nester's one star gaming - One star gaming #2

RSS Bot · September 22, 2006

"The Quest for Disillusionment

Hydlide for the NES

When I was a kid I got suckered into playing with a lot of bad toys because they were advertized as beeing cool or special. I would believe just about anything the toy companies told me. I had a similar problem with video games. I had a tendency to hold games in higher regard of they were old. I thought that they would transport me back to another time. The problem was that I really didn't understand what old meant. Because of this, I associated age with quality. If a game looked bad or played akwardly, I knew it was a special game. That's why I spent so much time playing Atari games like Gopher, Pac-Man, and Canyon Bomber. I felt that playing them would instantly transport me to another time.

I had a similar feeling when I played Hydlide. I thought I had stumbled onto something very important. It played lousy, it had primitive graphics, and it was endlessly frustrating. I thought that I must've found the very first RPG ever made. Certainly nothing that came out during the height of the NES would be this bad. I rented this game several times for the historical significance alone.

About 15 years later I picked this game up again. This time I had a new perspective and several electronic research tools. I figured that it would still look alright compaired to the other RPGs of the era. Imagine my surprise when I found out that it was released A YEAR AFTER PHANTASY STAR! I was convinced that I had been cheated all these years. However, I was partially correct. This game was originally released in 1985, but Americans didn't get to play it until the spring of 1989. By then the world should have known better. This game has so many obvious flaws that the game designers almost seem proud of them.

Essentially, Hydlide is a game of starting and stopping thanks to the "ingenious" life recovery system. This game doesn't have inns or tents or anything like that. If you want to heal yourself, all you have to do is stand perfectly still. Your life will slowly start to replenish. This is important because you only start out with a tiny sliver of life. So when you first start out the game goes something like this: fight a slime, stand around, get brave and fight a kobold, stand around, gain a level, stand around even longer. Eventually you will gain enough levels to venture through the harsh terrain, but watch out because some landforms deplete your life as well. Our brave hero is hurt by desert, water, and dirt. That's right, if he stands on dirt long enough he will die.

I'm guessing that the quick deaths on harsh terrain was a way to lenghten this tiny game. This game is so tiny that even the names are kept short. The main character is named Jim. That's right, Jim the hero. Now I know that anyone with any name has the potential for greatness, but I always figured a knight would at least go by James. The overworld consists of what appears to a large continent surrounded by a narrow trench. Past this trench are several other continents just waiting to be discovered. However, something is not quite right in Fairyland. All the parts past the trench look mysteriously like places you've already been before. Hey wait a second, it's all one place! This game basically takes place on one small continent. There are two other small landmasses, but they won't be visited until the end of the game. This is a game about a small warrior with a small name fighting small enemies in a small world trying to save small faries. This game is so small, it makes Dragon Warrior 1 look like Dragon Warrior 7.

I think there's something important to be learned from this game. It is very easy to market things to kids. When I was a child I adored this game because I thought it was something special. When I grew up I pieced together the truth. FCI knew that the RPG market was growing, so they went and found this game in the vaults. They said to themselves "Hey, it's a type of game kids like. It doesn't have to be good." I think I started to become an adult when I realized that companies were more interested in money than fun. For most people I would recommend avoiding this game altogether, but for confused parents who want to teach their kids about the real world, this just might be the game for you.

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