The game: Addam's Family, The
The System: SNES
Time spent on the game(rounded up to the highest hour): 2 hours
Cheats used: Invulnerability
The experience:
Here we are, finally beating a game again after so freakin long.
I won't go into why I chose this game here, as it's sort of a long story. If you want to know the reason behind it, check out my expanded version of this commentary on the board in my signature.
Anyways, this game is...well, one of the best side scrolling platformers I've ever played. It's basically Metroidvania, sans the fact that you jump on everything, with the ability to get weapons which you lose when you get hit, ala Super Mario Bros 3. You could say that's unoriginal, but then again, this game was made by Konami, so that's not entirely true. Plus, I say that originality is just forgetting where you stole your ideas from, and there's nothing wrong with copying something, as long as the end results is still something worth experiencing.
The way this game is Metroidvania is because of the way you access all of the levels in the game. You start in a room with stairs and a bunch of doors. Inside most of the doors are branching paths, making up different rooms of the Addams Family Mansion. Most of the rooms are quite unique, given their own name and everything. All of the rooms have their names listed at the top of the screen, which is great both because it's a great way to keep track if you're walking in circles or not, and The goal is to find your way to the boss of the area, and beat that boss, which results in either an extra heart ala the Zelda series, or the saving of a family member. Both of which result in the game giving you real simple 4 letter password.
Once you save all of the family members except for Morticia, you can head to the room in the beginning of the game that leads to where Lurch is playing the piano, and the way is cleared, leading to the final sets of levels. Once you beat the final boss, you're treated to an ending which shows off the game designers, in Addams family style portraits, which is beyond beautifully artistic.
Anyways, I went on way too long with this. I have more to say, but once again, if you want to read it, check out the post in the A View to a Kill forum.
My bottom line is that if the unique areas, and fun, yet extremely challenging platforming isn't reason enough to play a game like this, then those along with the music of this game should be.
Up tomorrow: Another 2 parter, where I cover the project's first Disney game, and another game that I covered in the Daily NES project.
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Project Beat a Game a Day, along with my Daily NES Archive:
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/563947-a-view-to-a-kill