If you’re an elder millennial like me, you know the struggle of gaming back in the 8-bit era; basing your purchases or rentals largely on the box art, and maybe if you were lucky, a few screenshots from the back cover. For better or worse, both of these factors were often misleading, and if you don’t believe me, look into the NES gem Friday the 13th. If Battlekid: Fortress of Peril was released in 1990, the cover image would allude to it being of the anime variety, and the screen grabs would likely give you some heavy Mega Man vibes, but at least both are at least partially factual.

The game looks and feels like yet another clone of the Blue Bomber, but before you roll your eyes like I did (since this seems to be the blueprint for almost every retro-releases post-2020), the developer made the brilliant decision to add in a Metroidvania touch that sends you off exploring a metric ton of levels while taking down eight bosses. If you grew up playing either of these styles of games, you’ll find a lot to love here. It captures the style of the NES releases to near perfection, even going as far as including a random glitched audio blip when the game loads in beyond the tile on the Xbox dashboard, and many little pixelated groups that triggered my nostalgia muscle making me think back to which game from my childhood I had seen it before. The difficulty, even at its lowest setting, is on par with the punishing difficulty of most games from the era. In all honestly, this is a near-perfect representation of what gaming was like in the early 90s and really showcases how far the medium has come, thanks to the omission of damn near every modern convenience, as well as removing some that should just be givens regardless of when it was released. I get that this was ported directly from a cartridge to console, but I feel like a few of these should’ve been there in 1990, not just in 2022.

When I was eight, I had the attention span of a squirrel on meth, so long-winded storyboard-style scenes were almost always skipped as quickly as I could mash the A button. Little has changed in my 30s, and if you opt to play the Story mode as opposed to the Arcade option, you’ll be treated to the story as to why and how Timmy is going to save the world from some aliens. Or something. Between the anime-styled characters and the over-the-top in all the wrong ways writing, I really struggled to connect with Timmy during the early scenes that were crucial to setting up the story. Due to this, I actually opted to just restart the game and go with the Arcade mode, which is mostly the same experience, but without the unskippable scenes that I couldn’t even prompt to speed up a bit.

Outside of the mode of play, there are a few difficulty options. These mostly impact your health count and the number of lives you receive, and you can also control the border settings, which I applaud since I still occasionally play on an older plasma that is probably one of the last remaining 3D TVs in existence, so burn-in is still a huge concern for me. As far as options go, that’s it – there is nothing more to it. And this might be a petty complaint, but personally, I struggled with a few things, like the lack of choice when it came to how I played.

When I started the game, I instinctively went to hit A to shoot and thought B was jump, but it is inversed and feels counterintuitive to my thirty or so years of gaming. Normally, if I kept hitting the wrong button on a game like this, I would just mess with the settings, but that isn’t the case here. While I was able to go into the Xbox settings to remap my buttons that way, it was an annoyance that cost me heavily, something along the line of 100,000 runes, if I would swap between this and my current addiction, Elden Ring. The same can be said for the inability to adjust the volume, as the polyphonic music eventually felt like a cheese grater to my eardrums and overshadowed the other effects.

The title also uses a password system, and I can respect the dedication to the era it represents, but I am at a point in my life where I don’t always game with my phone or a pad of paper sitting close by. As the great Patrick Henry said, “Give me a save system, or give me death!” or something like that. Making matters worse, the patented Quick Resume feature offered on the Xbox Series X doesn’t function here. I am not sure if that is on the developer or Microsoft, but if I can use this option on Control or Guardians of the Galaxy, I should be able to use it on a title that weighs in at less than a quarter of a gigabyte.

If you’re into retro games, Battlekid: Fortress of Peril is a worthy addition to your collection despite lacking some crucial options that can be mitigated, but not without some effort on the player’s part.

7 out of 10

Pros

• A True NES Release
• Mega Man meets Metroidvania

Cons

• Limited Options
• Password Save System

Battle Kid: Fortress of Peril was developed by Sivak Games and published by 8 Bit Legit. The game is available for X1 and NES. The game was provided to us for review on Xbox and played on Series X and Xbox One. If you’d like to see more of Battle Kid: Fortress of Peril, check out the publisher’s site.

 

Here at GBG we use a rating method that you are more than likely familiar with – a scale of 1 to 10. For clarification, we intend on using the entire scale: 1-4 is something you should probably avoid paying for; 5-7 is something that is worth playing, but probably not at full price; 8-10 is a great title that you can feel confident about buying. If you have any questions or comments about how we rate a game, please let us know.

 

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