Quest to Beat Every NES Game: #8 The Addams Family

Title: The Addams Family
Year: 1992
Developer: Ocean
Publisher: Ocean
Genre: Platformer

Whether or not you like The Addams Family, Im sure you know the tune. I think everybody knows that damn catchy tune. Well, Ocean butchered it in The Adams Family on the NES, and it really sets the tone for this generic platform collecting game.

You play as Gomez, and your goal, is to rescue all of the family members. Gomez controls are ok, and for the most part are pretty tight. But the hit detection is god awful. If you dont land perfectly on top of an enemy, you take damage. Which brings me to my next big flaw. In 99% of games Ive played, you get hit, you flash and are temporarily invincible. In The Addams Family you dont get that luxury. If you get hit, you will take damage untill you get the fuck away, or die.

At least Ocean was kind enough to give out 3 lives and 3 continues! Not!!! Running around the Addams Family property is more than deadly, its just outright frustrating at times. The furnace and freezer rooms in particular have jumps that just have to be done perfectly or you fall through the platform to your death. The freezer has ice blocks to jump on that barely stay afloat long enough for you to jump across. Too many times I was making the first block, only to sink to death once the second vanished beneath me.

I was stuck at these two screens for a very very long time

I made the mistake of focusing on rescuing the family members and not collect money because I thought money=points and points=worthless. I was wrong. When you rescue all the members except Morticia, you head into a seceret room with a river. At the end is a scale it takes 1 million dollars to open. What happens if you dont? Well then you have to go through the entire game and find any seceret rooms you missed! Whee......

The game itself isnt overly difficult, and if you find the Thing, he helps as a sort of shield, but only 3 times. The kitchen, furnace, and freezer are the most difficult areas, with a constant barrage of forks, knives, pots and pans flying at you in the kitchen. The furnace has fire balls flying everywhere, and a few pretty long jumps. The freezer sicks the most. Gomez really does feel like hes walkin on ice, sliding around and responding poorly. It makes the difficult jumps and avoiding enemies harder than they already are.

This game gets frustrating from the combination of the poor hit detection and zero hit cool down. Thankfully Ocean supplied us with an infinite lives cheat, because there are only two, maybe three extra lives, and almost zero chance of restoring your health. If the developer thinks their game is frustrating enough to require an infinite lives code, then it must be either pleasantly hard, or just flat out frustrating.

The boss of the game is Tully...I think? And uncle Fester. From what I read if the game follows one of the movies, Fester is actually dead and the Fester in the end is an imposter. You can choose to defeat both of them, or if youre quick enough you can skip past then, climb the ladder, and save Morticia before the spikes crush her. Actually, they wont. Theyre more for effect than anything else.