Banshaku wrote:Clunky, yes, now maybe I would see it as buggy since I know nes programming enough.
Oh, it's buggy for sure. Anyone would see it as that. Such as the way you can get stuck in walls, or scrolling in the wrong direction can get you caught in a boss room, etc.
It's surprising really. I've played hundreds of NES games, and usually most of them are simply poorly designed and/or "clunky" like you are saying. Karnov is the only one I recall playing where completely obvious bugs not only impacted the gameplay experience, but are actually rampant.
Disclaimer - I have the Famicom version of the game, I don't know if some things were fixed for the western release. It's definitely crazy that this would have made it past Nintendo's "seal of quality".
One thing for sure, once you try the arcade one, you will realise how much the focus was on "monetization", i.e. how cheap the game is to make you die and some place are almost doable only by luck
Karnov is a bit of a memorizer, but I wouldn't call it downright cheap or designed to just take money away from you. I consider it much more playable and fair than the NES(Famicom) version.