Darkseed NES pirate. The (almost) full breakdown.

First, the playthrough. :o I'll look around for certain deaths too. XD Requested by 34Bahamut.





Darkseed
Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System / Famicom
Seen on cart?: No, but was released
Year: After 1992, around 2000

Darkseed. The infamous mystery/horror game from 1992, being very abstract and dark, thanks to Giger's design. It got released on Amiga CD32, PC, later on PS1 and Sega Saturn but sadly, the latter two ports got only released in Japan. Years (?) later, Chinese people decided to port this onto the still-alive and kicking 8-bit console, the Famicom. This port was done by the Chinese/Taiwanese company named Mars Production, which in most of our opinions are just Waixing's worse quality game releasers. Let's see how did the port turn out...

Story:
Since the intro only has one picture and the three lines of Chinese text, if you don't know the original game, you might be thinking "What is that guy doing on that one screen and what the fck is that?" Well, if you don't know: Mike got an alien embryo implanted into his forehead (...in the original's cutscene, it looked like a result of male sexual liquid... well, you get the idea.) and he has three days to save himself and the mankind by stopping the invasion.
Story is good, even though it isn't developed very well in this port. Thus I give it a 6.

Music:
You get one, yes, ONE track playing all the time. No differency if you go into the Dark World. No differency in the city. Nothing. It is a nine second loop which might seem random Beeps and Blips (hello, Action 52 reference!) to you, it has an actual rhythm... but still, it is very bad. But how might it turn out in a Shizuka (& Yoshikoto?) remix? Who knows! XD (Note: I run under the name Hagane Shizuka when it comes to music.)
Music gets a 1.

Sound effects:
Hardly any of them, one when you select an item, one when you exit from the inventory / trying to save (with that woman face on the left... resembles the face from the alien computer... hmm...)
Crap. Thus I give this one also a 1.

Graphics:
The game goes around TWO colours. Brown in the real, green in the dark world. I know the NES can't handle many colours, but come on. And why the hell is the screen always in a frame? Why not giving it an Ancient-ish frame like in the original? Would it have been hard? No.
However, the nightmares are ported okay, but still, coloured badly...
Graphics get a mild 4. (And I'm light-hearted on this one, otherwise, it would have gotten a 2.)

Controls:
No problem with this one, although it is very picky when using/wanting to get the items. Pixel-perfection almost...
Controls get an 8.

Gameplay:
The gameplay seem to follow the original, but three (counted them) screens were cut out. One between Mike's house and the city, one between the entrance of the cemetery and Mike's house, and one before the pathway to the alien police station. Also, there are differences which ticked me off, because of them, I had to restart a few times. One of them is around the scotch whiskey. You get it from the shop (SERVE YOURSELF, MISTER DAWSON XD.) and then Dilbert (who only appears ONCE and NOT twice... also, he is BLUE XD.) comes in to invite you. Well, on the second day, you can only get to his garden after six... and the place is empty and NO stick there... but luckily, no alien puppy neither at the alien police station. Ohohoho, wait, it isn't all. The scotch is a MUST to beat the game. Normally, you would pour it into the car (which is better than yours XD.) on the third day. WAIT A SECOND HERE. The alien policeman, who will be ticked off for taking the gun in the real world after getting out of there using Dilbert's card, will take away ALL your stuff and you cannot get another bottle of scotch. So, if you don't use it on the first day, you will be fcked and bam, you will never beat the game. Plus, you can get something from the shop on the third day, but I have no idea what it could be. So, you can see that Mars/Waixing did mess around which is a bad thing. Otherwise, it almost totally follows the story, and MIKE WALKS FASTER than in the original. Yay!
Gameplay gets a 5 because of the edits. If you port something, port properly.

Ending:
This fucks up everything. No cutscene showing the flying away ship. No animation of the braking mirror. But this is not all. You probably think they still managed to port the ending, right? In the original, the librarian, who is an Ancient (...my enemy has an ally helping me, ironic, like the whole game!), gives you pills (which destroys the embryo, stopping the headache (face shown in the original.), then the house is shown with the "For Sale" sign, with "The End" at the bottom.
But NO. Here, you see the librarian (who looks awful, I say) in the door, whose legs are seen, but not Mike's head, genius, and some text scrolling in the bottom...
...and nothing else. This text keeps fucking repeating. No staff list. Nothing.
This is not an ending. I tried TWO different dumps. Nothing different.
Ending gets a 2.

Replay value:
This game can be completed in 20 minutes sped up. No replay value, neither in the original, so this gets no score to be fair.

Let's see the scores.

Story: 6/10
Music: 1/10
SFX: 1/10
Graphics: 4/10
Controls: 8/10
Gameplay: 5/10
Ending: 2/10
Replay value: No score

Total: 27/70 ~ 3,8/10 ~ 4/10

Now, the SNAPSHOTS! Don't tell me I'm not prepared... Also, since Blogger's imageuploading fucking sucks, I've thrown the pics on ImageShack, click on them for full size.

01: The adventure starts, now in Chinese!
02: Ah my head hurts. Fuck this game has bad music.
03: Lalalalalalalala, my singing is better than the only track in the entire game.
04: Pills are good for headache, but bad for music.

05: Everything looks fudge brown. Even this room.
06: A hidden door, a must to find.
07: The rope. An absolute must to beat the game.
08: The statue, must be used to avoid the cops on Day 03.

09: The battery still works! Get the gloves!
10: Ah, how cute... :)
11: Hey, it looks like me in a gasmask! Er... yeah.
12: SERVE YOURSELF MISTER DAWSON!!!

13: A BLUE Dilbert, who we will NEVER see anymore. Not even meeting him!
14: The bobby pin. Leave it there, and you fuck up in the alien jail.
15: Find teh green bookie! Where's Hotel Mario's enclosed instruction book!?
16: The barber. Cannot get in here.

17: The cemetery. Pretty sad looking.
18: Push those buttons...
19: Pretty bald looking. No animation here.
20: Definitely reminds me of Mike's wine cellar... hm...

21: Look around here.
22: Going home!
23: The book, gotten by the library card.
24: The save screen with the Ancient woman. Nice porting, however, the colour is a no-no.

25: We didn't break it! We just fucked up making everything look like shit brown!!!
26: Nightmare after Day 01 - no music changing. Shit.
27: Okay, this reminds me of a pasta monster. XDXDXD
28: The broken mirror piece. A definite must to get.

29: Welcome to the Alien world! Green is the colour you must get used to!!!
30: The Ancients await their moment to get awaken by the embryo... OR DO THEY!
31: What does THIS remind you of? Yeah, it's Mike's house basically.
32: The library in Mike's house in the Alien world. The embryo screen is missing. Bad.

33: See? Nothing. Stupid thing.
34: Teleporting from point A...
35: ...to point B!
36: This room is... well, it's no use here.

37: Got the spade. Dig it baby...
38: ...to get this peace of paper, pushing the storyline forward.
39: YOU ARE UNDER ARREST.
40: No way out? Oh really? Hide the money, the bobby pin and the gloves into the pillow!

41: GET OUT OF JAIL FREE. Nice present from our blue friend Dilbert.
42: A FRIEND OF DILBERT, HUH? COME WITH ME, DAWSON.
43: Get the gun and get the fuck out.
44: Absolutely pointless. Dilbert and the dog not here, stick not here and it only lets you here after 6.

45: SO THAT'S WHERE MY GUN WENT. YOU'RE GONNA ROT FOR A FEW CENTURIES, HUMAN!!! Too bad there is no close-up on the alien policeman. Would have been cool.
46: This is why you have had to hid those three items into the pillow. Everything gets stolen from you, so if you haven't used the scotch on Day 01, you're fucked, buddy.
47: Give him the bobby pin. You will be rewarded with the invisibility bandana in return.
48: Get out of jail free? XD

49: Almost there. No need to use the bandana yet.
50: Use it here. Just stay at the entrance point. You won't be blinking in this port, but if you see that it's gone after usage, you're fine to go in.
51: Turn on the computer. She was sending you the message through the radio earlier this day. Go home and sleep.
52: The second nightmare. Starts out weird...

53: ...and goes even more weird!
54: Oh, my, God.
55: Hammer time. Or Miller time. XD
56: This is what you MUST see to move on. This microfilm was given to you by the woman at the end of day 2.

57: Going there...
58: Still going...
59: Even still going:
60: Use the loose rock, the stick and you got your hammer.

Nine pictures got kicked off.