Nintendo Quest
A Terrible Game Review by Paul Harrington
Download here

You may be wondering why there's a hideously compressed image of someone's desktop above this text rather than the game's title screen. The reason for this is that for some reason Nathan Karr, the author of this incredible game, likes to use this image to promote his work rather than showing what he's actually made. He does this with most of his games, and all I've learned so far is that he loves absurdly huge desktop icons and Kirby.

Here's the real title screen in all its glory. We learn here that the author also goes by the handle of Ronin Catholic. This will be important to remember. I expected this game to open with Christian propaganda, but was instead treated to really horrific poetry.

Wait, what?

What?

Where do I even begin? Should I bother pointing out that there's no gore, sex, or swearing in Shadow the Hedgehog? Should I point out that the Silent Hill series tells a more compelling story than almost any other console games? Should I bother saying that even though it's full of gore and it's a horror game, Resident Evil 4 is one of the most well made games of this generation?

That would clearly be pointless. Instead, I'm going to prove that THIS game is an abomination unto the Lord. We'll start by pointing out that the author portrays himself as both God (calling the God figure of the game Ronin) and man (calling the main hero Nate). It should also be pointed out that Nathan's reverance for Nintendo and classic games shines so brightly that it can easily be consider idolatry. So already, in the opening crawl of text, we have a violation of "You shall have no other gods before Me" and "You shall not make for yourself an idol."

Commandment Violations: 2

The game's story is as follows: God, who was born around 1983, is upset about videogames being too naughty, so he commands some weak kid to go forth and smite the wicked rather than hurling his own lightning bolts. The kid is told that to complete his quest, he should go on the internet and recruit Pac-Man's aid. I would assume this was supposed to be a parody if the author was anyone but Nathan Karr, who in the past has graced the OHR message boards with threats of HELL and CONDEMNATION if we didn't repent our heathen ways. It also lacks anything anyone would consider funny.

As you can see from the status screen above, the author of this game hates the Japanese. At least, I assume "reberu" is supposed to be a "hilarious" Engrish version of "level." Making fun of terrible English in Japanese products is one thing, but this is more like parading around in blackface to show your love for Africa. You'll also see that the game uses "Wii Points" for money, which makes no sense given that the game takes place in what's clearly an homage to 8-bit games, what with all the stolen Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior sprites. Most confusing of all, though, is what in the hell "madeatto" means, and why Nathan Karr decided that he should edit his font so that lowercase a's are bigger than every other letter. I'm willing to bet that if you take all of the words in this game with lower case a's in them, you'll find a message from Satan.

I should spend a little time talking about the game's actual gameplay. As per usual for OHR games, every random battle will either be completely harmless, or kill you instantly, and you'll have to grind for hours to get any stronger. Buying new weapons isn't an option; in the first town, every building aside from the one you start in is locked, and in the second town you can buy weapons and armor that offer absolutely minimal improvements while making your accuracy for attacks even worse than it already is. And, as you can see from the screen above, the game likes to throw lots of information at you that isn't logical and no one will remember. That particular advice is completely useless after you leave this one small area.

You should also note that the author advertises his website in the "Map Name" field on this map, and know that it stays on screen for an absurd length of time. Pretty prideful, wouldn't you say?

Deadly Sins Count: 1

The map you see in that last screenshot is THE INTERNET. In this zone, you can buy vaguely named items, talk to sprites and characters stolen from other games, ride vehicles that resemble pandas across tiny gaps in space, or hijack a bird that flies backwards. Everyone speaks like an idiot and nothing really makes sense. It's like the real internet, only with (as far as I can tell) less horse porn. I'm sure there has to be some kind of hidden sex in here somewhere. If not, how is it a representation of THE INTERNET? For this clear act of lust, and the envy that Nathan Karr shows of legitimate games by stealing their graphics, we have to dock it another two Deadly Sin Points.

Deadly Sins Count: 3

Your goal on THE INTERNET is to find Pac-Man. Apparently this means walking onto a square with a sword on it, though I personally would have used Google. Once you find him, our hero attacks, beating the poor creature into submission and then making him his slave. While there is no commandment against slavery, I'm pretty sure God still frowns upon it, what with the whole freeing the Jews from Egypt thing.

I would like to point out the irony of recruiting a complete glutton on your quest to serve the Lord. Pac-Man does nothing but kill and eat, and I'm pretty sure ghosts aren't even kosher. So, we've got a pair of angry murderers butchering creatures on the internet for only one reason: To fill the endless stomach of the yellow devil.

Commandment Violations: 3
Deadly Sins Count: 5
Leviticus: Destroyed

Before you can exit THE INTERNET, our hero informs the player that he must unequip his armor before leaving, the same armor he wore when he entered, because it is too heavy. Leave it to an internet hero to be too weak to carry a tunic. Either that, or Nathan Karr was just desperate for us to undress the virtual representation of himself, which is horrific in a series of ways that I'm not even going to begin to examine.

Upon returning home, the hero's town is burned down, everyone's dead, and some of the grass has been soiled, all because Satan's just a real jerk. What's a hero to do? Go south, because there's nowhere else in the game to go. Once you reach the exit, the hero from Dragon Warrior appears (in a text only cutscene) and makes Nate his sidekick. To hide from evil, Nate changes his name to... Nayte. I know Satan's pretty lame, but come on, he's not THAT stupid.

After a very lazy cutscene, we get a nice big EIGHT YEARS LATER message and reawaken in "Bubblytown." I'm already scared.

A good hero and a good Christian would seek the rightful owner of these lost items and return them. Here we get one of the game's main morals: Stealing is rad, as long as no one sees, and never make an effort to return something to its owner. Sloth and greed ahoy! I don't think God approves of stealing in any capacity, so that brings our total even closer to damnation.

Commandment Violations: 4
Deadly Sins Count: 7

All seven deadly sins have now been represented in this game's hero. How can such a man POSSIBLY fulfill a mission from God? Will there be a deathbed repentance? Will he be baptised by fire? Who can say, because I certainly didn't finish playing this game.

In this town is an arena where you can fight characters stolen from other games. Here our heroes fight Shadow the Hedgehog and Bass from the later Mega Man games, though on the map screen only Shadow is visible. The author makes a terrible "All your base" joke explaining how to pronounce Bass's name. The joke is bad and he should feel bad. I'm also wondering why every attack in the game results in the word NINTENDO flying out of your characters, oftentimes backwards.

Also in this arena are the cast of Final Fantasy I, whose sprites are taken from the original game and uglied up, and whose personalities are taken from 8-Bit Theater just like they are in almost every non-official appearance of these characters.

I can't read what this says.


I can't read what this says either.

It should be noted that every fight in the arena kills you instantly, and that the Final Fantasy characters use Pac-Man ghost sprites that really complement the inclusion of the OHR default sandsea.bmp background. You can probably beat them if you level up outside of town, but this would take hours that I can't afford to spend killing enemies stolen from Super Mario Brothers. The game makes a point of telling you that you're in the world of Dragon Warrior, so I'm not sure why there are Koopas and Pokemon all over the place and absolutely no Dragon Warrior creatures.

All you can do now is leave town and enter a cave where you'll just run from every encounter, and then wander a terribly designed maze that requires you to find a hidden path to complete. What awaits us at the end?

You're kidding, right? Our hero and Pac-Man team up with Luigi and MegaMan to defeat Bowzer for some reason this reviewer can't understand. It's probably mentioned in MegaMan's dialog, but given that it's written in dark blue on a dark blue background I couldn't read a damn word. But enough talk! Let's kill a giant turtle in the name of GOD!

...Or not. Legally Distinct Bowser and his cronies fling poo at me until I die, and my journey comes to a tragic end.

So overall, we have a game here that's intended to be righteous, but violates at least four commandments, displays all of the deadly sins, and makes a laughing stock of the Book of Leviticus. Why would Nathan Karr unleash such a beast upon us? My only conclusion is that he wanted to make the most sinful game possible, and in doing so scare us away from any future sin-filled videogames. He may just succeed. After playing this, I don't think I'll be playing another videogame for a very long time.