Fester's Quest
September 22nd, 2023
Out of sheer boredom and a desire to spend every waking moment of my life talking about video games, I used this randomizer to pick a random retro game to write a blog post about. This is what happened next...
This will probably be the last blog post I write using the randomizer from the Retro Handhelds website. I found a different one that has a much larger list of games it can pick from, so I'll be using that one from now on. So, which game will we be sending off the Retro Handhelds randomizer with?
...what the fuck am I looking at
Apparently Fester's Quest is based on The Addams Family, which explains my complete and utter confusion because I don't know anything about The Addams Family, but I'll try my best
In Fester's Quest, you control Uncle Fester as he embarks on a quest to save the city from an alien invasion after a UFO abducts all of its citizens. How did the members of the Addams family avoid getting abducted? Apparently, it's because Ma-Ma Addams predicted the alien's arrival and used her crystal ball to cast a protective spell on the Addams household... er, households? The members of the family are scattered across 7 different houses in this game, which I'm gonna guess isn't very accurate to the source material
I do not know why a chunk of Fester's torso is missing in this screenshot... probably just NES sprite flicker
The game plays like a top-down shooter in the vein of Blaster Master or the top-down sections of Super C. Makes sense, since Fester's Quest and Blaster Master were both made by Sunsoft. The goal of the game is to explore the city and find 5 buildings, then defeat the alien boss in each one. I only got as far as the first boss, and from what I played I'll say that the game is just alright for the most part. Not that I didn't enjoy it at all, but there were a couple things that annoyed me. Notably, Uncle Fester's gun has 8 levels of power, and at any point between the 1st level and full power, Fester's shots travel in a very strange wave pattern. Shots in this game don't pierce through walls, so this makes it very awkward to hit enemies while moving through narrow corridors. Unfortunately, there are sewer areas in this game which are full of narrow corridors and are mandatory to navigate through in order to reach different parts of the city. It's a little frustrating that your main form of attack is rendered next to useless for half the game
...of course, it wasn't until after I was done playing this game that I checked the Wikipedia article and learned that this """feature""" of shots colliding with walls is exclusive to the North American version of the game. thank you america very cool
Regardless, you don't need to only rely on your gun to get through Fester's Quest. Remember the 7 houses I mentioned earlier? Enemies will sometimes drop stuff like lightbulbs (to light up the sewer areas), money, and keys. The keys can be used to unlock the doors to each house, and in each one you'll meet a different member of the Addams family who will supply you with some useful items, like explosives, healing potions, invisibility potions, et cetera. Once you have these items, it becomes a lot easier to survive even if your gun isn't at full power, but you need to be careful and keep track of how many of them you have left— they aren't infinite! The game becomes a challenge of resource management just as much as it is a challenge of not getting hit
...where did he get that?
While the item management element is probably my favorite thing about Fester's Quest, I'd say my least favorite thing about it is the fact that Uncle Fester only has two hitpoints, which strikes me as just a little unfair? Enemies endlessly spawn in this game, and it can be easy to get overwhelmed if your gun isn't at a high enough power level to deal with the chaos quickly. However, there are hot dog stands scattered throughout the city which will restore your health in exchange for the money that drops from enemies, so it's not all bad
I've said all my thoughts on Fester's Quest, so this concludes my first impressions. If I had played the version of this game that didn't ruin it by having your shots collide with the terrain, I might've given it an "It's good!!" rating, but for now this will have to do
At least I haven't had to bust out the "It's bad" emoji yet