Willow for NES - A Review | hungrygoriya
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- Опубліковано 8 тра 2022
- Willow for the NES is wonderful movie adaptation to the video game medium. Although it departs from the film's plot quite a bit, it excels in its style and action and has an incredibly memorable soundtrack. It's an easy favourite to add to the growing list of great NES games. 🍖
The introductory animation and outro text were created and designed by Saad Azim.
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#retrogaming #willow #nes - Ігри
I bought this game a while ago for the NES. I'm saving it for a time when I'm in between construction jobs. Thank you for your video on this game.
I love you
Yay, Willow! As a kid obsessed with the The Legend of Zelda, I considered Willow and Crystalis to be pretty much essential parts of my gaming library. Glad you had a chance to enjoy this one, and agreed on the music -- the Dartmoor Castle theme will always stick with me, and is one of those tracks I just occasionally find myself humming for no reason, even decades after the last time I fired this one up.
I cannot even IMAGINE playing through the first half of the game without the Healmace, though. You are definitely hardcore! ;)
Sometimes I play through a whole game and can't remember a single bit of the music, but this game's soundtrack has definitely stuck with me.
And it was so tough getting through without the healmace, but I kept going. Thankfully someone was there in the streams to gently let me know that all hope was not lost on healing capabilities and soon enough I had found the heal ball. A close call though! I can't imagine getting through some of those later areas with no ability to heal whatsoever.
Crystalis is best NES game.
Just saying!
(I have a Crystalis tshirt even)
@@childofcascadia I mean, I can't really argue with you! Crystalis is one of those perfect storms of an NES game that basically did everything right. It's a classic for a reason!
Yeah this was a great game that brought something new to the Zelda formula. Willow was one of my favorite NES games.
@@childofcascadia crystalis is my all time favorite nes game to.
Where have you been my WHOLE LIFE! I still play this game every few years! Great review!
I've been around a long while here. Glad you found me! Thanks very much for the kind words!
There was a side scrolling Willow game for the Arcade. You can in fact find it and play it in ROM form. I remember as a kid they had it somewhere, so I actually got to play it.
I've seen some of that game before. I might give it a try someday, but adventure games appeal to me more. I'm glad I played this one first.
The arcade game is excellent. Lost many quarters to it in the late 80s.
The wiggly forest animations during battles always make me smile 😆
Awesome review! One of my favourite games I've seen you stream.
Awww thank you! I'm glad you liked the review. It's always a better stream when you're able to pop in, so thank you for being a constant part of that aspect of my gaming as well!
It's cool to see how well crafted this game was in spite of being a licensed title. I suspect licensing issues can also make it challenging or unprofitable to be re-released for modern audiences.
Well, it'd be nice to see it come around again in some form with the new TV show coming out soon! I really enjoyed this one even though I haven't seen the movie in ages.
I've had this cartridge for quite a number of years but haven't gone past just checking it out. It really seemed awesome and I told myself one day I'm going to really have to get into this. Now more then ever I think the time has come. The clips you provided and great review have made it a must for me now. I don't know why I've sat on it so long. Thank you very much and as always stay hungry 😊
Good luck with your playthrough! I'm sure you're going to enjoy your time with it. It'll be well worth the wait!
Thank you for this review. I enjoy every time you upload a new video
Just found this channel, I have to say, I love your review style! Kind of reminds me of a lot of early 2010's game review channels, in a good way. Very laid back, wonderfully narrated, straight to the point without leaving out anything important, and you did a great job of smoothly transitioning between your talking points.
I didn't know anything about this game, but I was immediately hooked into wanting to learn more about it regardless. You've earned another subscriber.
This is extremely high praise! Thank you very much!
Great review as always! I played this as a kid when it was new, and I fondly remembered it as a masterpiece until a few months ago when I replayed it. Without my nostalgia goggles on, I noticed the same flaws that you pointed out. In the end I think it's a 4-star game, while I give Zelda 5 stars. Willow's world often looks great but for the most part it's just a bunch of what you called "labyrinthine passageways", while Zelda features a world that's far more explorable and mysterious, where almost every screen hides a secret in the form of a burnable tree, a bombable wall, etc. One thing Willow has going for it is the nice towns; Zelda might be my favorite game of all time if only it had a hub town to make the world feel more like a world.
I hear ya! I do appreciate how different Willow is from Zelda though, in that it is more fleshed out NPC-wise and also very interconnected and linear in its design versus that open-world feeling. Folks always compare the two and other than a top-down perspective and someone swinging a sword, they're pretty different!
There aren't many western released NES games I haven't given a try yet, but this is one of them. Will have to give it a try in 2023. Another very good review/retrospective. I was pointed to your channel by the guys at Red Cow Arcade, and I'm a big fan of your content. I love how no-nonsense and informative your videos are. This is an approach that's surprisingly rare on UA-cam. Even when the game you cover doesn't really interest me (as with Solstice, for example) I find myself really enjoying the way you analyze them. No gimmicks, just quality. Keep up the great work. 👏
I hope you like Willow when you give it a go. It's probably some of the most fun I've had on the NES in terms of action RPGs and it's very rewarding to get through some of the tougher parts.
And thanks very much for your kind words. Those folks at Red Cow Arcade have send quite a few people out my way and I'm grateful for that! I really enjoy this hobby and it's nice to know that my enthusiasm comes across to the viewer side. I try to put a personal spin on most of my videos so they're not just the same old same old you'll find on other channels. I'm always interested in hearing about people's experience with a game versus a history lesson, so that's the kind of review I like to make. Thank you for taking a chance on this channel!
I'm really enjoying these reviews, very detailed and thorough and often titles that I haven't heard of.
So glad you found me here! I try to mostly focus on titles that aren't as well-discussed, but sometimes I like to talk about stuff that's a bit more mainstream too.
I'm surprised how good this one looks. I usually would have passed over this because it's a licensed game, but it seems like it would be a fun one to try. Gonna have to keep an eye out for it on my game hunts.
I hope you can find a copy. I think it's still on the cheaper side. My choppy composite video doesn't quite do its brilliance justice compared to seeing it on a CRT.
Capcom made good licensed games bitd man. All the Disney titles. The Marvel games....
@@hungrygoriya hey there HG , I'm a mega retro gamer who loves Legend of Zelda NES series , , , that being said Willow has that vibe ,hate to admit it but Willow looks WAYYYY better than ZELDA-1 and 2 , , , ,kinda ticks me off that NES didn't get a better looking ZELDA-3 , , , no instead we get ZELDA game on SNES and the Willow sprite details look better than the SNES ZELDA ,dang dang dang , makes me want to kick Mr Miyamoto in the balls , , ,😞👾
@@wyldelf2685 It's a great-looking game, that's for sure!
I was lucky enough to see you complete this on twitch. I remember how you had to go right back to the start to heal before the final boss! I actually tried this on an emulator after watching you play and it's a great game of its type, really love the music too. This is the type of game I'd have loved as a kid.
Po definitely got a workout in my streams! I'm glad you got to play it too. I think I would've loved it as a kid!
the pixel art is wonderful🎉
I'm so happy I discovered an NES game that has so much care put into it.
It's one of the best-looking games on the system! I also love how Faxanadu looks. Not many games capture ambience quite as well as that one does.
I was lucky enough to get this game for Christmas in 1990, back when my brain still absorbed information like a sponge. Heh, it's been one of my favorites on the NES ever since then. Great review, great writing! And props on using (forgive if I misspell these) Muzh and Zeena's theme for the outro.
Oh nice! I wish I'd had the chance to play something like this as a kid. I think I would've really enjoyed it back then, but we didn't have a lot of NES games at the time. And thanks so much for the kind words! Exploring the NES library beyond what I got to experience growing up has been wonderful. The outro tune I used is absolutely beautiful and wistful. It seemed like the proper way to close out the review and leave people feeling a little hopeful.
I love this video and you for making it. This game has haunted me since childhood and I hope I get the chance to replay it again before I die. Keep up the good work!
Good luck with your playthrough when you get around to it. It's a beautiful little game.
I know this was posted a year ago, but YT decided I need to see it, and you unlocked some memories of renting this NES cart from a local supermarket video rental shelf, I was so upset how lacking the printed booklet was with HOW to play so MUCH. I loved Zelda 1 and 2, but so many games with more complex systems just never gave you any hint about how it worked.
Never bear this game on cart, but still loved the side characters, and as an adult who loved the movie, the extra lore was so great to revisit..
It's nice that it's almost like a new adventure for everyone involved in the original movie. If it was just a rehash of the movie events, it wouldn't be nearly as endearing to me!
Been playing this on and off for years. Always a fun game to come back to.
I liked this one quite a bit.
Just found your channel and watched a few reviews. Love it. Gonna watch em all. Thanks for such high quality content.
Oh right on! Thanks so much for your kindness and enjoy!
Awesome video. I played this when it was new, and this lined up with my experience a lot of the time. Thanks for the review
Hey no problem! Thanks for taking the time to watch. The music from this one's still stuck in my head all these months later.
okay, now I'll watch Willow. I've always wanted to but kept forgetting!
I think it holds up pretty well! Enjoy!
Yesssss!!! I had looked up your channel earlier to see if I had missed content and was sad. But alas I rejoice for to my surprise a new video is here!
It was great. :-)
Hooray! Your senses were tingling, apparently!
I’ve recently gotten into retro gaming and watching retro reviews. You happened to be in my feed one day and I’ve been watching you ever since. I enjoyed your Lunar and Spellcaster videos a lot, and this one’s great too. Willow was a game I had the opportunity to rent but never did. I regret that now lol. It looks great.
Keep up the awesome work and Big Ups!
Thank you very much for the encouragement! I'm really glad you found me here!
Such an awesome video! Thanks for playing it and bringing more eyes to this title! I'm a little biased towards it but all your criticisms were spot on and valid. No magic use during boss fights was another sore spot the game decided to run with but I understand that would prob be too op with refresh and thunder
Thanks very much for checking this out and for all the help during my playthrough. If it hadn't been for you, I'm pretty sure I would've started over just for the healmace! Having you and some folks from your community around to rally around the playthrough was really wonderful and very appreciated.
That's something I hated about Lagoon. No magic against bosses?
I would just allow magic there, but make the bosses immune.
The portraits look great! I can recognize the actors.
Your narration in every of your video has a very consistent quality, it's good, the way you speak is fast but didn't left myself with lost of information with me having really terrible attention span. I'm having a terrible ecszema and your content has helped me preoccupied from the unbearable itchy skin that unbelievably took my sanity. Thanks.
Glad you're enjoying the channel. Get well soon!
As to the soundtrack in Willow.... the cave bgm and the boss battle bgms are a couple of the NES's most "dangerous" sounding musics, right next to Faxanadu's boss battle, and TMNT 1's boss battle themes. I like boss battle themes that make you feel like you are in genuine danger, instead of metal-heavy "you're gonna curb stomp this boss!" theme.
Oh goodness, totally. The Faxanadu boss music still freaks me out to this day just as much as it did when I was little.
I remember drawing sooooo many maps for this map as a kid. Loved it
This was definitely one of my favourite new to me NES games. I liked that it was almost like an alternative adventure for some cool characters I knew from a movie as well.
I forgot all about this game!! Thank you for reminding me!!
My pleasure!
Another great video!! So glad I stumbled in here!!
Oh hey! Thanks so much for checking out more of the channel!
[2:53] ... "this stack of tires with a head on top."
The Michelin Man: Am I a joke to you?
I live in a cold climate and had a coat that made me look like that... she was fair game!
Oh man, I mentioned this as a recommendation in a comment years ago, I'm excited to see your take on it (once it's done processing, of course)! You had recommended me the Lucky Dime Caper, which you also covered recently - I guess it's time for me to hold up my end of the bargain and give it a play :}
It's been on my list for a long time. I only got around to playing it a few months ago. Enjoy your playthrough!
Im still waiting for Deep Duck Trouble so I can continue snickering like a 14 year old boy 😆
"Skeletal Accessories" has to be one of my favorite ways to describe skeleton parts. I do love the way this game looks and it's still fairly cheap. Definitely lots of good fun to be had with this one! Nice review!
I loved this one! And you do fight a lot of skulls and complete skeletons. It's hard to ignore all the boney bits you run into! Thank you for stopping by!
Another gem, friend! Nice work. I always remember playing the arcade cabinet, but not the NES version. You've inspired me, yet again!
Are you gonna play it? I hope you will!
@@hungrygoriya I definitely think I'll give it a shot!
Excellent descriptive documentary. "...the many dark colons of this ancient land." Well done.
We were the very best bolus we could be while exploring.
Great video! I found Willow was a good game but is definitely a hard game to figure out where the heck you are supposed to go.
Yeah, it's a lot of walking it back and trying to figure out what's changed. I definitely got stuck a few times.
Yup, there's a point about 3/4 through the game that made me go searching through tips and tricks magazines to find out where to go next.
I'm pretty sure I never owned this game, but I somehow have the original world map hanging on my wall. Never imagined this game would have so much going on in it for a licensed NES title.
I remember my brother playing this game, and now watching TASes of this very game this game is actually pretty good and awesome. Great review you did a wonderful job, even my brother would say the exact same thing as well
Thanks very much! Now that I've played it, I need to watch some speedruns or some TASes. It's amazing how fast a game can be won!
Great trip down memory lane! I loved playing this as a kid, but I never finished it. I've been wanting to pick it up and try again. I'm surprised you didn't mention the interesting mechanic where you have to "learn" how to use new weapons by them attacking slowly until you level up enough. It's a mechanic I don't think I've seen in other games of this era.
I was going to mention that, but because I was always overlevelled, it only really affected me at the beginning of the game. Almost every sword I picked up I was already swinging around like I was born holding it!
I played through Willow when my brother bought it. At the time I wasn´t very impressed, it didn´t capture me as much as other action RPG adventures I´d played. You´ve mentioned some of the things I didn´t enjoy in your review, many of the music loops were too short for me and I also found many high notes to sound shrill (especially the password screen). The drab environments made the game less exciting and I found it to be rather linear.
There is one standout moment however: ascending the sacred red towers. The eerie music and illusion of height made this straight forward challenge strangely captivating for both me and my brother. Everything just fell into place there. And I completely agree that Nockmar Castle has the best music by far.
I love the soundtrack but a little more length to some of the tunes would've helped it be even better. The music's very memorable though. I've played a lot of games where the music falls out of my head as soon as I turn the console off, but the "voice" of this music also feels pretty unique.
And yeah, mountains and caves looked pretty meh compared to the rest of the game. But I totally agree with you about that stretch of the game with the towers. I loved how that part looked and getting to the top to see the little cutscene up there. I always try not to include too many big story bits in my reviews to avoid spoilers for others, but that was definitely a goosebumps moment for me.
I think Nockmaar Castle and the song titled Zhena & Muzh are my favourites. I've listened to the latter a lot while writing the script for this video. I love those "sad but hopeful" tunes most.
Cool I’ll listen to The Zhena and Muzh tune! And I think I get what you medan with the ”Voice” of the game, guess it’s both the compositions and the sound fonts.
the game that got me into arpg's. love this game so much! thanks for doing a video on it.
My pleasure! It's a very fun game that's still relatively inexpensive!
Oh, pro tip: for fast leveling near the end, fight the multiplying red bubbles in nockmaar in the room directly west of sorsha and madmartigan.
They sap 10 mp every time they split, and they split 3 times into 8 bubbles before they go berserk and attack you.
If you use thunder on them they all die for 800 XP (100 x 8 bubbles). After they are dead you should recharge your MP to -10 from entering the room.
You can do this over and over again until you slowly run dry on MP, then equip the Devileye and just kill them before they split to recharge ;)
Very smart suggestions! I think I was one level too low to be able to defeat the final boss so I took a walk and worked it out, but it was closer to a save point so I wouldn't lose my progress afterward.
@@hungrygoriya yeah in my recent playthrough i didn't use a guide so i didn't know how strong i had to be to kill bavmorda.
So i just winged it and thought there's no harm in going overkill. I was level 24 which is BARELY enough, you pretty much can't miss more than a couple of times with the wand.
@@Danthrax81 Yeah I think I ran into the trouble where I was the right level but I missed twice and had to do the fight again! So silly! The manual says something about needing to be a specific level, but I can't remember now if it's to pick up Cherlindrea's wand or fight Bavmorda.
The healmace is in the second town of Dew. You get it by talking to the village chief after getting the wood shield.
Yep, I know that now. I didn't when I was playing through without any help/spoilers.
Im glad that I discovered this wonderful channel
Me too! Thanks for stopping by.
Love the movie! Had to find a VHS copy just to own it. This game is on my list for finds. It was one I was never able to find when I was young. I did play the arcade game a few times!
I've also got a VHS copy of Willow hanging around that I picked up last year. I'd love to try the arcade version sometime. It looks good! I hope you end up tracking down a copy of the NES game. Last I checked, it was still pretty affordable.
After listening to your pros and cons about Willow I realized it’s similar to Crystalis in many of those same points. I played through Willow about three years ago and made it all the way to the final battle; but my level was too low, which meant I didn’t have enough MP to finish the battle. I was grumbling about that for weeks ;)
I recently finished Scurge Hive on the GBA, and I was shocked by how well-crafted it is! If you’re done with your backlog in the next 75 years you should tack it on at the end ;)
I definitely ran into the same trouble. I think I was one level short of being able to finish off the boss? It came out to one or two hits with the spell you have to use. It didn't take me too long to grind up at least!
Scurge Hive eh? I'll have a look!
@@hungrygoriya Willow was one of those fortunate weekend rentals in my home. I knew it was something special back then: I’m relieved Capcom got the rights to it instead of LJN.
Scurge felt like an isometric Metroid Fusion with experience points. Isometroid, maybe..? ;)
your channel is really cool and really nice to find people who have passion for retro gaming i subscribe friend
Thanks very much for the kind words!
@@hungrygoriya for real is nice to support old school troopers btw i recommend a game called black jewel to check is a c64 based game is really cheap is really weird to see c64 inspired game if you are looking ideas to play lol
@@wackyt.bobcat7576 Thanks for the suggestion! I'm playing through my physical collection and don't have any way to play C64 at the moment. Was it on anything else? I'll still check into it though!
Me and my dad played this when I was a kid. Best time of my life.
I'm so glad you have some nice memories with it. I liked this game a lot as well!
Love your videos!
I recently rediscovered this game after almost a decade after watching the movie again and I'm amazed at how well this game holds up.
It's worth spending some time with, no doubt! I remember the movie being very funny as well!
Looks like a fun little game! Love that you highlighted the cons (as always), they seem quite small and nothing that would put me off giving Willow a try! Thanks for the review!
They were definitely small flaws given how much fun the rest of the game is to play. It's not so bad having to retrace your steps to find the path forward either since everything's so nice to look at too. Thanks for stopping by and your thoughtful comment :)
Such gorgeous graphics for a licensed game. The moving foliage does seem a little extra, but it’s still pretty impressive.
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I was really shocked it was an NES game when I first saw it. Just beautiful!
I get goosebumps when I hear Faxanadu music
I love it too!
I'm glad I found this channel.
Me too! Thanks for stopping in here!
I remember playing the heck out of this game. I was disappointed at how much it seemed to diverge from the movie (which I had watched and loved), but I got over that pretty quickly (we didn't have much of a selection of games at the time). I recall having a hard time getting started with it, and not being sure where to go or what to do. Willow was pretty much defenseless against trolls, which I would run into fairly frequently. Fortunately, as you pointed out, you could run, but if they boxed you in you were done for.
And, yes, the music was pretty great. I can still hear most of the tracks playing in my mind.
(Also, strangely enough, the game's plot seemed to fill in some of the gaps that the movie left behind. I don't know if those fill-ins were canon or not, but they made sense enough to middle-school me.)
I watched Willow as a kid and didn't rewatch it again until after I played the game here, but it's such a fun little movie. I loved the game and appreciated that it was a bit different from the movie's plot, but I can see why as a kid it might be frustrating if you're not expecting that. The music's certainly memorable, though I wish they could've worked in some of the movie's main theme or something. It's such a lovely piece!
Nice intro song, I love the game it's from. Good review!
Faxanadu's a long-time favourite of mine. Thanks very much!
@@hungrygoriya I had the chance to play it in the weirdest way. I travel for a living to very old radar sites in the middle of nowhere. Most of these sites used to house people, which they stopped living at in the 80s. Alot of old entertainment was left behind at a location in canada and Faxanadu with an NES was hooked up. On my off hours, I played it so much. I think it was 2018.
@@bananajoe9951 Oh no kidding! That's so interesting. I've heard of those old radar bases (I wonder if I'm thinking of the same place you are actually) and it's neat that you got to experience it that way. What luck!
@@hungrygoriya I believe it was Shepherd Bay Radar station, Canada. Pretty cool location. Pretty sure it's on google maps. (Edited the name)
@@bananajoe9951 I'll take a peek! That's not where I was thinking about, but cool nonetheless.
I love this review so much
I'm looking over the giant graphics dump @BenjaminNixon linked to, and I see this game made very clever use of the 2/3 palette trick. This is a thing a lot of NES games did to try to squeeze more tileset variety out of the console's 4 palette limit; they'd try to use only two of the three available colors for most tiles so they could fake having more palettes than they really did (for most simple background textures, you only need two or three anyway to make it clear what you're looking at). In this game, they use the "combined" palettes most games avoided to make tiles where two things meet, like patches of bare dirt in grass or diagonal edges of a body of water. In addition, the tiles just have more fiddly details overall including a fair bit of dithering. This game must have looked practically next-gen on a CRT.
The capture for this game does nothing to support my praise of the graphics. It looks absolutely glorious on a CRT and I had no idea about the trick you've mentioned here before now. I don't know much about the specs/capabilities of consoles or cartridges, but it's always interesting to hear a little more about it. Thank you for sharing!
Continue to love your content : )
I like your style of videos very much!
Thanks very much for taking the time to watch!
I loved this movie when I was younger, but had no idea this game existed for the NES until just recently. Looks like it would be fun.
It's lots of fun for sure. Definitely worth a play. It's like an alternative story with all the characters you know and love from the movie!
@@hungrygoriya I only have the Nintendo Wii with a few original NES and SNES games saved on the hard drive. Are you playing that on the original NES?
@@toddburgess5056 Yep, all my videos here are recorded from the original systems. This video in particular has some weird artifacting that I usually don't get on some of my other NES footage, but it's composite out from an NES here.
Some of the disconnect you are seeing with the game's story from what's in the movie is partly because while the visuals and character designs are taken from the movie, the story is mostly taken from the associated novels. I guess the people who designed the packaging never heard of the novels (I hadn't either until a couple years ago) and went with the movie's plot instead.
Willow was a surprisingly ambitious game for it's time. I was really impressed with it. I think this game went in it's own direction because they knew it needed to in order to succeed.
I thought it was really well done as well! Definitely polished compared to other experiences I've had from that time period.
@@hungrygoriya I was surprised by just how much it actually attempted for it's time. So I've always described it as 'ambitious' when I've talked about it which I have a few times. Some dev-teams really tried to go all out and they definitely did with Willow.
I remember watching the movie on vhs when I was around 12 or 13, then when I saw that a friend had an nes rpg based on it I immediately started playing it. It took a while but I was able to get through the whole game without resorting to guides and such. I remember missing an endgame sword somewhere but the Wing sword outclassed it after completing the eagles quest. Iirc, you need to be lv14 to revert Raziel's polymorph then she powers up your wand. Idk if that was required to damage Bavmorda's 1st phase but it was nice to have. Despite Madmartigan having a very minor role, it was nice that they still put in the Sorsha romance even if it was very abridged. Then right after that moment was the boss fight with Kael then the home stretch to Bavmorda.
I played this after not seeing the movie for about a decade, so my memories of the movie were really foggy. It was nice to have such a Willow-centric game but the other characters, especially Madmartigan were so downplayed! The romance scene caught me completely off guard because I didn't remember any of it but it was a hilarious contrast to the final faceoffs with Kael and Bavmorda. Too funny!
Another fact filled review. Really enjoyed that one thanks.
Looks pretty nice as a fantasy adventure. I think I played it breifly as a kid, but as it wasnt like the movie it didnt grab my attention. - You make it sound so much better though :) x
Yeah I think even if it wasn't a Willow game, it'd have a lot of cool aspects going for it. It definitely looked and sounded wonderful! Thanks for stopping in!
Seems like it held up well in some ways but showed its age in others, not a mix I come across often on the Nes. Great video.
Yeah, there were a couple of stumbling points but I liked it a lot overall!
Great review :) For sure, the defenseless respawn is such a strange mechanic. Like why?
It baffled me too! Just something else on a long list of things to have to remember.
I haven't played this one since the late 80s when it first came out. The gameplay is something I found rather forgettable after all this time; at least it didn't give me heavy nostalgia as with the case of Zelda or Simon's Quest or Faxanadu. I remember it being a bit of a slog and maybe more relieved when I beat it that I could move on to a new game instead of reflecting so fondly at the end.
On the other hand, the music is something I recall so vividly. The extremely short and loopy Cutscene Theme in triple metre when we encounter characters (ex: when entering a building in town) is permanently stuck in my head and pops into my mind at the oddest times; it gave me an ambiguous and bittersweet sort of feeling as though it's a little bit sad, comfortable, peaceful, and hopeful all at the same time! The music I found almost as memorable as Faxanadu.
I found Willow a bit tough to make progress in once in a while but it was definitely something I enjoyed overall. I really liked the combat especially!
Faxanadu and Zelda were childhood games for me so they're very nostalgic. Playing games these days hits me if they live up to those experiences. but it's rare that games come close to those.
The music in Willow is fantastic. I really love the song that plays when the two lovers are reunited, the one I closed out the video with. It's been stuck in my head for weeks. The rest of the soundtrack is extremely memorable. Even though I hadn't played it myself until recently, I'd be humming this soundtrack randomly as well.
@@hungrygoriya One thing I'm wondering is what you might think about The Immortal on NES if you haven't tried it. The musical variety in that one is limited but so fitting and atmospheric. I have a love/hate relationship with that game since I brute forced myself through it with trial and error all the way to the end, maybe even more so than Willow, and felt more relieved than fulfilled when I beat it. But I can never forget the music combined with the visuals.
But you have a remarkable level of patience for such games from what I can see, and it's a "beautiful" game in my opinion. As beautiful as Willow, Faxanadu, Legacy of the Wizard, Simon's Quest, games of this nature. But it's an isometric action-adventure-puzzler sort of game.
@@darkengine5931 I've had Immortal sitting on my shelf for a while now. I should really get around to it!
Thank you for this, I keep saying it but I love your old school RPG 😍videos, keep them coming :)
Thanks! I intend to.
I remember playing this 30 years ago and being afraid we'd messed up getting trapped in the dungeon at the end and that we'd have to reset the game.
Those kinds of fears were real! I had a copy of Zelda that didn't save and sometimes locked up on me, so the fear was serious!
Interesting. I only knew the arcade run and gun by Capcom from this franchise. I think it's really cool when the same game becomes something completely different (when it's good) when transitioning to a different platform.
It's almost like a side story to the original adventure! I really liked it!.
Underrated gem right here. It reminded me a bit of a link to the past in the graphics.
Right? Lots of this game's aesthetic screams Super Nintendo to me.
@@hungrygoriya yep. This is one I discovered with my mom back in the mid 90s actually, well after the snes had already hit the scene. We made it pretty far but never finished it. It's really the detail and depth I think that adds to that snes aesthetic. I almost feel like a horrible person to say that between this and crystalis, the o.g. Zelda really got surpassed by these hardly remembered and later titles.
@@jsebastian9547 I have a special place in my heart for NES Zelda, but graphically and in terms of story/writing, you're bang on.
@@hungrygoriya yep. Definitely same here. It's pretty amazing to see such evolution on the nes, from the early releases to the later ones.
Wholeheartedly agree with you, just LP'd it a month ago and it really holds up. Although, when I was a kid it felt much longer!
I was sad it came and went so fast too.
This was such a hidden gem. I played the hell out of it as a kid.
It's a great one for sure! I wish I would've played it when I was younger. I think I would've loved it!
I was waiting for you to review this game. ⭐Those swaying trees got me, not going to lie. And you are not foolin' anybody about the item you couldn't pick up "forcing" you to grind out levels lol. We know you like to explore the whole game anyway! Looking forward to the next review. Oh and if you like Warwick Davis check out Life's too short it's pretty hilarious.
Well, I explored it many, many times more than what I usually would've is what I meant, haha... I'll definitely try to check out some more Warwick Davis stuff.
It's a good thing you found the battle sword! All those non battle swords were making me nervous.
I saw the arcade game first, and was expecting a conversion when I heard that there was a NES version too. I was so disappointed to see that it was this instead, that I wasn't willing to give it a chance. If Konami could convert the TMNT arcade game to the NES and even add two extra stages on top, then why couldn't Capcom do the same with Willow? Well I know better now.
I just went with the flow here, and had a blast with this game!
This was my first exposure to Willow as a video game so I didn't come in with the arcade game expectations. That game is beautiful though! I actually love that there are now two versions of Willow out there instead of just one (and a third one on Commodore I think?) but I can imagine the disappointment expecting that arcade experience at home.
Willow was one of my favorite movies as a little kid, but I didn't even know this game existed until I started using the internet actively in the 2000s. It's definitely one of my most wanted NES games, and I secretly hope it and the very cool looking arcade beat-em-up also based on the movie get a modern rerelease someday.
Also, if my timeline isn't too far off, isn't this one of the first action RPGs to have your character swing their sword in an arc like that, instead of poke or bump? I feel like some elements of this game influenced a lot of titles in following years
I think I first found out about this game from Daria Plays RPGs ages and ages ago now, and it's been on my list to play ever since! I agree: it'd be wonderful to see a modern release of the games from this series, and with the new TV show coming out, who knows what will happen?
I'm not sure if this was one of the first wide arc swing games, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was. I'd love to see a timeline of all RPGs laid out someday to see where this one fits, because you're right: there's lots from this game that appears in others around the same time and after the fact.
@@hungrygoriya I know it was out two years before Link to the Past was out in Japan, but they were likely in development concurrently, which creates the interesting possibility that both Capcom and Nintendo EAD's devs were aiming to improve the top-down action RPG player experience in similar ways. It's pretty fascinating!
@@HybridAngelZero Yeah! Somebody around this comment section mentioned the ocarina and fast travel with ALTTP and that similarity never dawned on me. Very interesting insights indeed!
back in the very early 90s Willow was my personal absolute favorite NES Game, more than Zelda, more than Super Mario, more than Final Fantasy. i use to play it for hours, as well as "The Legend Of Kage" which unfortunately was a very repetitive game.
Willow is such a great little game. I think about it a lot!
I always wanted to try this as a kid, but never got the chance to! I kind of love the idea of taking the characters from the movie and just doing their own thing with it to make a new adventure.
I feel like the unequipping of armour and weapons when you die is a holdover from Capcom's arcade games in a "You've been powered down until you can find pickups" way, sort of like the Willow arcade game, but I dunno... It does seem like a weird choice, especially from a modern perspective.
Thank you for another great video!
Yeah it's like a little alternative telling of the same story. I thought it was a neat decision!
I've never really played anything from the arcades so that would make sense. I've played shooters where you die and go back to base levels for speed/weapons etc. but I've never experienced that in an adventure game before!
And you're very welcome :) Thanks for taking the time to watch!
For some reason, this makes me think of Jurassic Park for the SNES, because of how much it diverted from the movie (though JP was actually more in-line with the novel).
You' mentioned in a comment about hoping for a re-release alongside the upcoming TV series, which would be fitting considering how much more of a central role Willow has in Claremont's novel trilogy (which the upcoming TV series is based on).
At least on the first novel, anyway.
Oh I haven't tried out the SNES Jurassic Park yet. I keep hoping to find a copy to try, but I've played through the Genesis game.
I hadn't looked too hard into the new TV show but those are novels I'd definitely like to read some day. I lost my love of reading books a long while ago but this story and these characters are so interesting that it might just draw me in. Thanks for the information!
@@hungrygoriya You're welcome. I looked into the series because my wife is a huge fan, and I was curious as to whether they were going to use the books or completely retcon them.
Regarding Jurassic Park on the SNES, it's a completely different game than the also awesome Genesis games.
It's a combination of top-down (outdoors) and first-person perspectives (when exploring buildings).
One of my favorite games ever made!
Yes! It was such a fun playthrough. I still have lots to look forward to on NES but this was one that was high on my list for a long, long time.
@@hungrygoriya one thing I’m not sure you mentioned is the swing speed of swords after leveling up. Very original. Also, if you had the ocarina and met Po, you could’ve warped back to the village to get the healmace. I understand how you can miss it. There are a few missable items/weapons.
@@ZBR_ProXP I didn't mention the swing speed, mostly because I was always overlevelled and I don't remember swinging slowly very often except at the very beginning. I think I had that line in there and might've deleted it since obviously you're gonna be slow and lumbering at level 1!
But yeah, I was sad to miss the healmace. A very nice streamer who speedruns Willow and their community had piled in with me and broke the news. It was them that also gave me the hope to keep pressing on instead of restarting, so I hoped I'd end up finding another healing item. And I did! I don't know how I missed speaking to that elder again. I'm usually pretty thorough :(
@@hungrygoriya gotcha! i guess it's if you're leveling at a standard pace, each time you find a new sword, it's a bit slow at first.
Willow! I'm so happy they're bringin it back! But anyways, this game was awesome, and I might have in life a time or two played the soundtrack by on my way to work. As a kid I loved it. It was to me one of the gems growing up. Another one I'd suggest is Crystalis. That was another one of the gems.
I can see why you'd want to spend some time with the soundtrack outside of the game. It's awesome! And Crystalis was another game I really enjoyed. I need to replay it again sometime.
One of my favorite NES titles.
Understandable! There's a lot here to love!
When I was a kid, I went to my grandma's house all the time. And she had a NES with a few games, and this was one of them. This game infuriated me, but I loved it anyway.
Did you ever get around to finishing it?
@@hungrygoriya No, sadly. Password systems like this always just rubbed me the wrong way, and they still do. Too many symbols look too similar.
Ive been meaning to get back to it for a while, but I am 22 now with the attendant responsibilities.
Being that I had been conditioned that any movie adaptation games on NES sucked, I avoided this one for a long time but was pleasantly surprised when I finally gave it a shot.
Great to hear you finally came around on it! I've found lots of the movie-based games I've played just fine. I always like to play something myself before jumping on any bandwagon about it.
I actually just started Willow the other day. Was able to "modify" my mini nes, so now I have all these games I never played. Wanna finish this one, then jump to the SNES.
Ooooo nice! Congrats on having more games at your disposal. This one's definitely worth playing and was easy to jump into. Enjoy!
Funny story: I'd played this back when it was new, but had never seen the movie, and for my lady, it was the opposite. We got into this conversation about Willow one day, and I brought up Kchill of the nail clan, and she had no idea what I was talking about. "You know: the cute little bunny/hedgehog thing! Gives you the seed that lets you breathe underwater?" I'd had no idea that none of that was in the movie. When I did finally sit down and watch it with her, I really didn't care for it, but this is still one of my all-time favorites on the NES, and it has what, for my money, is one of the all-time greatest adventuring tunes playing while you're exploring the overworld; it's energizing at the start and breaks into something wistful and emotional by the end.
That's a great story! I looked up what characters/plot points were from the movie and which ones weren't since I haven't seen the movie in a very long while. My husband's very familiar with Willow and while we were talking about the game, he had the same kind of puzzled expression I'm sure your lady had as well. Too funny!
When I was very young, maybe 5 or 6 years old, we visited my Aunt and Uncle. They lived in a large, cavernous house in the forest, and on that day, the skies were dark, and it was raining heavily. Everything seems so much bigger and scarier when you're so young, and so small.
After lunch, the grown-ups chatted and my cousin took my brothers and me into the den to watch a movie. The movie was "Willow". I was far too young to enjoy the movie as I found it to be quite scary, so I stared out the large windows at the trees swaying in the storm. The trees were so old, and so tall. The steady rains turned into a powerful storm with high winds, bright lightning, and very loud rumbles of thunder. It began to hail, and large pine cones and sweet gum bulbs crashed to the ground.
I wasn't afraid of the storms really, because I knew I was safe and warm in the house. I wasn't much afraid of the movie either because I knew "it was just a movie", as my parents often reminded me and my brothers. But the two events, coinciding- this did begin to make me feel uneasy.
Just when I felt I couldn't silently endure the mild terrors I was experiencing any longer, my Aunt entered the room and laughed, "This is too scary", and she replaced the "Willow" VHS with "Race for your life, Charlie Brown". I was happy the movie was changed, but I never did much care for Charlie Brown- even at a young age.
Bravely, I continued to stare out the window. The rain eventually slowed and all that remained was an eerie, foggy mist that hung about the soaked branches of the pines.
Wow, what a memory of the movie!
@@hungrygoriya Super vivid, right? It's odd how some memories stick with you. I just wanted to try and put my thoughts into words, but I didn't think anyone would actually read it. Haha!
I recently found and subscribed to your channel. I am very much enjoying the content as I grew up as a NES/SNES kid in the 90s.
Keep up the great work!
@@BillyReplies I was pretty engrossed in your writing. It was a great read!
And thanks so much for subscribing and your kind words. Glad to hear you're enjoying the channel! I'm working away on the next video so hopefully I'll have something out soon.
@@hungrygoriya Thank you so much. There's something magical about using words to create images in one's mind. It's almost like casting a spell.
I look forward to your next video, and I have plenty of others from your channel to catch up on. I watched the "9 NES Favourites (so far)" video last night and it was terrific. I loved Kid Icarus and Little Nemo growing up. I agree, while they were difficult, they were rewarding and super fun! I hadn't heard of some of those other games, but they looked fun.
I can't promise anymore random nostalgic memory induced creative writing- but you never know!
@@BillyReplies Glad to hear you're enjoying other stuff on the channel as well! I'm deep into a new video and hope to have it out in a timely fashion, but it's a long one! Thanks for your kindness :)
Awesome video. Spot on about the music. May I suggest Times of Lore or Dragonstrike for a future vid?
What system are those on? I have a long list of backlog I'm trying to work through for videos, but I'll definitely have a look.
@@hungrygoriya Both are on the NES. I believe Dragonstrike is an Advanced D&D title.
I remember playing this upon release and being blown away by the sheer size of the world. While it's true that many screens are repeated, by the time you reach the final castle, you really do feel just worn down from the sheer distance you've traveled to get there. One neat trick the game does is that all the traversable screens exist in the game memory on a 29x32 grid, but it's never intended to be engaged with as a single square block of world a la the original Legend of Zelda or A Link to the Past.
I absolutely love how interconnected everything is! The fast travel mechanic was a nice touch though, and I was glad for it towards the end of the game.
Are you able to explain that last bit in a bit more detail? I don't know much about game memory or the technical stuff when it comes to game assets etc. but I'd like to hear more.
@@hungrygoriya Here's how the map is actually layed out in the cartridge: www.firebrandx.com/downloads/willowwarpmap.png
Of course narratively, and even ignoring the caves/castles and looking solely at the "overworld", the game "chops up" the overworld into different parts and connects them through various caves which spreads out the world in the mind of the player, creating a sense that it's much bigger than it really is.
It's a bit similar to what the original Legend of Zelda did with the dungeons, how the 9 dungeons are all squished together in a 16x16 grid, but are not meant to be interpreted that way by the player.
This game definitely feels a bit like a square squished into a circle in certain parts, and is by no means a perfect game, but overall I agree it's a very fun game with a killer soundtrack. I also agree that no one needs prior knowledge of the movie to enjoy it, which is great.. but for fans of the movie, it's a nice bridge to some of the plot points, though certainly not very accurate in spots. Generally, I think the developers did a very decent job of making a fun game out of a movie title. Fun watch!
Quite frankly, I was expecting some comment about blackroot from you.
There were a few muddy plot parts, but other than getting stuck occasionally I had an absolute blast playing this game. I really, really want to rewatch the movie now. We've been looking for a DVD for a while now and I might just bite the bullet and order one in.
It's probably a dream come true for people that love these characters and this world to have another means to experience them in video game form. I'm glad they did a great job with the game and keeping it true to its roots.
@@hungrygoriya My mother raised us on blackroot, actually.. it put hair on my chest.
I'm glad you watched the movie again and realized it's greatness >:) And I love it because it is different.. I love the movie, and it's so nice to have a game that's obviously connected, but not just a literal following of the movie script.. something new and just as great.
A great game that I hadn't even known about till around 2006. Me being not only a fan of the movie but Capcom as well was a no brainer when I first seen it. On the NES I don't think there were even 3 bad Capcom games and though I did the normal level up grind at the beginning per usual it made the game more enjoyable in the long run. Great video with a stellar game 😁👍
I found out about this one quite late as well, but was immediately interested in buying it. I remember Willow as the movie on a tape my parents had where there was another movie I liked better after it. I remember seeing so much walking and nothingness fast-forwarding through it all the time. I saw it again about 10 years ago though and remember enjoying it then.
I remember my older brother playing through this game when i was maybe 6 or 7. I tried it out much later. Solid game
I really liked this one. It's challenging and fun, and what more can you ask for?
Thank you!
I never got terribly far in this, but i remember liking it enough to rent a couple times as a kid.
It's definitely one of those games that I thought about a lot when I wasn't playing it. And the music has stuck with me too!
Just looking at your playthrough this game looks like a blast. Similar to a Secret of Mana vibe but with darker creatures and on the NES. They probably could have had the baby Lara Danin on Willows back if they wanted to get closer to the movie plot but this looks very fun the way it is. The evil crabs remind me of those windmill creatures in Zelda that spin on the surface world itself. I have never seen a good movie adaptation game that was worth playing but this one does look very good. I like SNES drunk's videos but I think your review on Willow here is a lot better going deeper into the playthrough. Wish I had this game growing up instead of Ghostbusters, Tag Team Wrestling etc. The funny thing is for so many NES games growing up a lot of the time the games were borrowed from friends, and you never had a manual to lookup things with. I like the continue and password feature all good things. It looks like you tend to prefer the action RPG games more so than the turned based ones.
I have a tendency of digging into games and what I like or dislike about them, for sure! This game is definitely worth playing. It's like an alternative Willow adventure with all the people you know and love but on a slightly different trek.
I do love some good action RPGs but I also really enjoy a good turn-based one too. It's harder to make turn-based combat fun, but some games go above and beyond with good story and characters that suck me into the experience as a whole. Action RPGs definitely hold my attention a little better in general.
I missed out on playing this title for whatever reason, but can see now that I would have enjoyed it.
It's not too late to play it!
That reminds me...I'm going to go rewatch this awesome movie.
Enjoy! I hope it's as fun as you remember it.
It hasn't been that long, maybe a few years. This movie is pure nostalgia in a cassette tape...just like the Goonies.
And after the events in Willow, Bavmorda moves to Tristram... =)
Yessss! She does good work there, too!
Another game I rented numerous times but never bought for some reason. Those crabs were a pain you aren't joking!
The crabs are awful! I wish I'd gotten to play this game as a kid, but my family never really rented anything until we got a Sega Genesis later on in life. I wish I could've tried more NES games back then.