#7 Abadox

 Yep, thats the tongue of this sick planet eater.

Title: Abadox
Year: 1990
Developer: Natsume
Publisher Milton Bradley
Genre: Shoot em Up

When you first think of a game developed by Natsume you think of their popular Harvest moon line, and being published by Milton Bradley must mean its family fun entertainment...right?

Well fortunately Abadox is none of those, and Im actually suprised Nintendo allowed such a graphic game on the NES back when they were known for censoring and not allowing so many things in their games. When you first power up Abadox youre greeted by a blood covered title (and I dont mean a couple drips, the damn thing looks like it beat a man to death)

The opening sequence starts off with a very creepy tune, your character teleports out of the main ship or something, and you blast off towards...HOLY SHIT WTF IS THAT?! Yeah, it looks like a giant tangle of intestines with a massive razor toothed mouth. The subtitle of Abadox is "The Deadly Inner War" and thats not metaphoric, its literal.

The first stage really gives you a taste of how messed up this game is. Your ebemies range from floating eyeballs, jaws, and what appears to be exploding tumors rolling on the ground. To top it off, the entire stage is made out of entrails.

Man this shit mustve given kids horrible nightmares as in the 90s

The stages only become more disturbing from here on out. Bosses range from an inside out mutated canine of some sorts, to meat faces, giant parasitic worms or fish...or something...but theyre all easy if you pick up all the power ups.
With the exception of the first mini boss you meet in the first stage, and the worm mini boss in the second stage are probably harder than any of the bosses in the entire game. It seems most of the bosses have a blind spot that you can duck into and blast them without getting hit. The fish/larve creature for instance; itd target is the tip of its hooked tail. It also blasts laser beams from it so a frontal assault is suicide. Instead (if you have the spread shot) hang as close as you can to the side, just enough to where your bits hit it and your spread shots and missles hit it, and boom its dead. The giant robot man in stage 5 had the same trick by his head.

Control wise the game is ok. At times your ship feels a little twitchy, and light taps occasionally crush you into the walls in the vertical scrolling stages. The weapon firing is annoying though. I understand they were probably trying to keep the sprite count down on the screen, but 3 shots on screen is just frustrating!!! Why limit such a strong game with such a limiting shot count?

The stages themselves are challenging, and become borderline bullet hell. The problem is the game begins to lag to the point that even a moderate tapping of the b button hardly causes your shits to fire. Some stages had me seeing the game over screen way too much.  particularly the lsdt one, where they decide to pull out all the stops and throw some of the toughest enemies in the game. There are green flames that combine into a phoenix like creature, however, hit a flame, and they all start homing in on you unless you can blast them all away.

Theres plenty of power ups to defend yourself from everything 

The music in Abadox is great, from the intro sequence to the ending, it never gets boring or dull, to me at least. Also, now that I mentioned the ending, its a race to escape the monster before it explodes. You collect some speed power ups to maneuver faster, then dodge obstacles as the screen flies by at breakneck speeds. After that, sit back and watch the giant ball of guts explode.

Im still suprised Nintendo let this game go through without the gore getting toned down, but it seems one part was edited. When you save the princess from the core (always gotta save a princess) in the japanese release, shes naked. In the us release shes wearing a red kimono. So I guess Nintendos fine with blood, guts, and dismembered organs, but not pixilated, featureless skin. Not in America at least.

Rating: B-

Difficulty 6/10

Completion Time: 45-60min