I’ve played Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which was a fairly obscure NES game before the AVGN episode. I remember seeing it in my local retro game store, but I never wanted to buy it because I had no idea what it was or knew anyone else who had played it. It wasn’t until the 2010s that I gave it a shot.
After playing this game a few times, I can’t say that I like it, but I don’t think it is the worst game on the system. It wouldn’t end up on a list of worst games I’ve played, because I’ve played some absolute garbage. This is a bad game, but not as bad as its reputation would lead you to believe.
What I’m really looking forward to is seeing the reviews from when the game was released. The game came out in 1989 in North America, so this might be tough to find reviews for something like this. I’m going to be ignoring the reviews from the 2000s and 2010s.
TLDR: A bad game that is fun to laugh at.
Narrative
The game’s manual has some background on the source material (Link). It is a short paragraph, but it does a lot to explain what is happening, which is great because I doubt that many kids would be familiar with the story. I’m not sure why any of them would be.
Thankfully, the “object” of the game is explained, because the story in the manual isn’t all that helpful. Dr. Jekyll is getting married, and he has to walk a ridiculously long way to get to the chapel. Everything is trying to stop him, and if he gets too upset, then he turns into Mr. Hyde.
You need to keep Dr. Jekyll ahead of Mr. Hyde, or else Evil will triumph over Good, somehow, and the “Powers That Be” will” intervene. This will result in a game over. There are alternate endings to this game, which is kind of cool, but you’ll have to play the game to see them, and that is a problem.
The base story is okay, but it feels way too complicated for what is going on in the game. I wish the game had been a little different, since the whole game is a mess. This isn’t a property that really translated to a video game as well as something like Dracula, Frankenstein, or The Mummy.
Gameplay
There are two parts to the gameplay in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The manual explains that there is a conflict between good and evil going on, which kind of plays out in the gameplay. There are a few endings to this game; if you really want to play this several times, to see them.
With the Dr. Jekyll levels, you’ll need to walk to the left until you reach the end of the stage. That is the only goal you have while playing these levels. Along the way, everything is trying to kill you or lower your stress meter, which will turn you into Mr. Hyde. He does have a weapon, but it will only kill bees.
The Mr. Hyde levels are when things turn into a game. As Hyde, you move to the right as the screen automatically scrolls. You can punch or fire your Psycho Wave at a variety of random enemies. The goal of these stages is to fill up the Stress meter and turn back into Dr. Jekyll, which is done by killing the monsters. Some will fill up the stress meter faster, and some of them will drop coins that come in handy later in the game.
If you catch up to Dr. Jekyll while playing as Mr. Hyde, then you die and have to start over. This isn’t explained in the game, so you have to read the manual. If you didn’t read the manual, then this will feel random. Since most people either didn’t read it or never had it, this became something that reviewers in the 2000s could make fun of.
The hitboxes are wildly inconsistent, especially when you’re playing as Dr. Jekyll. He moves very slowly and has odd jumping controls. You can hide in buildings in the later stages, but this doesn’t always save you.
Overall, I don’t like the gameplay that much. It is inconsistent and at times can be quite random. I’ve had times where the game decides that I should die by falling into a non-existent pit as Mr. Hyde, or I’ve been hit by a bomb blast that was no longer on the screen. The more you play this game, the stranger it gets.
Visuals
There are some Castlevania vibes in this game that I really like. I don’t think the game is negatively impacted by the graphics, but they don’t elevate the game as much as they could. Had the graphics been creepier, then it might’ve made the game better than it was.
The sections of the game when you’re playing as Dr. Jekyll look okay. The graphics don’t impact the gameplay, which is nice, but they don’t do anything to elevate it. It looks like the developers were trying to make a Castlevania game, or were taking inspiration from similar sources.
I like the graphics on the Mr. Hyde screens quite a bit. They look great, and if you look closely at them, you’ll see that they’re the reverse of the Dr. Jekyll levels, but in reverse. What I don’t like is that the levels are constantly scrolling, and you don’t have any control over it.
Overall, I like the graphics. They aren’t perfect or special, but they work well enough for a game like this. I wish the developers had done something better with the gameplay. They spent a lot of time on the graphics, and I think they look very good.
Reviews at the Time
This is one of the big reasons I wanted to go back and review this game. I know what the reputation of the game has today, which I know is a little tainted by some of the comedic reviews from the 2000s. That doesn’t tell the whole story, so I’m going to see if I can find something from the late 1980s and early 1990s.
There is a German publication called ASM, which reviewed the game in December 1989. I can’t read the article, and the scoring system is a little odd. They rate the game in five categories from 1 to 12. There is no verdict, so I’m not sure what the overall score should be. Wikipedia and MobyGames have conflicting scores. So, what I did was add the five scores together and divide by the total. That came to a score of 50 percent, which means the score on MobyGames is right.
I looked through several issues of Nintendo Power. There is one mention of the game being released in March 1989, and I think it might’ve been delayed a month, or there was a rolling release of the game. They didn’t review the game, but the publication gave a brief description of the game in the January-February issue of 1989.
I looked at GamePro and Video Game and Entertainment magazines. Neither of them had reviews for the game as far as I could see. They had descriptions of what was in the game, and one of them was way off.
I’m not too surprised by the lack of a review for the game. There were quite a few games being released, and the independent publications needed to choose wisely when giving space to a game. It seems like none of the publications wanted to take the time to review it, aside from a German language publication.
4.5/10. This is a confusing game to review. There is a section of the game that feels like you’re playing a below average side scroller, and the other section is like a 2D version of a survival horror. I like the idea of the game, but the execution is awful. It is an oddity on the NES.
Pros
- It is fun to watch people play
Cons
- Inconsistent Hitboxes
- Random Damage
- Can be a little boring
Conclusion
I don’t like playing this game as much as I enjoy watching other people play it. This is something that would’ve been great to play back in high school with my friends. We didn’t bash bad games; they were something to laugh at, or laugh at each other while they struggled through them.
That is something that was lost when comedy reviews and purposely negative reviews started showing up in the 2000s. Some of these were funny at the time, but when people take them seriously, they can alter the discourse around some games. All that being said, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a bad game that can be fun to play with a group of friends, because it is comedically bad.
The manual really explains what is going on, but that wasn’t something that has always been available to retro game collectors. As someone who mostly collects loose cartridges, I never read the manual for this game until the 2010s. Knowing what’s going on doesn’t make it any better, but it explains a few things.
If you liked this post, please check out my other reviews of NES games, such as Jaws and Back to the Future.