Hello to you and how you be… Dan Ryan here… you there. Thank you so much for checking out this post and if you like what you see please share. There are quite a few horror games on the NES. And their reputation is, well it’s not awesome. The release of Jaws Unleashed earlier this year got me thinking though, are they all as bad as their reputation suggests? That game showed that Jaws was nowhere near as bad as it was made out to be and that with a little bit of love, there was actually something pretty great underneath the surface. I’m willing to admit that even though I played almost all of the big horror titles released for the NES when they came out, my opinion on them was definitely colored by blog posts and YouTube. So, since it tis the season and all, I wanted to go back and look at some of the most polarizing NES horror games with a fresh perspective. In full transparency, I planned on writing about LJN’s Friday the 13th for this post. I set it up in my last post about A Nightmare on Elm St. and then, as I was working on it, realized it sounded familiar, like something I’d seen before. And well, turns out, it’s because I’d written it before. (I’m getting old and have gone through chemo, sue me lol) So changing gears but keeping it horror themed I decided to tackle another retro horror game with a mixed reception. Submitted for your approval this is Retro Horror Revisited: Monster Party.

Developed by Human Entertainment and published by Bandai in 1989, Monster Party is a relatively underplayed cult classic title. Teased in Japan before its US release, the game was going to be much, much darker than what we eventually got. (and also much more copyright infringing) Looking at the box art you'd assume the game would feature some version of the classic Universal Monsters. Instead, you get shrimp. And onion rings. And kebabs. (seriously) Throughout the game's stages you will find some to be expected type monsters, zombie punks, weird fish creatures, eyeballs atop tentacles, and assorted other critters and ghoulies, but each and everyone of them is just plain weird. Monster Party is absurdist horror. It's never outright scary. Most of the time what's happening on screen can best be described as silly. That's not a knock mind you but rather a point in its favor. There's a certain amount of janky, B-movie charm in the character designs that I can't help but love.

The story in Monster Party is also firmly rooted in schlocky, B-movie goodness. One day while walking home from a ball game main character Mark sees an object in the sky. As he looks up the object gets closer and closer until it crashes and out pops Bert, a gargoyle bodied, bird headed alien. Bert tells Mark that his home has been invaded by monsters and he needs help. His reasons for choosing Mark are twofold, Mark is the very first person he meets and Mark has a baseball bat. Mark agrees and off we go. Goofiness aside it's as good a plot as this game needs and Bandai plays with the idea of what this experience will be like right away. About halfway through stage 1 the visuals morph from bright, colorful if not typical platformer graphics to bloody, dark sprites. It's a wild switch and sets the tone for the rest of the nonsense to follow.

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Gameplay in Monster Party is straightforward, almost painfully so. Mark has his bat and he can hit monsters with it. He can also bat projectiles back at enemies if your timing is right. He can jump decently high and can also inch across the ground like a worm which is downright hilarious. Defeated enemies drop pills and grabbing enough of them, not sure about the messaging here, allows Mark to change into Bert for a short time who can fly around the screen and shoot projectiles of his own. The level design never seems to take this into account though as you can get through everything as Mark alone. This unfortunately leads to pretty bland, weird sure but bland, stages. Scattered throughout the stages are doors players can enter. Some doors are empty, some doors have monsters that do nothing, (the first stage has a monster that literally says “I am dead” and has flies buzzing around it, and some doors have bosses you need to defeat in order to collect keys to move on to the next area. And it is these bosses that really push Monster Party from janky average to you've got to see this nuts. 

Some of the bosses you will come across in Monster Party include the aforementioned shrimp, onion rings, and kebabs. There are fairly standard Medusa and Grim Reaper encounters. But then there’s a Minotaur who shoots baby cows at you. Or a guitar playing, mohawked punk threatening to make you face the music. Or a kitty cat who turns feral and meows. Or a well that throws dishes at you for… reasons. The dialogue that proceeds each fight is just as weird as the bosses and really doesn’t add anything to the story. If these boss fights were memorable for something other than their inherent weirdness that would be a bonus but unfortunately, they are pretty run of the mill. Most fights break down into two categories, dodge the projectiles and attack or dodge the boss and attack. Either way they are dead simple and don’t provide much of a challenge.

At the end of the day, Monster Party is a decent game with some really wild ideas. The platforming and combat are all pretty run of the mill. It’s the weirdness that really sets this game apart. I kept wanting to push forward because I couldn’t wait to see what strange creature would pop up next. And I was never disappointed. I was constantly surprised and excited by the goofy things I had to fight. I can forgive average platforming or combat if a game has personality and boy does Monster Party have personality in spades. If you’ve never played through this game I highly recommend you give it a shot. Just make sure you temper your expectations and you’ll have a blast. And if you’re looking for something even crazier, you can hunt down the Japanese release, Parody World: Monster Party. A prototype cart was sold in 2011 for the equivalent of about $6000! The ROM was leaked to the internet in 2014 and features a ton of differences like a bloody title screen and parodied monsters, Mogwai/Xenomorphs/Planet of the Apes, that were changed for the American release. There are also some balance changes with certain sections being a bit harder or enemies taking a bit longer to deal with. There are even a few ROM hacks including a super cool one that replaces the main character with Elvira!

That’s it for this week. To hear what Kris has to say make sure to check out the pod through whatever catcher you use or on our very own Youtube channel. But I want to know what you think. Join the Stone Age Gamer discord, or you can find me on Bluesky to let me know your thoughts. In the immortal words of Billy Joel, “Life is a series of hellos and goodbyes; I'm afraid it's time for goodbye again.” See you soon.