Adventures of Lolo (NES)

Hey it's by HAL, the Kirby and Smash Bros developers. Maybe this one won't be so bad.

Nooooooooo, the giant hand is kidnapping Lolo's berry girlfriend. He's so sad, look at the tears in his eyes.

Wait, giant hand? I wonder if it's related to Master Hand from Smash Bros.

That right there is one foreboding looking castle. Noticeably lacking a moat though. Plus they forgot to lower the portcullis, so Lolo can just stroll right in unimpeded.

Oh, she's a princess, not his girlfriend. Man, it seems like distressed damsels only come in two varieties in these old games, girlfriend or princess. Or both.

Okay, it looks like a puzzle game maybe. I've got a treasure chest, a heart icon and an enemy on screen. There's a door, but it's shut and the enemy is in the way.

I did the sensible thing and ran right for the treasure, but no amount of button mashing is encouraging it to open.

The enemy remains motionless. It just sits there, staring at me.

I collected the heart, and still nothing. Pressing the buttons on the trees has no effect either.

Also I noticed that the trunk kind of looks like the word 'UP' and now I can't help but see it on every tree. A screen full of UP UP UP UP.

As a last resort I try running up to the enemy and doing kung fu on it. Nothing. Lolo does nothing, the enemy does nothing, absolutely nothing happens.

There is no way I'm letting this game beat me on level one though, I'll figure this out. Anyone reading this who's played the game before and knows what to do, feel free to shout at the monitor what I'm doing wrong. It might help, you never know.

As a last resort I tried pressing Start and Select. And now Lolo is dead. What sort of harsh game has a suicide button?

Let's try that again.

Okay, it turns out that the heart pick up gave me a couple of shots. I must have wasted them first time around trying to chop through trees without even realising I had them.

I fired one at the treasure chest (nothing) then I fired the other at the enemy and he turned into an egg!

I pushed the egg to the door, and got the last pickup (then he broke out of the egg, but I'll work out how to get him out of the way of the door later). Weirdly it didn't give me ammo this time, but it did open the damn treasure chest. Finally.

And collecting the treasure made the enemies disappear giving me a clear path to the now open exit! Excellent.

This seems very straightforward. I can reach all the heart boxes without any messing around. The enemies just sit there and leave me alone like last time.

Not much of a puzzle really. The items are collected and the treasure is opened. Next level please.

The son of a bitch shot me! He didn't do that on the way there. Damn, collecting the boxes must have woken them up.

It seems to be a mystery what these heart boxes will do until you pick them up.

I got more egg shots! Pre-egged enemies are no threat to me. At least until they break out again, so I should probably grab those hearts in a hurry.

Collect the heart, egg the monster. This is all too easy now.

Well... damn, now I'm trapped here and I have no more egg ammo. The only way out of here is the suicide key again.

Turns out I was just supposed to shoot him twice, to make his egg fly across the level. Well okay, now I know I can do that.

Crap, collecting all the hearts on this level made the enemies come alive and chase me. I liked it better when they just sat there and watched.

Okay, now I know these enemies fire lethal darts at me when I cross their horizontal or vertical lines of sight. This really seems like the kind of game that'd work better without lives. I'm not a fan of losing a life just to see what a puzzle element does.
 
Especially when I can just continue from the same place when I run out of lives.

I've cleverly outwitted them now. Unlike the trees, these boxes are dart-proof. I can go collect any heart box I want and they can't do a damn thing to stop me.

The box trick works again. I'm basically a genius.

Oh. I forgot they could fire up and down too. Because I'm basically an idiot.

On this level they've given me a heart box powered hammer, for the purposes of getting rid of a block to get to that heart block. I cleverly figured that out by the way the hammer started flashing when I collected a certain number of hearts.

Another new item. A thing that makes these things with arrows on turn around. Very handy, because while it's pointing up I'm not sure I can get inside.

Oh crap, opening the door let the monsters in. Man I wish I had a hammer right now. Or a lot more egg shots.


Well I'm screwed. Next game.