Silver Surfer (1990)

Preliminary: The music is, indeed, phenomenal. And I already finished the first area. Not sure what that entails cuz the level select type screen was confusing. Definitely extremely cheap (apparently I'm on area 2 of Firelord?), but either the music or oddly the shmup hook is keeping me going so far. We will see for how long tho. The criticism of this game is so much on the difficulty, but so far this hasn't been as bad as some of the other NES games. Oh it's frustratingly hard, but I feel its level design is better than many of the deliberately "Nintendo hard" games I've come upon so far.

Day 2

The music continues to be phenomenal. And at least there are basic niceties, like tight controls, ability to shoot away many projectiles, and ability to shoot to deactivate shooting statue type things. Tho my thumb is hurting lol. Honestly if it weren't for those niceties--and the amazing music--I'd probly just see this as another passable shmup. What I'm not seeing is, it being the hardest NES game? This pales in comparison to some of the absolute crap I have had to endure during the late 80s era...

Nice, done with Fire Lord area. I honestly can say I like this, maybe it's just been a while since I played a shmup?

Nice! And on the Reptile level I got my first notable powerup--shooting from the top and the bottom. Too bad it's the same song, was hoping for different ones for each area or something, but it's so darn good.

Ok on Section 3 of the Reptile area, I can see what people mean about the rote memorization. Having enemies come from behind like that definitely is frustrating.

Day 3

Still just really grateful you can hit away most projectiles.

I dig the setting here

I don't really get the hate for this game. So many of the NES platformers and shmups had cheap shots... And this one at least had tight controls, no inescapable deaths (some shmups with path-based challenges like this would set you up for having gone the "wrong route"), and projectiles and shooting enemies that could be destroyed... Now, make sure you have a turbo button cuz eventually your finger will cramp out lol.

Oh boy I should've known there'd be some final area/s

Yessss this final area music thooo. Soo good!

If that was the actual final boss, that was kinda lame. But at least there was great ending music and especially great Hi Score entry music omg sounds just like later PS1 music like Crash.

Look: 7.5/10 Some cool scenes, mostly just usual NES fare

Sound: 9.5/10 Wow

Play: 8/10 A bit redundant since I am not a huge shmup guy and how many exist, but this had tight controls, fast-paced gameplay, and a reasonable length. Not sure why it's so loathed. I think these last 3 scores would've been boosted .5, making it overall a 5 star game, if the bosses were a bit more interesting, namely the final boss.

Feel: 8/10 Great music, surprisingly fun gameplay, and overall good vibe.

Attachment: 8/10 This is definitely at the top of the NES shmups imo.

Overall: 8.2/10

Completion: Main Story

Playtime: 1h 15m

(This is the 30th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)

Silver Surfer is a scrolling shooter released exclusively in NA regions for the NES in November 1990. It was developed by Software Creations (defunct since 2004) and published by Arcadia Systems and it's based on the Marvel Comics character "Silver Surfer".

I have watched my fair share of Marvel movies, have played my fair share of Marvel hero games, but I'm by no means a Marvel expert or anything beyond a novice in Marvel lore. Just a quick glance of Silver Surfer's description however already tells me that the game doesn't really seem to fit the character.

The game is a slow scrolling shooter where you have to fight hordes of enemies from all types of angles, and a single hit kills you. You'd think the sections where nothing happens for a few seconds is great because it gives you a breather, but instead it creates a dichotomy where, in one moment, your forehead is sweating and your finger hurts from pressing A all the time, and in the next, you are bored to tears from sloooowly waiting for the screen to scroll far enough for enemies to appear.

Looking at the Silver Surfer description on Wiki, it says that he can travel faster than light on his surfboard-like craft. Looking at his Marvel Fandom description, it gets even worse. Under Powers, they list "Godlike Strength". In this game, my guy dies by lightly tapping any wall or obstacle, not to mention that, again, HE ONLY HAS ONE HIT POINT.

It is such a weird way to design a scrolling shooter like this and, if it weren't for emulators and their save state capabilities, I definitely wouldn't have been able to experience every stage and the ending of this game. It wouldn't have mattered either way, because the ending sucks, but still.

Wanna know how the ending sucks? Well the story of this game involves Silver Surfer, Galactus (who gives him orders) and an unidentified villain who apparently will destroy the world if Silver Surfer doesn't stop him and some Cosmic Device that Silver Surfer has to assemble. Beat the final boss and Galactus drops a line like "now the Cosmic Device can be ALL MINE", which is a classic final-boss-twist-reveal type of line, right? Instead, Silver Surfer says "No, no one can have it, it's too dangerous, I will hide it" and the game just fucking ends. This game is insignificant enough for this to not matter but it is a fitting ending to a bad game.

Despite the one-hit wonder that is Silver Surfer, I think this game isn't as difficult to beat as some other games I've played out of 1990. I think through enough repetition of maybe 10-15 hours or so, you'll beat this game, but it's really not worth the effort and it doesn't hide the fact that the devs idea of a challenge was to simply make their game unfair and death your first time through inevitable at nearly all moments.

What I did like about the game though is the sound design and a kick ass soundtrack. Graphics didn't look too bad either but most levels didn't look too realistic and especially the over the top levels just were a jumbled mess of assets and colors.

OVERALL

Hard for the sake of being hard without providing a fair or fun challenge. If you want to experience any of this game, I'd recommend just going to YT and looking up the OST of this.

WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME

• Martin Alessi or EGM, Issue 17 (Dec 90): "The graphics are nothing special, but the soundtrack is absolutely awesome." | A different reviewer from EGM said the "cinema storyline is cool", there literally was nothing in here other than 10 lines of "I've seen this a billion times before, and a million of those did it better" type storytelling, even from a 1990 perspective
• Slo' Mo for GamePro, Issue 20 (Mar 91): "To beat Silver Surfer, you probably have to be an outer space being yourself." | Or have save states

Done with Silver S̶u̶r̶f̶e̶r̶ Shit on the NES.

My fingers fucking hurt, the game is not really hard, it's just incredibly cheap and has a really flawed game design and the hit boxes are awful but when you get used to that, it's easy to win the game. Also fuck Fire Lord that's the cheapest level out of them all and fuck those Jack O Lanterns.

Also Silver Surfer here is a fucking wimp, every enemy takes like a million hits but you just take one hit and die, fucking fish and fucking rubber ducks can kill you, hell you die if you touch the wall or the ground, even if slightly. This game must have been made by people working with DC or something, because they fucked up Silver Surfer really bad. he is so fucking weak it's beyond awful. Well the soundtrack is good though and the gameplay is good and addicting if you overlook past those flaws, but ultimately you just need autofire or you will get your fingers messed up like me.