Nintendo is Great is a Substack devoted to exploring the world of Nintendo - their games, their consoles, their merchandise - in mostly chronological order, starting with the NES and continuing to the upcoming Switch 2.
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3-D WorldRunner
PUBLISHER: Acclaim
DEVELOPER: Square
RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1987 (US)
ALSO AVAILABLE ON: Famicom Disk System
When you need a gimmick to sell your game, is the game itself worth playing?
3-D World Runner was originally sold with 3-D glasses, the red-and-blue kind that theaters used to give out in the 1950s. Press ‘Select’ while playing, and you switch to “3-D Mode.” In theory, images should pop out of the screen while you’re playing. In practice, your results may vary.
Unless you’re ten years old, pretending you’re on a secret space mission, turn off 3-D mode and remove the glasses if you want to advance beyond the first couple levels.
3-D WorldRunner was the first third-person, forward-scrolling game of its kind for the NES upon its release. A landmark, perhaps, but the rhythm and movement of the game is disorienting enough without having a green pole or some silly looking enemy up in your face.
Jack the WorldRunner runs to save the world from suspicious looking dragons. He leaps because otherwise the gaping chasms will eat him alive. Sounds simple, enough. Like the British police, Jack doesn’t even carry a firearm, so assured is he of his own running and jumping skills.
But just knowing how to run and jump isn’t enough. Timing is a key factor, as well. Jump too low and Jack will sink slowly into the chasm. Jump too high and he might miss his landing. Floating head enemies occasionally appear while he’s jumping and while he can strafe as far as you want left or right, you always have to stick that landing if you want him to run another day.
By level three, 3-D WorldRunner provides yawning black pits of despair so wide, not even Jack can jump over them without the help of precariously placed bouncy frogs. Trial-and-error is the key to victory here, not seeing in three dimensions.
*image courtesy of The Pixels
Famicom Disk System Version, GOOOO!
Before the 3DS and before the Virtual Boy, there was the Famicom 3D System, a pair of active-shutter glasses that provided “3D” stereoscopic imagery for otherwise 2D games.
If you’re thinking, “Boy, that looks awkward and uncomfortable to wear,” you’d be right. At least according to Wikipedia who says that the glasses are “clunky.” Worse yet, only a handful of games were released for the doomed peripheral - including 3-D WorldRunner or as it’s known in Japan, Tobidase Daisakusen.
As seen above, when 3-D WorldRunner came to the States, gamers only received a pair of anaglyph 3D glasses instead of the stereoscopic glasses headset. Ironically, neither technology seemed to work very well at providing a 3D image. At least the anaglyph glasses didn’t cost extra (or did they?!).
If you’re going to try some early attempts at 3D gaming for an 8-bit system, stick with Sega’s 3D glasses for the Master System. Those are clunky and uncomfortable to wear as well, but supposedly, they work better than either the Famicom 3D System or the anaglyph glasses. I say “supposedly…” I owned a pair of Master System 3D glasses and they did not work whatsoever. Your own three-dimensional mileage may vary.
Deadly Towers
PUBLISHER: Broderbund
DEVELOPER(S): Lenar, Tamtex
RELEASE DATE: Dec. 15th, 1986 (JP), Sept. 1987 (US)
In the old days, adventure games were designed to confound the player. Instruction manuals only provided so much information. It was up to the player to figure out how to progress and find the best armor and weapons to make your life slightly easier.
Deadly Towers is cruel, even by 1987 standards. Your hero, Prince Myer, is a wimp, unequipped to explore thousands of rooms in dungeons that all look the same, filled with enemies who take off 10+ points of damage with every hit. First point of order is to find better weapons and armor, but how the hell do you do that if you keep getting knocked off ledges by wayward bats? Your sword feels like a stick, with each enemy taking several hits to kill. To enter a dungeon, search around the overworld for a completely hidden entrance and find it by complete chance. Which dungeon are you in now? How can you tell? Questions without answers: that’s Deadly Towers.
The instruction manual provides the map for the first dungeon, but after that, bust out the graph paper, you’re on your own. Provided you take each room slowly, you’ll earn enough money, find some shops, equip the items you need and slowly start to feel like more of a warrior and less of a spoiled castle brat.
Deadly Towers has a reputation as being one of the worst NES games, but that’s not entirely accurate. The game requires patience, more than it deserves. It’s a tedious, repetitive slog of an adventure that’s disorienting if you’re not keeping track of your movements. Given enough time and gumption, the seven towers can be set on fire, and the King of all Devils can be slain. Whether such an arduous quest is worth the effort, however, is up to you.
The Red Light District
According to Wikipedia, “in Japan, Deadly Towers was titled Mashō (魔鐘), literally meaning "Evil Bell". It is a pun of the word mashō (魔性), meaning "devilishness", and in keeping with this theme, the Japanese cartridge contained a red LED at the top which illuminated when turned on.”
Here is the cartridge in question, alas, not turned on.
Whether you call it Masho or Deadly Towers, this game absolutely sold its soul at the crossroads in order to inflict “devilish” pain on as many gamers as possible.
*image courtesy of eBay
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I never knew about that Famicom 3D set, interesting find. The blue and red 3D glasses never did anything for me in any context, I remember thinking they must be a prank or something.
The other thing I didn't know was that 3D Worldrunner was a Square-developed game. As was Rad Racer. Here I was thinking two different companies had independently tried the idea on NES -- but no, just one company, two times.
Pretty sure 3D Worldrunner was a one-time rental for me, but to be honest can't recall my reaction to it very well, must not have left much impression.
As for Deadly Towers -- a good friend owned this one so it's a firm memory. IIRC someone told him it was like Zelda but even better. That "someone" must have hated him and wanted to be enemies for life. We still played this game more than it deserved, trying to find the secret path through the maze to the "good part."
I'll admit that I haven't tried playing Deadly Towers as an adult and I don't even know what a proper playthrough looks like, but I do remember thinking it was the worst game on NES for much of my childhood. And I'll admit that I owned Super Pitfall for a time -- the worst game in my collection. But somehow I managed to sell or trade it -- for $1 perhaps.
I was curious to look it up and you gave both Deadly Towers and Super Pitfall an F on Questicle. I think Deadly Towers was worse, and the reason why is that Pitfall at least gave me a sense of exploration. But I'll also acknowledge that I never beat it, I just wandered around in it. It was more fun to wander in than Deadly Towers. But it might be the case that Deadly Towers is more fun to play to completion, if you can manage to lock yourself into the rhythm of the grind.