Welcome to another edition of Playing With Power. The review article that looks at all things Nintendo Entertainment System. 1991 was a great year for so many things. It was a great year for cartoons, video games, music, television, the whole magilla. In terms of movies though, I do think it was a mixed bag. Don’t get me wrong. Lots of great ones came out like Silence of the Lambs, Terminator 2, Hook, even Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey (My favorite in the series). But you also get some forgettable films, and with that, some forgettable movie video game adaptations, like the one we’re going to look at this week. It’s time to venture deep into Sherwood Forest with Kevin Costner in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. Doe it rob the rich and feed the poor, or did it just rob people out of money that could have gone to a better game? Let’s find out.
YEAR OF RELEASE: 1991
PUBLISHER: Virgin Interactive
GENRE: Action RPG
Robin Hood is one of the oldest and most beloved tales of all time about a group of heroes and their rugged bad ass leader who rob the corrupt rich to help feed the poor. It’s a tale older than all of us. It’s also a tale that has been done in every conceivable way in Hollywood. From the swashbuckling Errol Flynn version, to the animal filled Disney version, it’s a classic tale we always love to revisit.
So, it comes as no surprise that Warner Bros would try to make another Robin Hood movie in 1991. The film, named Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, would star Kevin Costner as Robin himself. It received mixed reviews from critics, often citing everything from the more depressing and violent aspects of the story, to the fact that Costner seemed unwilling to attempt an English accent.
Despite the critical mixed reactions, the film still did bank at the box office, earning an estimated worldwide gross of $390,493,908. And with the success of the film would come a video game adaptation. An NES and Game Boy game would be released late in 1991, and wasn’t exactly a major hit. Hell, I was mostly unaware this existed until I first saw the review of this game by Spoony, who depicted the game to be quite terrible. Is it though?
COVER STORY
I actually like this cover a lot. Yeah, it doesn’t have Kevin Costner on the cover, and that may have been better to attract people to the game, but the cover we get is really cool. A silhouette of Robin with bow drawn, ready to shoot as the sun rises above him. That is a sign of really well done imagery, and works for me a lot better than going for static box art. A definite win of a cover from Virgin.
STORY
The game’s story loosely follows that of the film. After escaping a prison in Jerusalem, Robin of Loxley returns to his castle in England to see it in ruins and his father hanged and killed. With King Richard off fighting the crusades, the Sheriff of Nottingham has spread his tyranny and evil all across England. It’s up to Robin and a band of merry men to stop the evil Sheriff and save England once and for all.
GAMEPLAY
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves is a one player action RPG. You control the titular Robin of Loxley as he must go through his adventure and eventually defeat the evil Sheriff of Nottingham. You move Robin with the D-Pad in all eight directions, select pauses the game, start opens up your menu with the different abilities Robin has. A & B in the main game will control the weapon Robin is currently using in that hand.
The gameplay styles are broken into four main game styles. First is a top down hack and slash similar to Legend of Zelda, where as Robin, you’ll face off against wave after wave of evil guards, evil animals, and other evil things. You’ll be in this mode for most of the talking segments in the game as well, so it will be the one you’ll get used to easily.
In this mode, Robin can pause the game to do one of several things. This includes Talk, which you can also do if you walk to someone, so adding it here is pretty useless. There’s Look, which just gives little info about where you currently are. Take grabs any item you’re close to, which again something you can do anyway. Search will look around the room, and help you find useful items of passageways nearby. And there’s Player, which access your hub, where you can do everything from check your stats, equip weapons and armor, and eat health restoring items.
As you advance, you will collect new weapons for you to use. Be it broadswords, or the legendary bow and arrow. You can actually duel weild certain items if Robin holds both in each hand, but most of the time you’ll likely be needing the other hand for holding other items, like say a torch underground. Also, the bow requires two hands to operate, but has the best range. However, you also have to collect arrows to use it, which can be a pain.
The next gameplay style is the swordfight, where it’s now a sidescrolling fight against an enemy. Be it the likes of a guard in Jerusalem, or Little John, or even the Sheriff. You move back and forth with the D-Pad, shuffling around like you’re M.C Hammer with the D-Pad, jump with the B, and attack with sword with the B. These seem fun on paper, but the downside is immediately noticable with the enemy. They have no brilliant patterns, it’s simply swipe swipe swipe, and hope to corner you. And trying to get a good amount of shots without taking damage is near impossible at times, making things even more annoying.
Next up is a different type of top down fight, where you now have to take on waves of enemies. During the game, you will have different characters join your band, be it Azeem, Little John, or Duncan. They are in your party for these battles. Your camera is pulled further back, now making your party, you move a lot slower, and your health seemingly can drop quick. Another downside is your party are morons. They usually move around willy nilly, and more often then not get slain in battle. It’s infuriating. A plus though is you don’t even have to give them the best weapons to fight, and hoard them for yourself. Hell, Duncan enters the fray with a roast leg as his weapon.
Finally the last major gameplay style is evading enemies via horseback. You just move to the right, and jump over anything that comes by. Simple, but gets tougher as the game goes on. Not really too much to say about it.
As you mow down enemies, the game undergoes an RPG element, where you will level your stats higher as you advance, with the most important thing being your health. Trust me, these guys can slay you fast, and unlike you, they don’t even have to be perfectly lined up. Plus, they corner you for even a couple seconds, say goodbye to that health, and hello to a game over. You do get continues though… a whole two. That’s right, you have to beat what is technically a rather long game with what is essentially three lives. But you do get some help in the form of cheats, but we’ll get to that when we talk about them.
You’ll travel from the Jerusalem prison, to the underground waterways, as you must continue what is for the most part a rather linear task that follows certain events from the movie, while still taking liberties for themselves, because this is a video game adaptation, and they can’t ever be 100% faithful. Unless I just glossed over the part where Robin Hood fights a giant skeleton guard that is.
The game has poor hit detection in most places, as well as some just annoying gameplay in other spots. And for a game that seemingly wants you to play through its rather long quest in one sitting, you find yourself getting bored as you go along. But they did at least add one thing.
POWER TIP
The game isn’t totally unforgiving as it does give you a level select password that lets you start in a certain chapter of the story. By pressing A 8 times, and B 8 times at the start menu, you can access a password function. Type in these words to access a certain part of the story. But be warned. You start with no major items, and at level 1. Have fun.
The Catacombs- CATACOMB
Hadrian’s Wall-WALL
Locksley’s Castle-LOCKSLEY
Dubois Manor-DUBOIS
Horse Race 1-CHASE
Baron’s Wedding-CATHEDRAL
Wild Boar-BOAR
Search for the missing man-WELL
Get the Dagger From Marian-CHAPEL
Hire Fighting Instructor-MASTER
Raid the Tax Carts-TAX
Cure the Camp-POND
Protect The Village-VILLAGE
Battle the Celts-CELTS
Go to the Town-TOWN
Inside the Town-TOWNHANG
Inside the Last Castle-CASTLEIN
End-WEDDING (The ending of the game if you don’t even want to bother with this game any further. And trust me, it’s not worth the hassle)
GRAPHICS
If I could describe this game’s graphics in one word it would easily be muddy. Very, very, VERY muddy. Everything is an ugly mish mash of greens and browns. Character sprites are brown, the land is mostly brown. The NES wasn’t the most major of color palettes, but at least they still had a plethora of choices. This just looks messy.
Also all of the characters look nothing like their movie counterparts in cutscenes and dialogue segments. I dunno if this was a copyright issue or awful designers. Either way, it just adds to the ugly that this game has.
MUSIC
Speaking of ugly, the soundtrack doesn’t fare much better. A few medieval sounding tunes, and mostly some inoffensive track choices, but nothing that ever comes off as memorable. Perhaps the best track is the battles against multiple soldiers, but even that’s nothing amazing either. Just par for the course.
OVERALL THOUGHTS
I didn’t like this one for a lot of reasons. Gameplay feels erratic, trying too hard to add multiple genres and styles without ever making them feel fun, just having them come off as extremely annoying. Graphics are a muddied joke, music is bland, and nothing feels memorable. Not to mention the annoying difficulty at times, mixed with the real punishing feel the game puts you under when you lose. And shoehorned passwords don’t help either.
I only made it to maybe the first quarter of the game before dying, and I must say that Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves feels like it stole time from me, and I really don’t care to continue. And after seeing the ending we’re rewarded to, I don’t think I’m missing much more on this journey to keep me wanting to press on. It’s one of my least favorite games on the console, and I’m just glad to be done with it. Robin Hood is Nothin’ Good.
RATING: Thumbs Down