Developer: Advance Communication Company Publisher: Bandai Release: 04/89 Genre: Action
Oh boy, this game. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is one of the most reviled games in the NES library and with good reason. It is every bit as bad as you may have heard. It is rare to come across a game that fails on such a fundamental level. If someone told me that the developers set out to make the most annoying game ever I would say give them an award they succeeded. Make no mistake Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is absolutely terrible and one of the worst games on the system. Avoid it at all costs.
The premise of the game is simple. As the good doctor Jekyll you have managed to keep the dark aspects of your mind under control with a potion. The goal is to reach your wedding to Miss Millicent. Unfortunately all manner of misfortune block your path, from angry rival suitors, bees, and rabid animals. Although the doctor mostly has things under control if he becomes too stressed things can turn ugly…..
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a game of two halves. As Dr. Jekyll your only weapon is your cane which you can use to poke enemies. In theory. In reality the cane is useless and will inevitably cause you to take damage. The range is low and the attack is slow. About the only thing you might take out are bees. You can defuse bombs too but good luck with that. With combat being useless that means you are better off avoiding enemies. Dr. Jekyll is one of the slowest video game protagonists ever. Every one of his actions is painfully slow and it is impossible to avoid being hit. You have two meters to watch, a life bar and stress meter. Different attacks will deplete either. If you lose all your life you die. When, not if he becomes too stressed he will transform into Mr. Hyde.
As Mr. Hyde the game becomes an auto scrolling action shooter. The game moves in reverse and rather than a stress meter you have a sanity bar. Killing demons refills sanity and once full you revert back to Dr. Jekyll. The goal is to change back to the doctor before Mr. Hyde reaches the same point you switched otherwise it is instant death. This part of the game is better since it is fast paced but still has issues. Your melee attack is just as worthless as the cane. The psycho wave is better but flies In a sine wave pattern. It is unpredictable but generally gets the job done. While this aspect of the game is slightly enjoyable you generally want to avoid it as much as possible. That becomes impossible later in the game.
Dr. Jekyll’s agonizing slow walk is aggravating enough. But it is made worse by how frequent attacks come. It is not out of the ordinary to narrowly avoid an angry dog only for another to appear seconds later. Sometimes it happens four times in a row! The bomb guy is the most annoying. Every time he drops a bomb it is seemingly random how far large the blast radius is. There were times I was almost half a screen away and it still hit. Other times I was foot away and dodged it. Bombs will almost fill the stress bar. By the midpoint Elena McCowen appears and her musical notes are also impossible to avoid. You can pay her to shut up but you only get coins as Hyde. But you want to avoid playing as Mr. Hyde. The two halves barely mesh.
The premise of the game is sound and could have made for a good action romp but the execution is lacking. The idea of a good-natured man slowly losing his shit on his wedding day is unique but man did they botch it. It is apparent the designers want you to play as Hyde later in the game as you cannot dodge so many hazards. I was going to say if you are unlucky you might change two or three times in a row. But with the sluggish pace and awful controls it will happen. There are multiple endings but with the overall sloppy execution I cannot see anyone bothering.
In fact when I played this game as a youth I thought there was no ending because the stages repeat. In actuality the Western release is a cut down version of the Japanese game. That title (Jekyll Hakase no Houma ga Toki) has six distinct stages: city, alley, park, cemetery, town, and street. For some reason Bandai removed the city and alley and repeat the cemetery and town twice. The layout is different but it is still the same tile set. Considering how difficult it is to make it far enough for the game to repeat itself you can see why most probably stopped at that point. There are other features missing as well. There are more enemies and most importantly a NPC who would restore your health. That is not to say that it is a good game. It is still bad. But at least it has more variety.
In Closing
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is commonly considered one of the worst games of all time. Spend a few minutes with it and you can see why. I am trying to think of anything good to say about it and coming up blank. Like Superman and Dr. Chaos this is another title that I gave up on and considered impenetrable. Revisiting it now they are simply bad games that I should never have bothered with in the first place. Boredom makes you do strange things I guess.
