The Haunted Hoard: Frankenstein: The Monster Returns (NES)

While Frankenstein’s monster is often seen alongside supernatural fiends like vampires and werewolves, he’s actually meant to represent the idea of science gone wrong. The people who created Frankenstein: The Monster Returns (also known simply as Frankenstein) didn’t seem to understand this though. Not only do they think this monster, known purely as Frankenstein in the game, is the type of threat an entire country could struggle to take down, but he’s given magical powers and a legion of otherworldly threats in his service, his army of darkness containing Medusa, gargoyles, a water dragon, and even beings explicitly said to live in the Evil Dimension. Essentially just using the familiar green-skinned composite corpse as a stand-in for some lord of darkness, it is a touch amusing to see a world where Frankenstein’s monster has become the apex of what mankind fears.

 

The story of Frankenstein: The Monster Returns appears to take place after the monster’s first rampage across the countryside, Frankenstein reviving and unleashing his power and minions across the land. Seemingly seeking the key to invincibility, Frankenstein does take some time to attack a local village and kidnap the village elder’s daughter Emily. You are just some young warrior who came across the village after the attack, but you are a capable combatant and thus the only hope for stopping Frankenstein’s plan. The story to this side-scrolling action game mostly exists to keep showing you new dangers and Frankenstein’s incredible strength, but even though this is an NES game, the scenes are directed in some fairly interesting ways. The text box describing the events will move to different spots on the screen so you can see thing like a panning shot of a village on fire, a slow visual descent to make Frankenstein look like a towering menace, and Frankenstein’s portrait even hops away after he’s done speaking at one point. The information in these scenes is often fairly plain save for the times you learn the fiend you faced was forced to fight, but the presentation makes it at least interesting to see the playful and creative ways they try to spice up what could have otherwise been very plain exposition.

Your hero that you get to name yourself may be the only hope for the world against the might of Frankenstein, but he doesn’t start out that capable. All he can do to harm foes at first is punch them or execute a midair kick, and while he has quite a jump that can help him maneuver around some of the early foes as well, you’ll want to defeat enemies since they quite often drop incredibly helpful pick-ups. This will be how you get your clubs that deal greater damage, and while you’ll eventually get a sword to replace your punches, you can still pick up items to increase your power. Find the right power-ups and you will be able to launch a fireball forward with every attack or even unleash a three shot spread. There are rare bombs and lightning attacks you can only use once as well, but the fireballs and improved basic weapons are where the action finds its footing. Most enemies, be they skeletons, living statues, or minotaurs, will have a single item type they can drop, but if you take damage, you’ll often immediately lose a fireball upgrade or drop any weapons that aren’t a sword. The ability to pick up back the club or the spiked variant is definitely useful, but even if you’re slow and it disappears, you can sometimes go back to beat a monster you know will grant you the useful power-up.

 

Success in Frankenstein: The Monster Returns is actually quite contingent on having the strong weapons for crucial moments, because while this game is only four stages long and individually they’re not that big, that risk of losing your good tools in a fight is what needs to be worked around. Almost every creature, every hazard, and every boss has some trick when you encounter them. If you have a powerful spiked club that launches fireballs you don’t always need to learn the trick, but it is still wise to do so, especially since bosses in particular won’t be taken out so swiftly they can’t get their licks in. Sometimes you need to figure out when to jump, where to stand or crouch, or even how to strike so you can keep stunning them so they don’t get their attacks in. Most every battle with a boss or small stream of enemies in a locked area is a bit of a test then to see if you can figure out what the vulnerability is. However, because there is often a way to trivialize some foes, they also are made so they aren’t easily handled until you figure it out, meaning Frankenstein: The Monster Returns can be a very difficult game and not exactly fair until you’ve done the necessary learning.

You will die figuring out enemies. You will lose your fun power-ups. There are definitely attacks you can’t really see coming in time to react on the first encounter. You do have a decent amount of health, opportunities to raise its amount, and most importantly little side paths and secrets can be found without too much work to get some health refills that you use at your discretion that can help with the learning process. The game only having four levels while utilizing a password system ends up helping it some, meaning you can work on figuring out a stage and have that means of continuing to use whenever you’re ready for the successful run. You will lose things like those health expansions should you continue after a game over, but there is some satisfaction in training yourself up to handle the game’s threats skillfully. Most foes aren’t too demanding when you have them figured out because they mostly boil down to figuring out their one trick, although the game’s first boss does have a mean final gambit where they’ll throw you back to an earlier part of the level to repeat half of it and the whole fight should you fail to take out their surprising last form. Hit detection can also make figuring out certain enemies a bit rougher, your character’s jump kick of some value but it lining it up on some foes with unclear weak points can lead to an unexpected whiff. At least you have a nice spooky soundtrack that fits the adventure well to make inevitable retries more bearable.

THE VERDICT: While it’s amusing to see Frankenstein elevated to a diabolical and all-powerful fiend, Frankenstein: The Monster Returns at least shows the might of him and his minions well through a high difficulty but one based around gradually figuring out how every foe ticks. Your power-ups are too easily lost at the smallest bit of damage, but it is a short game where training up to exploit weaknesses and patterns that aren’t too hard to glean make it easy to keep trying and coming out on top feels satisfying because of that emphasis on learning your foes rather than merely forcing your way through. The game has some unfortunately rough parts like the all to vital hit detection feeling a bit off at times, but because it’s tough yet surmountable, it’s at least a decent challenge rather than a brutal waste of time.

 

And so, I give Frankenstein: The Monster Returns for the Nintendo Entertainment System…

An OKAY rating. The first stage can be a bit disheartening with it reverting you to your fists should you drop your club thanks to any incoming damage and the boss of that stage’s trick feels cheap, but once you start to understand the predictable nature of foes and the reliable dropping of power-ups, you can start to see where Frankenstein: The Monster Returns succeeds. You’re meant to figure out how to overcome the dangers ahead, not just brute force your way to the ending, the game being so short actually a boon since a good deal of time is going to come from refining your skills while the ending remains within sight. The adventure would probably be plenty hard without so readily taking away your power-ups though, even just waiting until three hits to disarm you likely to make it less frustrating and lessen some of that time needed to learn the game without robbing it of the rewarding feeling of finally clearing a stage because you’ve mastered it. Most enemies being simple enough to outfox helps that period feel manageable though, you’ll probably have figured out most common foes on a first attempt so you can focus on the trickier tough encounters like bosses, many levels actually featuring multiple bosses and yet getting away with it because of your ability to control the fight once you understand it. That eventual skillfully executed run that makes you feel like a pro is built on the back of frustrations with attacks that looked like they’d hit but didn’t though, as well as tricks that feel cheap when first encountered and essentially force you to learn them since even your health refills probably won’t help you push through.

 

The most memorable part of Frankenstein: The Monster Returns will most likely be how much they elevate the usually sympathetic victim of mad science into a world-threatening fiend who is callous and cruel deliberately. However, the gameplay style does feel like it’s nearing a nice way to design a very tough NES game. You aren’t going to have to replay an entire game just to retry parts thanks to a reasonable size and password system, and learning it feels manageable without being too complex. More room to learn and utilize your power-ups would make it more entertaining to be sure, but on a system famous for games with often unfair levels of difficulty, at least Frankenstein: The Monster Returns tried to find a way to be hard yet reasonable to complete.