Conan: the Mysteries of Time

Developer: System 3 Software     Publisher: Mindscape     Released: February 1991     Genre: Action

I loved the Conan comics growing up, even if my older brothers only bought them sporadically.  I even liked the cheesy Arnold Schwarzenegger movies from the 80s.  Yet despite my love for the character I could never bring myself to buy the NES game.  I had plenty of chances to either rent or buy it from the flea market yet my gut always said no.  Trusting my instincts helped me dodge one of the biggest bullets of my life.  No, it is far worse than that; more like an atomic missile. Don’t let the awesome cover fool you, Conan is one of the worst games in the NES library.

The most surprising aspect of Conan is that this isn’t a Conan game at all! Conan was originally a European computer game called Myth: History in the Making. That title would have been apt for the NES game but not in the way they would have expected.  I never played it in its original form but if it is anything like the NES game it is absolutely dreadful.  Conan has it all: terrible controls, awful, non-descript graphics and unintuitive gameplay.  I’m struggling to find anything good to say about it.  Absolutely no one talks about this game and with good reason.

There are many bad games in the NES library such as Rambo and Deadly Towers.  Whether they fail because of illogical design decisions they are at least playable, not that you would want to.  Conan is broken at a fundamental level in nearly all aspects.  The game’s control scheme is the definition of unintuitive.  A will perform a punch while B will kick.  You press Up to jump which isn’t the greatest but kind of works.  To jump forward you press down which makes no sense.  Even worse, you must press Down +A to duck and pick up items.  This is beyond idiotic and incredibly frustrating.  Eventually you will accrue a large inventory of items but you can’t switch with select.  You have to enter the menu every time.  There is any number of ways to make the game more intuitive but the developers ignored every one.

The hit detection is atrocious. Throughout the course of the game you will gain a number of weapons in addition to your fists and feet. The sword will be used the most but in addition you will find a dagger and trident. The longer reach of these weapons should make them ideal yet regardless of which item used the hit detection is all over the place. I have been centimeters in front of an enemy and watched all of my attacks phase through them. Sometimes hits that should miss are successful. The bad hit detection unfortunately extends to items as well. Key items such as the mirror shield medusa’s head fail to work at key moments and unfortunately can be used up. At that point you have to restart the game in order to progress.

If you manage to acclimate to the controls you still have to deal with its obtuse design. In the first level you have to destroy the hanging skeleton, find its remains to summon imps and kill their leader for its trident which is needed to kill the Cerberus. None of this is communicated to the player but it gets even worse. In stage two need to destroy the Centurion statue to get the mirror shield which will deflect medusa’s gaze. Once again the game gives no hints to any of this. Trying to kill Medusa in the next level without the shield is near impossible. And so it goes. Even the simple left to right levels such as stage five are frustrating. Good luck figuring out the game’s final puzzle without a guide. You could say that about the entire game. I doubt most will play that long.

The difficulty in Conan is off the charts. Between the busted controls and the fact that nothing seems to work right death comes around every corner. Accidental deaths due to the idiotic control scheme are common. Conan’s attacks will sometimes move him forward causing him to drop off ledges. The leaping jump has a forty five degree angle which means you have to plot out every leap. The platforming is just awful and unfortunately the late game goes heavy on it. The pyramid is just….god. If you somehow persevere through the game’s many faults you get a single picture proclaiming you king and that is it.

In Conclusion

Conan is bad.  It is legendarily bad.  This is not just one of the worst NES games but one of the worst games of all time. Its the kind title that will make you hate video games. I played through it for two reasons. One, to avoid any future regrets like I did with Dr. Chaos. And two, to warn future generations to stay the hell away from this game.