Retronauts Micro 050: Fester's Quest

I actually asked for this game for Christmas the year it was released. If I didn't receive the NES Advantage at the same time as the game, there's no way I would have ever beaten it. Is it considered cheating that I actually used the slow motion in order to beat the bosses?

Steve Martin

Now that I think about it, a couple of years later, I got Pugsley's Scavenger Hunt for the SNES, which is also extremely difficult and I never beat that either. Convinced Addams Family games were the hardest games in existence, I found an SNES copy of The Addams Family a few years after that and beat it the same day, mercilessly slaughtering everything in my path. It was a hollow victory; it felt like hunting down Shamu and calling it a day instead of finally taking down Moby Dick. Fester's Quest took the thrill of victory from me, and no other game has ever made up for that.

steve mcsteve

I played this game obsessively as a kid, thinking that I couldn't beat it because I was bad at games. I played it every day for months, eventually finding one of the health power ups (I never knew there was a second one) and getting further and further until one day I finally made it to the final boss. I was so dumbstruck that I finally made it that I got nervous and died immediately. Two hours later, I made it back and died again. Halfway through my third attempt, I died in one of the sewers and in frustration let out a stream of profanity that got me grounded and my game confiscated, never to be seen again. I've never forgiven this game for that day, and will never truly be MLG because of it.

steve mcsteve

I'm seriously impressed! - Bob

Retronauts

My cousin and I played through this game over a Christmas break. I remember taking a picture of defeating the final boss and sending it into a contest through the Sunsoft Newsletter. We won a copy of Batman, so the struggle of the game had a happy ending.

Yes, the game was rebalanced for the later European release. There's no saves or checkpoints, but bullets now go through walls and enemies take way fewer hits to kill. - Bob

Retronauts

Quick story. A friend and I were putting random codes into the game genie for fun and, lo and behold, we made a code that instantly took us to the final boss! ...armed with a pea shooter. Lol! Still the discovery was amazing.

Normallyretro

Thanks for calling out Naomi Kodaka; he's probably the most unsung 2A03 composer.

Nick

Definitely played it. Definitely walked away after 20 minutes

John Learned

I'm beginning to think there is a rather big difference between the US and European versions. I played the game for more or less the first time this summer and finished in i two settings. I think the difference may be the amount of hits enemies can take. Killing a green frog in the European version doesn't take that many shots. I played a beta ROM a while ago and in that one enemies was really hard to kill. If that is about the same as the US version I understand why it is considered a hard game.

Stefan Gancer

Truly a befuddling game. I have no idea how I finished this one as a kid.

Ben Hamilton