Quite a few people watched A Nightmare on Elm Street, and liked it. How else did it spawn so many sequels? But, then somebody tried to make a game out of the movie, and people scratched their heads in confusion about how they could make ANOES into a video game. Then they saw the LJN logo, and knew that they wouldn't do it properly. But, did they know for sure? Let's see...

The graphics don't look too bad for an NES game, and the animations are definitely smooth enough. There really isn't much more to say...

For whatever reason, I really like the music in this game, though others don't. The sound effects aren't bad, either.

The gameplay basically revolves around going into houses and collecting bones so that you can burn them in a furnace, which is about as good as you can get with a game like this and keep it uncensored by Nintendo. However, the big thing is that this gets really, really repetitive quickly. If you actually went to the trouble to finish the game, you'd probably never want to see another bone again in your life! Also, I have a good question:Why does Freddy have so many bones? Seriously, you'd think he's some kind of monster made up of bones with just how many there are! And they all look exactly the same...

But, the biggest feature here is multiplayer. To be specific, four-player multiplayer. There's only a handful of NES games that work with the NES Four Score(the four player adapter for the NES), yet an LJN game is one of them. And, of course, it's a much better game if you have people to play with...

One of the biggest problems facing newer players is "WHERE DO I GO?!", and it's actually justified in this case. The first three houses you're supposed to go into are completely random, though they are selected from the three houses at the beginning of Elm Street. Also, the game doesn't give you a clue as to which house to go into, which can be quite confusing, given that you can only enter them in a certain order - no sequence breaking here.

Once you go inside a house, you end up having to collect bones. When you collect enough bones, you can move on - otherwise, you'll be unable to go any further. And, at the end, a boss is waiting for you. Let's hope you collected those Dream Tokens to be able to use special abilities and weapons, or you're screwed...

Probably the best aspect of the game is the multiplayer. It's a fun experience, but, of course, it's not perfect. For one thing, players can't share Dream Tokens - this comes into play when you have some guy hogging all the Dream Tokens from the other players, and then he dies in the middle of a bossfight and the remaining players are left to try to defeat the boss with their bare fists.

Also, players can not be scrolled off the screen, which means that if there's one unresponsive player, nobody can move forwards. Also, if one player lags behind, the others are subject to being blindsided by obstacles, and you need to conserve as much health as possible.

When you defeat a boss, you get a key, which gives the person who collects it an extra life. In multiplayer, you may have to put some thought into who has less lives, and should get the key. This is important, because each player only has three continues to use, then they're dead.

As for the collision detection, it doesn't seem to have any problems. The controls don't have any real problems either, at least not to my knowledge. The most annoying thing about them is that you fly back every time you get hit, which can cause you to fall into a pit.

This game has quite the innovative concept, this concept being its awake/asleep system. Since it's the middle of the night, your characters are sleep-deprived, and therefore will fall asleep given enough time. It depletes by itself, depletes faster when you're standing still, and usually depletes by an entire bar when you get hit, despite the logic that the pain should wake you up a bit.

When you fall asleep, you enter the dream world, where enemies are stronger, and Dream Tokens may be utilized. Of course, there's a catch. After a certain length of time, the Freddy Song will start playing, and when it finishes, Freddy attacks out of nowhere. This creates a dilemma - do you want to stay awake, where it's safer, or do you want to be asleep, with actual weapons and slightly stronger enemies, with the added risk of having to hurry to avoid Freddy? Really, this is actually a pretty cool concept, I just wish it could've been put into a game where you do more than just collect bones...

One of the biggest problems with the sleep meter is:Where's the health bar? You can take about four hits before dying, but where's some kind of marker to signal how many times you have left that you can get hit? It shouldn't be hard to understand - if the gigantic "A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET" logo wasn't there, it wouldn't be hard to fit a health bar on the HUD.

In conclusion, this game isn't bad - it's actually one of the best, if not the best, LJN game that I've seen. It just suffers from a few problems - repetition among others. I'd really like to see somebody remake this game, and make a better version of it, one where you do more than collect bones...

Pros
+Nice music
+Decent graphics
+Innovative "awake/asleep" system
+Four-player multiplayer
+Spot-on collision detection and controls

Cons
-Problems with multiplayer
-Extremely repetitive gameplay


Final Rating:B+(It just needs a bit more polish, and then it'd be a classic)

Final Comments:I did this review mostly from the mutiplayer experience I had with it, and I think it turned out pretty well - at least, it was detailed and informative. While I'm not the person to do it, if somebody's interested, it'd be great if somebody did a remake of this game, or at least used the excellent "awake/asleep" system from it in a game they may be developing...

Nice review. I really appreciated the depth you went into. Although I will say that I have fun playing this game on Vizzed with people on netplay...that doesn't mean this game isn't bad. Sure it's not HORRIBLE, but it's not good either.

Starting with the horrible slippery controls.

nice review but i hate the game.you liked it.i don't care.save yourself from freddy.but do you want cake?or a test?

Good review. I have to say that the game is in the middle for me. The game is good, but not that great at the same time. I never try out the multiplayer of this game before. I just hope it is better.

I don't like LJN. They have a really bad rep for making games. Especially games like these, but they have made a few good games, and that's not saying much.
Great review, man. Keep it up.