Developer: Tose
Publisher: Bandai
Release Date: July 1991
(Unlike this cover, Frankenstein in the game has no chill)
Hey, did you know that Frankenstein is the name of the doctor and not the monster? It's a little-known fact that only gets brought up every time anyone mentions the character. If you imagine a know-it-all man saying this to a woman, then you would probably get along well with Frankenstein author Mary Shelly. It's a book about a lot of things, but it's hard to look past her critique of male privilege. The doctor is allowed to create a life and then quickly abandon it the second things get too hard with no immediate consequences. The monster feels that because he is intelligent, he should automatically be accepted into society. When his forcefulness frightens people, he takes it out on society instead of blaming himself. It's a world where the men make mistakes and expect sympathy while the innocent women in their lives end up being punished. Of course, Hollywood in 1931 wasn't ready for a monster that practically talked his victims to death, so they made the monster a silent brute. The themes of innocent women being punished for man's mistakes still shows up in the movie, but it is much more remembered for Boris Karloff's look and odd pathos. His version of the monster is a killer for sure, but more sympathetic than the chatty, calculating novel version. I bring this all up because 60 years after the famous movie Bandai released a game that throws all the famous interpretations out the window and creates an all-new version of the monster now presented as a cackling super villain. He's more Dr. Doom than Dr. Frankenstein with a new motivation to terrorize and countryside and destroy all who oppose him with an army of possessed minions. Of course, he sets all this in motion by kidnapping and innocent woman. Even with a much wilder premise, the themes of the original book and look of Karloff's movie monster are intact. Also, he's straight up called Frankenstein so just get used to it. What else would you call him anyway? His name is about the least strange thing about this strange game.
Of course, what else would we expect from Bandai? They were by far the oddest publisher for the NES. They made games that looked primitive and jettisoned typical structures for open-ended strangeness. They adapted little-known IPs and rarely turned them into what we would consider normal games. Bandai is where we got such oddities as Ninja Kid, Dragon Power, and the most infamous of them all, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Just seeing that Banai logo on a game made you know that you were probably going to play something like you had never played before, and it had a very good chance of being garbage. Tose made several of these games, and much like Bandai they had a much brighter future after getting all the weirdness out of their system. They work with Square-Enix now mostly doing remakes of my all-time favorite games. They certainly feel like a company that was in it to last. Even their strangest early games feel like they were made by a team that was really trying. Frankenstein: The Monster Returns is a strange game that is hard to define, but it's certainly not a lazy one.
The name alone made me think this was going to be a Castlevania clone, and while this comparison comes up in reviews almost constantly, it only resembles Castlevania in its spooky tone. Even then the resemblance is only surface level. Sure, they both have skeletons and ghosts, but Frankenstein is much more varied. Castlevania games are typically grounded in stone castles. Frankenstein takes the protagonist on a journey through much more varied environments. There is a castle, but you'll have to trek through forests and sewers to get there. The gameplay is more like a simplified River City Ransom. It is a somewhat open-ended side scroller with beat-em-up elements. It is divided up into levels, but the levels are full of secret passages and hidden items. They're not all good secrets either. Sometimes a bad jump will send you to an annoying mini boss. I enjoy the presentation though. Environments are vastly different from screen to screen keeping things from ever getting boring. I can't deny it's entertaining. The monsters are odd and challenging, and the overall strangeness of it helps it stand out from countless other NES side scrollers.
Of course, this is the NES, and Frankenstein's biggest drawback is its difficulty. This is not a game you're going to make much progress on the first time. You start with a weak punch and difficult-to-execute jump kick. Monsters will drop upgrades, and Frankenstein would be practically impossible without them. The problem is that getting hit causes you to lose them. Weapons can be regained if you act quickly, but projectiles are lost for good. The way to beat Frankenstein is to get a projectile early in the game and then never get hit. Luckily backtracking is possible within levels, but it can get a little annoying going back to the beginning of a level to regain a projectile. Frankenstein does have a password and a few continues, but the continues don't reset when you enter your password on your next attempt. It's better to just try the level again if you get a game over and save the continues for later levels. After a few tries I was able to make some progress, so it doesn't cross the line into impossible to play territory. However, the difficulty can be disheartening if you're not used to NES difficulty or just want some goofy game to pass the time.
I'm pleasantly surprised to say that I had fun with Frankenstein: The Monster Returns. I just love the kooky presentation. I don't think you're going to remember the awkward gameplay moments as much as you are going to remember the over-the-top dialogue and level design. Not every game has hopping tombstones and green-haired medusas. I enjoy the eccentric bosses that branch out a bit from a typical NES horror game. It's not just skeletons and giant bats. It was fun fighting a flying chimera and evil tree spirit for a change. They also have dialogue which gives them actual personalities. It even sneaks in some sympathetic moments as the monsters try to escape from Frankenstein's control. And while it certainly isn't the best-looking game on the system, the levels have enough personality to make up for it.
So, Frankenstein: The Monster Return somehow sneaks into the good column. I was not expecting much and was pleasantly surprised. It's not super high on the list, but it's still a bit of a hidden gem. I'm ranking it at #82 right above Dracula: Crazy Vampire which was another oddball spooky game. That's a game I feel like I overrated, but I still think it's where Frankenstein belongs. With so many NES oddballs sneaking into the good section I feel that I will have no trouble getting past 100 good ones. I doubt Frankenstein: The Monster Returns is going to make it into the top 100 NES games, but it's certainly worth checking out.
NES Quality Percentage: 24/28 or 50%
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