Retro Review - Nosferatu

Vampires are one of the most popular creatures in the culture in general, they have been represented in movies, literature, theater and any other kind of products, and of course, also in video games. But when talking about vampires it is impossible not to talk about Dracula, known to be one of the most ruthless. Many years ago, a film adaptation of Dracula was made, but this would be a reinterpretation of the most famous vampire of all, whose name was changed to Nosferatu, being this the first film in the horror genre of cinema. So some years later a video game based on this same character was developed.

That's why today's Retro Review is about: Nosferatu.

Nosferatu is a video game developed for the SNES and although the story is nothing like its film counterpart, in this video game, it also tells the story of a vampire that every so often stalks the population in search of its food. Nosferatu has succumbed to the population in the purest and densest fear, nobody could face him, as he was very powerful, but one day, Nosferatu, in one of his trips in search of his next victim, kidnapped a young woman, who happens to be the girlfriend of our protagonist. But unlike the other inhabitants of the village, our hero did not remain without doing anything and bravely decides to go to the castle to recover his girlfriend from the clutches of this evil and powerful vampire.

The story of this game is completely simple, basically the main argument is about the rescue of the bride of the protagonist, and for that you must go into a castle full of creatures from hell itself, defeat them to reach the quarters of his boss, Nosferatu, so after defeating him once and for all, rescue his girlfriend and flee from that place. It's a game whose premise and mechanics are pretty basic, but that is fun, to some extent.

Nosferatu is a video game with quite dark tones, we can see in the scenarios that the predominant color is brown, so it gives that aspect of "dirt" to every corner of the castle, but above all, the decision to use this type of tone is for the fact of emphasizing that we are in a dangerous, dismal place and that at any time we can find some creature that comes from the very underworld.

Even so, it is a game whose graphic quality is quite decent, despite the limitations of the time, in the scenario you can notice a good level of detail, besides that in some places of the castle we can see a quite good design and drawing style, and at the same time quite characteristic of the time.

The animations of our protagonist, for those people who have played the classic Prince Of Persian, will be quite familiar, since, the movement of our protagonist is quite similar to that of the protagonist of that game, you can notice quite easily that they were "inspired" by that particular type of animation. A type of animation that, looks quite natural and fluid. Although, I must admit that, this type of animation, like those of Prince Of Persian, always made me a little desperate, because even though you could see a quite natural movement, they were quite slow, an aspect that personally made me desperate and frustrated at times. And I think that in Nosferatu, the movement was a little slower, I'm not sure at all, but at least it seemed to me that it was a little slower. Still, it's a matter of adapting, because in the end, Nosferatu, despite its shortcomings, is quite fun.

The soundtrack of Nosferatu is decent, the truth is I don't have much to say about this aspect, because in general it seemed normal to me, it's not something spectacular, but it's not bad either, it's "good", to summarize it in one word, besides it fulfills its main objective: to serve as an accompaniment, but maybe in some occasions it is repeated a lot and it can get boring. As it is logical, due to the theme of the game, Nosferatu is composed by melodies with low tonalities in such a way, the music in general has that aspect of "dark music, of suspense or terror".

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Nosferatu, as far as its gameplay is concerned is very similar to the old Prince Of Persian, as I mentioned before, in fact, if we put them in comparison, the similarities are so many that for someone who didn't know about the subject, I would think it was a Prince Of Persian mod, although I have to say that, Nosferatu, is a bit inferior to the game which was inspired, that's pretty clear, even so, as I said before, it's still a fun title.

In itself, this is a game of adventure, exploration and puzzle solving. As we enter the castle of Nosferatu, we will find creatures of all kinds, there are many varieties of these creatures, and in the style of Castlevania we must defeat them, but unlike the protagonists of the saga Castlevania, who have special weaponry to defeat these monstrosities, our protagonist will only use his fists, just as you are reading, since our protagonist is so strong that he is capable of fighting a werewolf hand to hand, using only his fists (as absurd as it sounds). There will also be platform sections that will make us demonstrate our skills in the control of our character, and that despite not having an extremely difficult control, in some moments it can become a little frustrating due to the type of movement that our character performs. Riddles will also be part of this rescue mission, although they are not difficult at all.

Nosferatu is a rather rare game that many people do not know about, and despite its various shortcomings, it is a rather curious game that should be played. It is not a game that will change their lives, but it is a fun game in the end.