#39: The Addams Family

*snap* *snap*

Now, The Addams Family cartoons and tv shows were from before my time, and the movies and animated show were a little after my cartoon time, so I didn't have a lot of exposure to this franchise. I know the music, and was happy to hear a decent rendition of it on the title screen here.

Wee!

The game itself is a smooth but unexciting platformer. I appear to be playing Gomez Addams who makes use of one button on the controller. Well, technically two buttons, but both A and B do the exact same thing. Jump. Eventually I found a sword upgrade which let me attack with the Y button which was nice for approximately 4 seconds. Then I got hit and lost my sword and never saw another one again. For the most part my only mode of attack was to jump on the enemies like Mario. Some of the enemies, like the lovely tree in the screenshot above, have spikes on their heads. You can't jump on them or you take damage. I guess all I could do is run?

Weeeeeeee!

At one point I found a beanie cap upgrade which let me hit the jump button to fly. It had a limited duration but I got to pick up some dollar signs on the roof that I couldn't have reached without it. I like this sort of thing in a platformer. In another spot I found a wall I could walk through to find a bonus level. Nice!

FAILURE!

Unfortunately I actually had no clue what I was trying to do in the game. I gather from the game over screen that I'm trying to rescue someone. Probably the other members of the Addams Family since I went into lots of rooms and only ever found Lurch and Thing. They were playing the piano in front of a locked door. I assume doing the other levels would eventually unlock that door. Sadly I wasn't actually very good at the game so I kept dying and never completed a level. I tried three times which is more than I've tried most of the other games in this series. It helped that the game seemed to have frequent autosaves in the middle of a level so I didn't have to redo the same stuff over and over when I died.

This game isn't spectacular by any stretch, but it actually seems like a finished product. It hits on many of my pet peeves but it still had good controls and I feel like renting this as a kid wouldn't have been a waste of time or money. And it gets bonus points for having the song on the title screen! I love things like that.

Rating: B