Hey, thanks for reading! This blog’s first retro review is an unlicensed NES game, which is a phenomenal way to get this started.
A brief history of unlicensed NES stuff – when Nintendo launched the NES, they established an extremely strict policy on what games could be played on their console to avoid another Atari-esque crash. A number of different companies found various ways around this, and as a result there are around 90 commercially released games without Nintendo’s seal of approval.
One such game is American Video Entertainment’s Trolls on Treasure Island. This was released in 1994, making it one of the last NES games to be released (the SNES has been out for 3 years at this point). I knew very little about this game before playing it, but figured it was probably a weird knockoff of the troll doll craze, and probably a weird platformer. To my surprise, it is neither of those.
As it turns out, it’s those trolls. Oh, and it’s not a platformer…
It’s a puzzle game. I’m already confused beyond belief.
In Trolls on Treasure Island, you control a troll doll who must collect all the gems in each level. Some of them are immediately visible, while others are hidden behind blocks and other stuff. In order to pick up a gem, your troll’s hair must match that gem’s color. That color can be changed by running over a paint bucket. Certain other things, like doors, are also color dependent, but it’s all fairly intuitive. Change a troll’s hair, grab the gems that match that color, repeat until you have everything. Simple enough, right?
Yeah, of course it isn’t. In addition to the above, your troll is constantly moving forward. Especially once the levels get complicated (which happens rather quickly), this requires quick thinking and quick controller inputs. Unfortunately, the latter of those is where Trolls on Treasure Island loses a lot of its luster – it’s pretty clunky. The level of precision required in some levels is pretty high, and the game doesn’t make it easy on you.
Amusingly, your troll’s face in the top left corner goes from happy, to sad, to “dead,” and once that happens, you get the helpful message above. In a way, it’s basically Doom meets Dark Souls.
Trolls on Treasure Island has a whole bunch of levels, and (thankfully) a password system so you can play it across multiple session. It even has a rudimentary level editor so you can make your own impossible-to-play monstrosities:
Also, for unclear reasons, some of the levels are credited to specific people:
Who doesn’t love “Wierd Al”?
It’s likely also worth noting that this is almost exactly the same as the prior AVE release Dudes With Attitude, which somehow looks even less like it’s a puzzle game:
Give yourself a minute to process this image. Seriously, I’ll wait.
Okay, back to trolls. I honestly rather enjoyed Trolls on Treasure Island – the controls are bad, but the puzzles are pretty good and often quite challenging. While it is nowhere near as good as, say, Chu Chu Rocket!! or Chip’s Challenge, at varying times it reminded me of both. If you enjoy weird puzzle games, this game (or Dudes With Attitude, which is the same and a bit cheaper) is worth a look.
Next week, I’ll be exploring one of the lesser-known games where you just gotta go fast.