Hydlide review

Game: Hydlide
Platform: NES
Genre: Action RPG
Developer: T&E Soft
AKA: Hydlide Special (JP)

Reader review by siegfried

December 19, 2003

Rumors have it that Hydlide was released on this planet to turn humans into weaklings so a bunch of cutesy, bi-colored characters could invade us.

First, we need to comprehend what Hydlide actually stands for.

(Taken from the Useless Games Manual 1.02 - McCrap Edition)

Hydlide: Brilliant rendition of feces on your TV screen via your NES. Keep toilet paper next to you while experiencing it.

In spite of this, the game begins brilliantly.

You are set on a plain green field and find you can move almost everywhere. And so you do. Next, an enemy comes up to you. Being the heartless bastard that your godfather destined you to be, you think of tearing the foe to threads. And so you do.

Without ever knowing what happened, you find you are dead. Game over.

For those who are either masochists or who just like to know a lot of useless stuff, I will try to decipher the meaning of Hydlide.

I guess you know what The Legend of Zelda, along with all its underlings, represents. You may like it or hate it, but Zelda represents the epitome of video gaming and playing through at least one title of the everlasting series is a must.

Hydlide is a copy of Zelda, minus all its strengths.

Basically, the genius behind Hydlide attempted to destroy Zelda and resorted to this game to do so, Zelda being (understably) protected by International Laws. Of course, he had to change things here and there to prevent himself from being sued off as his direct competitors suspected him of stealing their ideas. Unfortunately, he changed too much.

These changes are exhaustive and, among less important ones, include: no story, a single track through the whole game, no detection system, hilarious enemy designs, flawed game mechanics, invisible weapons and useless spells.

To deduce that Hydlide is a waste of time and money is easy. Unfortunately, you may still be tempted to grab it since it sells for approximately nothing these days. Hell, you may even find it for free in Funcoland's trash cans if you are unlucky enough. You should however never touch it for the following reasons:

1) Playing Hydlide amounts to slamming your head against a wall, drinking a barrel of oil and listening to Justin Timberlake on a Mozart track (alternately, try Britney Spears on any Radiohead trash).

2) If you collect NES games and try to add Hydlide to it, chances that all your other acquirings will run away are extremely high.

3) Even if it costs you nothing, you are about to be robbed of your soul.

Anyway, let's just suppose you decide to be M. Courage and proceed to buy or steal it from the 80-year-old granny who lives next to you.

''Press Start''.

The game mechanics look pretty straightforward. Run around, find some items, slaughter some enemies, defeat bosses, get and attempt to use spells, beat game. As a matter of fact, the game mechanics are simple. The problem is that everything else fails to be coherent and at least passable.

Run around: Running around amounts to walking slower than a snail. Character fails to comprehend directions being input and seems to sleep most of the time.

Find some items: Actually, finding items is dead easy. Of course, this may be due to the fact that they are never hidden and easily recognizable by their less ugly appearance.

Slaughter some enemies: Poor detection system means that this never occurs. However hard you push the button, enemy in question keeps staring at you with a stupid look in its ugly face. After some time, it touches you once and you magically die.

Get and attempt to use spells: Spells are always useless and I have yet to discover why they were added. My guess is the developers found some free space in the cartridge and decided to allocate it to these so-called spells.

Beat game: Unless your middle name is Superman, don't even think about it. Emulation should now enable you to achieve the impossible, but don't bother.

Hydlide really is that bad. And the esoteric game play apparently didn't suffice because the visuals and audio are equally lame. The whole game is in a top view with your main character (who, it must be said, doesn't even have a name) looking like a huge block. His movements occur in at most one and a half frames and there is absolutely no change around him when he uses his weapon. Consequently, you never really know what is going on.

In addition, the music consists essentially of a single track spawning over the entire game. It never fades out which is even more horrible, considering how it sucks. Sound effects amount to approximately nothing.

The final blow is that there is no story in the game, which means you don't even know why you busy fighting against your controller for it. However, my (now zombified) gaming acquaintances have come up with theories as to the setting of Hydlide.

Below is an extract of the message they wrote with their victims' blood after their fifth encounter with Hydlide:

(WARNING: TEXT IS UNEDITED AND MAY CAUSE SEVERE BRAIN GAME TO THE NOVICE)

Schmup, teh HydLid3# Boy izz left in bad bad world n izz set 2 escape alone to waethc hoem alone!!1! plZ help heem get away or rot in HELL, he wi11.. beat gaem n boy appearZ in our$ world. we taeke caaaaaare of him t'en!! Schmup'''

I'll leave you to ponder on that.

Rating: 1/10

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