Frankenstein (Commodore Amiga)

 

Frankenstein (Commodore Amiga) :

Baron Frankenstein has decided it is about time he got back to working on his favourite hobby, monster making...but as usual, the lazy bugger has decided that he needs to focus on the important task of building of the monster itself, and sends off poor Egor, his ever faithful assistant, to do all the busywork of finding the tools and body parts required for the experiments.

After getting physically booted off screen by the Baron to start your quest, you, as Egor, must wander all throughout the castle, surrounding grounds and village and gather everything up. Frankenstein will tell you what he needs next, and you have a bag to pop whatever item he's after into when you find it. And when you do, you have to travel all the way back to the lab to find out what's next on the list.

Egor doesn't even have a weapon to fight off all the horrible characters he'll meet along the way! All he has is a pathetic jump with which to try and avoid contact with the enemies, and so he'll forever be getting harassed and terrified by all manner of beasts.

This constant fear is what works as Egor's health, as every time he touches an enemy or trap, he'll become ever more frightened, going from being okay to a full blown panic! If he can find one of the local barmaids before he reaches a panic, he'll calm down a bit though. And if he successfully manages to bring the current item back to the lab, the meter will also reset to calm. If he does manage to lose it and freak out completely though, he'll run straight back to the Baron in the lab and be punished by squish-ment from a cartoonish anvil that the baron will drop on his head. 

The nasties are a varied bunch, with rats and bats, killer plants, ghosts, angry villagers, knights in armour and severed hands among the things you'll be facing, and everything has been designed well with all the characters and backgrounds having a nice spooky, cartoony feel to them. 

However, sometimes there are far too many enemies in one tiny area, and you'll get frustrated as your fear bar rapidly shoots towards panic and there's no way you can really avoid hitting the baddies. Also, whenever Egor does his jump move, the Amiga blurts out a horrible spring-type noise, and given the amount of jumping you'll be doing in this game, it can get very annoying, very quickly!

Having said that, it's still fun enough for a few goes, and it's interesting to see all the new enemies in the different areas and how well they fit into the cliches of our favourite made-monster tale! It's just a pity it wasn't a little bit better and less frustrating......

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