As this game is developed by Beam Software, the same people who developed the Game Boy version of Tetris, you'd be expecting a good game, right? Unfortunately, it's the exact opposite.

The game itself is split into two different sections - top-down puzzle-solving, and side-scrolling puzzle-platforming. I'll discuss both.

The first thing you'll notice is that this game has about the graphics of an Atari 5200 game. Seriously, look at it. If it wasn't for the game's length, I'd think this actually WAS an Atari 5200 game, ported to the NES. There's almost no detail, the floors in the side-scrolling sections are the exact same tile over and over again, and the game has Predator Syndrome - a lot of tiles that look like they SHOULD be solid, aren't.

The sound and music aren't of the gold standard, either. There's only four music tracks in the ENTIRE GAME, and none of them are particularly good. The sound effects are of average to below-average quality, except for the get-hit sound effect. The get-hit sound effect is quite possibly the most annoying sound in the world, and is probably one of the only sounds torturous enough to be played in Hell.

The story isn't even explained, so I just assume there isn't one outside of the instruction manual.

The controls stick like they're covered in honey during top-down sections, and they're just really slow in the side-scrolling sections. For whatever reason, you plant bombs with the B button, jump with the A button, and...suicide with the Select button. So, how do you run? You can't control it - you just have to walk veeeeeerrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyyy slllllllloooooooooowwwwwwwwwllllllllllllyyyyyyyy until Dash decides to run. He also needs a bit of space to do it - about 2 tiles worth of space.

About jumping - there's two different ways you can jump. The first, which is only executable from a standing or walking position, is really high, by this game's standards - about 4 blocks high - but only goes about 4 inches horizontally. The second, which is executable only while running - is a really long jump which covers a lot of distance, but gets barely enough height that, at the peak of your jump, if you're lucky, you MIGHT be able to jump over an enemy. A lot of the time, you'll have to take a longer route because the controls are just too limited. Also, there's a slight delay between landing from any type of jump and being able to do anything. This is, of course, a bad thing.

Of course, being a puzzle-platformer, there's a suicide button. The problem with this is that, of course, this game gives you a very LIMITED number of lives. And before you ask, no, there's no continues. There isn't even a HIDDEN continue function! This is quite the problem, due the fact that this game expects you to fight your way through 100 floors of hell. 100 floors, with several levels each, with very limited extra lives, no continues, and levels that are really easy to make unwinnable.

Bombs are usually pretty useful in video games when you get to use them - they do a lot of damage, have a blast radius, so they can take out several enemies at a time, and they can't hurt you. This game does none of these three rules correctly. The bombs destroy all enemies they are even close to - but there's just one problem. THEY KILL YOU INSTANTLY! Don't even try using a bomb without a detonator - on later levels, there's no way you'll get away in time.

For some odd reason, detonators are a LOT more common than bombs. Bombs are actually really rare items, whlie detonators are more common than, well, almost any other item in the game. At one point, I had over 25 detonators and less than 10 bombs. My question is - what's the point? Why have so many detonators without the bombs to use them with?

The bombs are only slightly more useful in the top-down sections. They're really only usable for destroying blocks, and it's pretty hard to get yourself into a position where you have to destroy the blocks...

This game really LOVES cramped spaces that you can barely fit into, because there's tons of them in the side-scrolling sections. In fact, most of the side-scrolling level designs are either cramped, have a massive number of pits and such, or can be made unwinnable very easily.

Oops, I guess I forgot to mention the game speed? This game is about as fast as a computer designed for Windows 98 trying to run Skyrim and Crysis 2 at highest settings at the same time. Even the enemies move like they're in slow-motion!

A big problem is that there simply aren't very many level designs you can possibly use with controls this limited. Case in point - I found a level which was basically EXACTLY the same as a different level, except it didn't have icy floors. And this level came later in the game, but not late enough for this to be excusable! It's like this is trying to showcase video game flaws!

As for the items in the game...there are keys, detonators, bombs, hearts that give you extra lives, what appear to be either buttons or boxes with diamonds in them which open the exit door when they're all collected, gold stars that give you a few seconds of invincibility when you collect ten of them, blue stars that do nothing but give you points, and a question mark, which I'll get to later.

The game works on an OXYGEN meter, which constantly depletes, and touching an enemy will drain OXYGEN at an incredible rate for as long as you touch it. You see, the game designers have obviously never heard of mercy invincibility, otherwise known as having a brief period of invincibility after getting hit. It'd be better if you just lost a certain amount of OXYGEN and got knocked back with a slight bit of invincibility afterwards.

There are somewhat unique game mechanics, but most of them are ruined. You can push four boxes onto the floor number to access a secret level, but on most levels, you can't do so. Why? Because the level design doesn't permit it. There's an elevator to take you to the next floor, which is the main method of advancing through the game, except that you can almost just go through the game and just keep going back into the elevator without doing any levels! I think it shuts you out if you do this too many times, but I haven't had it happen to me.

About the question mark, if you collect it, it makes an express elevator appear. This express elevator will first take away ALL of the items you've accumulated, and then it will either take you up a few floors, or it will take you DOWN a few floors. The problem is that it's like the lottery - it's complete chance. You don't know whether it will take you up or down until it does so. Worse, occasionally it will get in the way, so that it's difficult to NOT go into it. Did I mention this game is 100 floors long?

The only reason this game is hard is because it's SO LONG. Oh, and you only get a few lives and no continues to do it with. I will NOT be playing this game ever again, I'll tell you that for sure.

Truly, this game is appalling, and probably one of the worst on the NES. I can't imagine how this got on shelves. You should not play this game under ANY circumstance, and it gets an F-(unplayable).

That's it, I'll see you people later. Goodbye, and thank you for reading this review.