I have very few memories of Nightmare on Elm Street for the NES. This is one of the many games that LJN published, and it is one of their better games. Like several other games from LJN, it is an ambitious game with some cool ideas. None of which was fully realized.
Unlike Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street kept things simple by being a side-scrolling action game. It can take some time to figure out where to go, but it doesn’t get too crazy. You do switch between a dream world and the real world, but it doesn’t matter too much, as everything is trying to kill you.
The four-player mode is probably the most interesting part of this game. I have no idea how many people used this back in the late 1980s or 1990s. I know that no one I knew did, because none of us had the multi-tap that allowed four people to play at once.
TLDR: An Average Game with a Cool Gimmick.
What movie is it based on?
Normally, this is in the “Narrative” section, but I wanted to include it here to explore this question further. When this game was released, 1990, there were five movies in the Nightmare on Elm Street series. Three movies were released between 1987 and 1989: Dream Warriors, The Dream Master, and The Dream Child.
From looking at the manual, it seems like the game took the most inspiration from the third film, Dream Warriors. None of the characters in the game are given names, but the manual lists them as Dream Warriors. It is a little odd.
This game’s release falls between the release dates of the fifth and sixth movies. It was scheduled for a 1989 release, but it was pushed back, and the original concept was altered to what we have now. At least that is what Wikipedia says.
Does Wikipedia list a source for this? Yes, they do. Is the source accurate with the information that is provided in the Wikipedia article? Of course it isn’t. This really isn’t all that surprising at this point.
What the person who wrote the Wikipedia article latched onto is a brief description in Nintendo Power. This isn’t a statement from the developers, who are given a brief profile in this same issue; it is a simple marketing line. Stuff like this is truly bizarre.
Narrative
So, what does the manual say about the story? Well, it gives you a barebones plot about Freddy killing kids. This is what you might expect.
It explains that you and your friends have to find Freddy’s bones and throw them into the high school furnace to defeat him. It isn’t too far off from the plot of the third movie. You just don’t have Freddy’s mom being mentioned, and there is no blessing of his bones.
The story is fine for what it is. The manual does explain quite a bit about what is happening in the game. Here is a link to it if you’re interested (Link).
Gameplay
I think the gameplay is alright. It isn’t anything that you haven’t seen before in other games, and the developer did a decent job with the ideas it had for the game. The four-player option is cool, but I don’t know how popular it was.
Nintendo had 25 games that used their Four Score multi-tap. This is on par with other gimmicks that were released for the console. Not many developers took advantage of this, so who knows how popular it was?
The game takes place at night, and just like the movies, you’re trying to stay awake. There is a health meter and a sleep meter. When you fall asleep, you go to a dream world, where the game is arguably more fun.
Because this is a video game, and at the time, you couldn’t have just one enemy in the game, there are a bunch of random monsters and falling blocks. Some of these monsters are in the manual, and others aren’t. The monsters also change when you go to the Dream World.
Several items help you along the way. You have Dream Tokens, as well as items that help you stave off sleep. Here are the items and tokens, and what they do:
- Coffee – This refills your sleep meter and keeps you awake.
- Radio – The boombox wakes you up after you’ve fallen asleep
- Shadow Warrior – A Yin-Yang token will let you transform into this Ninja character.
- Acrobat – The running man token lets you turn into this javelin-throwing lunatic.
- Necromancer – I’m not sure why this wizard who throws fireballs is called a Necromancer. Anyway, you transform into this guy by collecting a wizard hat token.
I was a little surprised by how few items are in this game. Aside from the five that I listed, you’ll be collecting bones. Some of these are easy to see, and others take some effort to locate. These are supposed to be Freddy’s bones, but they all look the same.
You’ll have to collect a specific number to beat each level. It is a cool idea, I just wish they had done things differently. How this was done lends some credibility to the game being rushed, but it is hard to tell, given the quality of the products LJN released.
Visuals
The game looks okay. Think of a budget Castlevania game, and you won’t be too far off. What I like about the game is how Elm Street looks. The rest of the game isn’t all that impressive.
When I went back to play this, I thought of trick-or-treating. You wander down a street, and there are a bunch of monsters wandering around. Yes, I know that these are supposed to be enemies, but that makes me think the people of Elm Street have more problems than Freddy.
The enemies look decent enough for what they are. When you switch to the Dream World, the enemies look much better. I like how they resemble some of the monsters with Freddy’s face you’ll see in the movies. I guess the developers wanted to put something else in the game from the films.
When you go to the Dream World or enter one of the houses, it feels like a generic side scroller. There is nothing wrong with how the game looks; it just isn’t all that impressive. For what it is, I think this game is decent-looking, but nothing spectacular.
Reviews at the Time
The reviews for this game weren’t all that great when the game was released. Nintendo Power gave it slightly above average scores, EGM didn’t like it that much, and VideoGame and Computer Entertainment gave the game a positive review of 7/10.
This isn’t a case where the scores started high and then went down over the years. According to what I’ve seen on Wikipedia and MobyGames, the scores have been right around a 5/10 since the game was released. There are a few outliers in the 2000s, and one 4/5 in the 2010s.
7/10. This is one of the better games released by LJN. I think it has some cool ideas, but it doesn’t elevate the game to being good or great. It is an average game that is worth playing today. If you have three friends who want to play this game, then you can do that. I’m just not sure how many people have that.
Pros
- Good Gameplay
- Decent Graphics
- Four-Player mode
Cons
- A little boring
- Repetitive
Conclusion
This was exactly what I was expecting it to be. Rare was one of the better developers that worked with LJN, and the games they made were pretty good. This isn’t my favorite LJN game, but there is nothing wrong with it.
Nightmare on Elm Street blends in with most of the other side-scrollers on the NES. It is competently made, and having a four-player option is a nice touch. As far as movie-based games go, this one is pretty good.
I would rather play Jaws or Friday the 13th. Those games feel different from the other games on the NES. Nightmare on Elm Street could’ve been anything. It needed to have the branding; otherwise, this would be one of the less-than-memorable games on the NES.
If you liked this post, please check out my other posts about LJN games, such as Jaws or Friday the 13th.