I remember right), but the one before that was AWFUL. I'm actually glad the weapon downgrades were in the game, because several times I'd intentionally downgrade just to get back to a gun I could actually hit things with.
 
I hated that damn weapon in the sewers that made it impossible to kill some of the enemies that were coming right for you.

So much aggravation.

Also as my first introduction to Adams Family at the time I was trying to figure out why the property was so beloved. Thankfully the movie and original TV started showing up clued me in big time.
 
Was one of the first NES games I remember playing. Blaster Master thing is right on; could you pause kill a boss using the same method? I can barely remember. But yeah the game was too hard and unrewarding.
 
Amazing game and legendary box art. Spent so much time with it.

Mind blown @ Blaster Master, I guess my kid mind wasn't good in drawing parallels
 
I feel like Nintendo Power is the only reason this game ended up bought/remembered by more than 100 people.
 
I played it, I think my friend and I (was his game) beat it.

It wasn't anything special, we beat it more because we were kids, and back in those days people didn't have backlogs etc, and 5 different systems, along with handhelds. They had a Nintendo and that was it. (maybe a hardly used Atari, and maybe a Amiga or something if they were rich/lucky).


Anyway, you hardly ever got new games, and you beat what you had, and what your friends had, that sums up why I finished Fester's Quest, otherwise only good for a 2-3 night rental.
 
NES (and other video gaming systems) had quite a few strange licenses that weren't all that timely. There's actually a Gilligan's Island game for NES, for example. I am guessing that the Addam's Family was getting good ratings during serialization at the time or something.
 
KittenMaster said:
NES (and other video gaming systems) had quite a few strange licenses that weren't all that timely. There's actually a Gilligan's Island game for NES, for example. I am guessing that the Addam's Family was getting good ratings during serialization at the time or something.
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It was. Addam's Family was big during this time. It continues onto the SNES and Genesis, several games were made. The movies were killing it at the theater. Was like 3 of them I think going from childhood memory.
 
VICE GRIPS, MOTHER FUCKERS >:(

Gaming back then was like being lost in the throes of a fever dream. Doors to distant lands, perceptions of vaguely hinted-at threats, glitches tossing you into a grey nether realm from which the sweet release of death was your only hope of escape.


I miss that shit, guys.
 
I have vague memories of this game in its day, and yes, when I later realized that it was based on Addams Family when the movie revived the franchise, I thought it was odd that it existed.

It'd be like if a Mork and Mindy or Happy Days game came out today... But no, it was weirder then, because we live in a recycling, remake, remix culture today.
 
Overworld is indeed an awesome tune. It is also a weird game that I don't think I ever had the patience to go further than a few areas.
 
This was potentially a decent game, but it's marred by too many flaws. Like slow gameplay and respawning enemies that would make Ninja Gaiden blush.
 
I must say that it was a great game actually, one of my favourites for the NES. A little weird, but still, a nice challenge.
 
Getting poisoned was the worst thing ever in the game!

I remember making it to the last boss, dying, and then flipping out when i started from the beginning.
 
Tried to play it again last time I visited my parents' house... the home of all our old NES games. Couldn't even get underground. I thought my ability to play NES games would be significantly improved over my childhood, but apparently not.

I always kind of wanted to see what happened in the later stages off the game, but we never really got there with it.
 
Funny how people talk a lot more about this game than it seems to deserve

But since i missed the NES era (sega was more popular over here), i always thought this game came out after the Addams Family movie... really strange that it was out before the movie.

wonderdung said:
Tried to play it again last time I visited my parents' house... the home of all our old NES games. Couldn't even get underground. I thought my ability to play NES games would be significantly improved over my childhood, but apparently not.

I always kind of wanted to see what happened in the later stages off the game, but we never really got there with it.
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No, we all got worst at 2d hard as hell nes-snes games over the years. Its a fact.
 
Played the shit out of this game back when it was new.

Man those NES days were brutal. It's a wonder gaming even took off after some of that bullshit.
 
Man, such an underrated gem. Fun gameplay, great music, nasty bosses, this game had it all.

The red weapon downgrades were kinda annoying though.

Edit: it's pretty obvious they just slapped the license onto an already finished game, thus all the weirdness.
 
Loved the game when I was a kid. It helped that I had a turbo controller which made it beatable. Wish I had my copy with me right now.
 
LonelyGreyWolf said:
I bet most people know of it only because of AVGN.
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I've never seen anything he's done. I'm willing to bet that a lot of kids at the time got it bought for them because their parents recognized the license. That's probably why it got shoe-horned on there in the first place.


A shameless attempt for another thousand sales or something.
 
Is the Addams Family theme in the game? That music sounds like... anything but suited for an Addams Family game (classic heavy Sunsoft though). Further suggests the license was just slapped on there. That's how Sunsoft's Batman felt to me... nothing from the iconic movie soundtrack, random sci-fi robot enemies, Batman using guns...
 
revolverjgw said:
Is the Addams Family theme in the game? That music sounds like... anything but suited for an Addams Family game (classic heavy Sunsoft though). Further suggests the license was just slapped on there. That's how Sunsoft's Batman felt to me... nothing from the iconic movie soundtrack, random sci-fi robot enemies, Batman using guns...
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Yeah, the title screen music is the Addams Family theme (given a bit of a Sunsoft remix):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZRT45jpvOU

The boss music was pretty metal too:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l78Y8r5tlK8
 
friz898 said:
It was. Addam's Family was big during this time. It continues onto the SNES and Genesis, several games were made. The movies were killing it at the theater. Was like 3 of them I think going from childhood memory.
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This game predates the movies by several years. That's the weird part.
 
revolverjgw said:
Is the Addams Family theme in the game? That music sounds like... anything but suited for an Addams Family game (classic heavy Sunsoft though). Further suggests the license was just slapped on there. That's how Sunsoft's Batman felt to me... nothing from the iconic movie soundtrack, random sci-fi robot enemies, Batman using guns...
Click to expand...
Kind of ironic that the one Sunsoft game were the license made sense had its licensed taken away. I'm talking, of course, about Journey to Silius which was originally a Terminator game.
 
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