Let me make one thing perfectly clear. Though the game is supposed to be based on the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, I can't find any relations between them, other than the character. It makes no attempts in following the plot whatsoever, and if you were a fan of the movie, and you spent $50 for this game, then popped it in and found out that it doesn't match your intentions for buying it at all, you would be ticked.

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!


Once you turn it on, the title screen looks promising enough. It was made by Mindscape, and you know what else they made? Paperboy! One of the best games that the NES has to offer. So how could this be bad?

This game is a perfect example of one that has been ruined by controls. Let me explain them to you. This is a platforming game, so there is need for a jump button. But what you get when you try the A button is an attack. Well, OK, maybe it’s a crappy game that uses B to jump. But B doesn't work either, it does another attack. Well, maybe it’s like Double Dragon where pressing B and A at the same time jumps. Nope! Well, that cancels out the two red buttons that 99% of the NES library use for jumping. But this is a platforming game - so there's got to be some way to jump - right? Well, after fidgeting around for about 30 seconds, you figure out that, to jump, you press up. You know what other games do that; the Zelda CD-i games - and you know how bad those are. For some games, like fighting games, up is suitable for jumping since it's not a critical part of the game. Rarely do you need to jump in those type games - so it's fine. But this is a platforming game, like Mega Man or Castlevania. Jumping is a crucial part of the game - and since it is, many jumps have to be done with extreme accuracy. It wears on your thumb really fast. Pushing up and right barely moves you any. So how do you jump forward? Ah! Down! It’s so OBVIOUS! Once an enemy is killed (which I will establish later) an item will occasionally appear. To collect an item, you should be able to just touch it - like Castlevania. But in this pile of garbage, you have to press Down + A. To begin with, that's a pain in the neck. But what kid in the late 80's is going to know to press down and a, without the instruction manual? If you try to do it when pressing down and A together, it doesn't work. You jump forward. So, just to be more tedious, you have to press A slightly before you press down.

Normally, pressing start pauses the game. In this game, there is no specific "Pause" feature. You can pause the game, if you go to the item selection screen. You get here by pressing select. Here, you can select your weapon, or your attack. There are four in the first level. One is the standard punch. The next is a sword, which you get from killing a skeleton. If you kill a green demon-alien mix, you can get a fireball, which I find works best, since it's a projectile. The final one is a pitchfork – which you can only obtain from a devil – whom of which doesn’t appear unless you cut down a hanging skeleton with a sword with I thought was only there for decoration!

The punch is stubby, and is the standard, so it doesn’t exactly need to be the best by any means; but you can only hit the bad guys if you are as close to them as possible – and half of the attacks with the punch don’t even work. A sign of god-awful hit detection.

You can obtain a sword from a Skeleton, but with the sword it’s the same problem as the punch. The sword can go right through the enemy monsters! The hit detection is so bad – I can’t even describe it.

The fireballs come from those alien demon things. They are projectiles, and almost always hit. But you only have so many before the game decides you are out. It’s frustrating, but necessary for completing the level.

The pitchfork comes from a devil, who, as I established, doesn’t appear unless you cut down a hanging skeleton with a sword which I thought was only there for decoration! The devil is pretty difficult to kill, because he keeps on teleporting all over the place. It’s like one of Minecraft’s Endermen. The pitchfork is a one use weapon, and you use it on the stage boss – some weird looking lion thing. If you don’t get the pitchfork – you cannot kill the boss. The sword isn’t long enough to hit him – the fireballs are too low to hit him – and the punch won’t get you anywhere. This is one of the most cryptic stages that I have ever played. If you’re a kid in the mid 1980’s, you won’t know to cut down a background skeleton on a rope. Imagine buying this game for $50, and getting stuck in the first five minutes!

Overall, as I mentioned, the hit detection is probably the worst of any NES game. I can barely kill things without losing 3 bars off of my energy! I find it easier to just press down and jump away from them than to actually kill them – but you need to kill the skeleton in order to get the sword. With the sword, you cut down the background skeleton. When the background skeleton drops, the devil appears. When the devil appears, you kill him and obtain a pitchfork. With the pitchfork you kill the boss. So if you don’t get the sword – you’re screwed. It’s like in Little Red Hood where the key doesn’t appear in World 8 until you buy an invincibility potion and three slingshots!

Now let’s talk about one of the most annoying things in the game – the enemies. There are 3 enemies and a stage boss. There are these green alien things that look straight out of Doom, and they take about one or two hits to kill. But trying to attack them is a chore. They can fly – so they usually come from above, but 90% of the time, they touch your head and then leave. If they land on the ground – just consider that it happened by pure luck. When you kill them for a second or third time, the game decides that you can have the fire weapon. You do the tedious weapon pick up command, then hit select, select the fireballs, press A (yup, Start and select don’t work now), and now you are equipped. From there, you kill the skeletons. They take eight or so hits with the punch or sword, but with a fireball they only take three or four. Once you kill three or four skeletons, the game gives you the sword. The only use for it is to cut down the background skeleton – otherwise it’s just the equivalent of your punch. The devil only appears when you do that stupid thing with the hanging skeleton, and the game gives you the pitchfork whenever it’s ready. From there, you kill the boss.

This level is very hard – in fact, it’s one of the hardest I’ve played in years. The controls are only half the battle. Once you have the sword – there is no need to kill the skeleton or alien thing anymore, so I find myself just jumping over them after I cut down the background skeleton. From doing that, I can kill the devil just fine – but the skeletons somehow drain all of my energy, and I start from the beginning of the level. After about twenty minutes of failure (and yes – I survived 20 whole minutes. Do I get a medal?) I shut off my Nintendo and started writing this review.
Now how about the graphics? Well, there were some good looking games on the NES, like Kirby’s Adventures, but this is not the case here. It looks like crap. It makes Haunted Hall from Action 52 look...umm...more tolerable.

The music is so-so, for the Nintendo’s Standards. That’s really all I can say about that.

The addictiveness is low. After all of the frustration and all of the cryptic aspects, I shut the NES off and never return.

The game does, indeed, have several more levels. But if you are a kid in the mid 1980’s – you won’t reach them. The first stage is so cryptic, you won’t figure it out unless you just have too much time on your hands. The following levels, believe it or not, are a lot straighter forward. So, here’s a perfectly legit question. Why put the cryptic stage in the very beginning? Were they trying to prevent kids from being able to play it? What’s the point of programming it if there is zero chance of anybody ever finding it?

The difficulty is out of control. Only once have I defeated the first boss, but I was too surprised to act quickly in the next level. That was my last life – and I was really ticked off. I shut the NES off – had a cup of coffee, then wrote this review. The difficulty is not pure challenge, like the Mega Man or Zelda games, it’s a game that’s challenging for all of the wrong reasons. The main two being controls and hit detection.

So that’s Conan. It came from a great name in video game development, but, to be serious for one moment, it’s a movie tie-in. What do you expect? Movie tie-ins, ESPECIALLY on the Nintendo Entertainment System, are notorious for lack of quality. Goldeneye 007 was a miracle, but beyond that, movies just weren’t made to be video games. Activision tried, Acclaim tried, THQ tried, but all failed miserably.

Conan, to say the least, sucks. It wasn’t worth a rental. Let alone buying it. As I established early on, the first level is as cryptic as Castlevania II - maybe even worse. To get the background skeleton down - you have to use a sword. One problem - you have to press Down + A to do it. No kid is going to figure that out! So, unless you had the instruction manual or knew it from a friend - you were totally screwed.

appearently, in one of jontrons videos, he said that conan for the nes is ACTUALLY a reskinned game for the com64 called "myth: legend in the making" o_0

Ah, yes. Conan. I know of this game because of James Rolfe's (Angry Video Game Nerd) review. It seems like both of you hate the game equally, except James' language doesn't belong on a family friendly community such as Vizzed xD

Nice review though

Mega Mewtwo X : Glad you brought that to my attention! I looked into the well-researched Wikipedia, and found that you were half right. Apparently, this game was originally a game called Myth: History in the Making. It was released on the Commodore 64, Amiga, Amiga CD32, Amstrad CPC and ZX Spectrum - and for the NES port, it was re-skinned to be a movie tie-in for Conan The Barbarian called Conan: The Mystery of Time (However it is formally referred to as "Conan"). So it does feature the character - but it was last minute re-skinned, like Super Mario Bros. 2 - but it didn't turn out as well, unfortunately.

goodanswer : huh, interesting.