Fester is the bald-headed, honestly pretty ugly uncle of the Addams family, who if you never heard of them, they are creepy and they're kooky, mysterious and spooky. And they seem to live in a haunted house, or at least, one with monstrous things like a sentient venus flytrap and a disembodied hand that walks around on its fingers.  So why are they in a game about an alien invasion?  That's... a good question I don't have the answer to!  You are Fester (Why not Gomez? Why not Morticia? Why not serious WEDNESDAY?) the robe-loving uncle and he is going to destroy the aliens almost single handed!  Again, I sort of thought weirdos like the Addams would like aliens, but there you have it. Is it an adventure game? No its a top-down shooter. Yes, I never saw Fester ever have a gun, but he has one here, a transforming one.  This is just a really strange idea for a game. It is playable though, and since Sunsoft is in the house, we can probably expect some decent music.

But seriously, why does Fester get all this attention? He had a SNES game, both the Addams movies were revolved around him - I just don't get it. (I know other games about the family were made later, but he got the lion's share)


Graphics:6
Definitely not the highlight of this game. That title screen looks positively Crayola. The best graphics are the large sepia pictures of your family members as you visit them inside the buildings. They don't move and you can't interact with them, but the look is spot on.  The various alien bosses are all different, unique, and strange looking, good job here. The aliens are well.. I guess killer frogs with no eyes, floating bug-brain things and hungry pac-men things that eat through walls are threatening, but I would have rather seen some real civilized, war-initiating menace. The standard enemies in the game just seem to be another world's version of wildlife - they are so disconnected from the bosses, who walk upright and carry weapons and tools. They exist only to drop power ups and usable items like money, keys and light bulbs.

Fester, our hero, is not so hot himself. Definitely meant to be an ugly guy, here is he wearing his best potato sack like robe, but the formless cloth doesn't do us any favors. He looks like a big lump. His bald head might as well be a potato going into the sack. His gun is nothing to sneeze at, a strange hot pink pistol with a flared barrel like a blunderbuss, it can shoot four kinds of projectiles. His later weapon, a whip, has four unique forms to it as well. Both whip and gun are done well. I don't quite know if that gun is Addams family looking, but whatever.

The in game graphics are serviceable, if plain. Almost the whole game is navigating the residential areas of Fester's neighborhood, and some dark sewers to travel between areas. I did not like how clean looking the city was for an alien invasion - the aliens haven't even knocked over a single hot dog stand or trampled the bushes even!   The road are out though - all the roads are torn up with giant black pit chasms. You will be navigating the 'burbs and rows of bushes that will prevent you from just walking through them. Fester also has to contend with a few 3-D mazes(shudder) in this game. These are quite vanilla and dull, having nothing but an exit or two, no enemies, and make me wonder why they are even in this.


Sound: 8
I always liked Sunsoft, because they had a great group working on the sound team. The music is a bit eclectic, but it works. The title music is a samba version of the Addams family theme, odd, but so is this game. Points for referencing the TV show. The overworld music (the most common tune) is rather pedestrian, it doesn't lend anything to marauding aliens or a spooky goon like Fester - so I found it the weakest track - though it is not badly done - just a bit out of place with the odd subject materials. However! The rest of the game is orchestrated well for the NES. The sinister crawl of the sewers, the gloomy tunes of the 3-D mazes, the totally killer boss track, and the mockingly Addams game over music. These are just great examples of why, once upon a time, Sunsoft had some of my favorite soundtracks.


Addictiveness: 4
Its alright, the core gameplay is decent at least. Fester has to travel some considerable distance and walks quite slow - all the time. The firing arc and power downs for weapons is not very fun though, there were some upgraded weapons I feel are way less useful than weaker ones - just based on the trajectory of the attack.  There is probably only one or two secrets but nothing that would make a player go through this again. Regrettably, if you miss a house holding an item to add to your inventory, it does not repeat, and you must either go all the way to get it (there is no fast-travel in this game) or go on without it.  This is a drag if you discover it, and some items are pretty important. The bosses are a lot of fun though, and I kept playing to see all of them. At least the last stage takes you somewhere beyond suburbia.


Story: 4
Fester was moonbathing (because they do everything opposite from most American families), and saw the U.F.O. land. And he grabbed his space-age shooter and went to town.  I'm not sure why aliens are attacking, or what made the Addams think they were the ones to deal with it, so theres some strange fan-fic mishmash of ideas here.  That being said, the Addams all make an appearance at houses to help you. Minus Gomez, who only shows up for a secret.. the absence strange since Gomez is Fester's brother.  I never really saw the homicidal Addams clan as the docile, hiding type, but there you have it - they give you items as you enter the houses they are in. Now this is the neighborhood, and an Addams is in nearly every door. So obviously they are breaking into abandoned houses from the alien scare - so why don't they help fight - they are a family with a guillotine they play with, for Pete's sake.


Depth: 5
Well, its a shooter, so theres not a lot of depth beyond shooting anything that moves. There no hostages to rescue (bummer), nor do you find out what happened to the people in your neighborhood.  Apparently the hot dog vendors are still at work (no days off, even on invasion day!), because you can buy hot dogs from them to heal yourself. They take the ketchup money you can get from dropped enemies. A dollar sign, squirted out of ketchup. Yeah, I don't know either. Sadly, that is all ketchup money is good for.

The complexity of the gun  I was not expecting, although truth be told, I hate a lot of the outcomes its gives the player. Later you get a whip, and it is easy to upgrade, always shoots ahead straight, but you miss out on a lot of range - it does however, hit enemies several times in one swing. Personally, I used the whip only on occasion and got used to my nice max gun's range. You may like the whip more and play with that.  

Besides the weapons, there is the investment of the Addams family, who bequeath you some very nice things (including the whip). Health and Invisibility potions probably best of all. Any item use will get replenished after a boss is defeated, so use them sparingly before a boss fight. There are a few locations off the beaten path that can actually increase your health bars, and they are not hinted at, you have to figure those out. There is no hope of getting lost in the sewers or overworld as everything pretty much dead ends and leads you towards a certain path.

Speaking of path, the 3D mazes can be a bit confusing around level 3 or so, as they are just the dullest backgrounds with no change. You literally see nothing in them except a door at one end, and a door at the other. Its part of why I hate 3D mazes so much, because its just blocking you from the next logical step in the game, in this case the bosses. Almost all mazes lead to a boss fight immediately. Fortunately, you are given a few seconds of invulnerability when the boss appears.

Difficulty: 6 (or 8, if you don't follow my tip)
Its no lie, turbo fire does help a lot in this game. Its not absolutely necessary, but you will welcome it. This game can be hard, but honestly, the biggest threat is right with at the beginning of the game. That dang upgradable gun. It won't let you choose between its upgrades which one you want, you are stuck with whatever the last acquired level was. Your real hazard in this game is just getting Fester's gun to shoot the enemies. You see, it starts off super weak, then it gets an orange wavy ray, then these spiraling cannonballs -every upgrade you must handle the gun differently.

However, with a 30 minute farming session right at the beginning of the game, its difficulty is drastically reduced. I am not saying this is mandatory, or even acceptable for a game to dump this on you. But people who complain this is hard, I think its not, its just the stupid gun. Every pistol upgrade changes the pattern of your shot, but only a couple make you shoot straight ahead. Woe the shooting game that makes it hard for you to hit targets!  Anyway, I farm to the max gun level (8) and then its good to go.  Now you can fire straight ahead, have the most powerful bullets, and should have no trouble from regular foes. The biggest problem is bosses and getting too many gun power downs in a bad place. Just remember that dropped icons (good and bad) will disappear after a little time.

Take for example you start playing regularly, and end up with the third kind of shot, the spiral cannonballs. This works decently outside. But once you enter the claustrophobic sewers, the cannonball shot is quite a liability. You have to time it just right, as any shot hitting the wall just dies, right there.


Overall: 5.4
This is a weird game, and its just really strange to see the themes linked together. I can appreciate the idea of the evolving gun, but some of those fire patterns are handicapping. I will seriously scoff at this game for using the Addams with no comedy. Bad use of source. The Addams family was a comic strip, a TV show, and the movies - all had their spookiness played for laughs. None of that going on here. Its not a terrible game in my opinion, but there are definitely better ones to be had on a great system like the NES. In fact, most Addams family games are pretty ho-hum at best, maybe the family put a curse on their video games!