Unfortunately you can’t damage them directly with your projectiles. These are larger and more complex encounters where you have to dodge the enemy and their attacks. Nightmare in the Dark fails to carve out its own identity in nearly every aspect.īoss fights mix things up, but again, the idea is ripped off from Snow Bros.
![nightmare in the dark neo geo nightmare in the dark neo geo](http://s.emuparadise.org/MAME/cabinets/2020bb.png)
This is all fine and dandy, but the system is directly ripped off from Snow Bros. These come in the form of potions that either speed you up, of they increase your projectile strength or range. You can get a few different power-ups that speed gameplay up. Your character moves like they’re walking through molasses, and far too often you’re simply standing in place lobbing fire at enemies. If anything the game is too slow in my opinion. You move very slowly, but so do the enemies. You’d think that Nightmare in the Dark would be a very difficult game, but it’s actually pretty easy by Bubble Bobble clone standards. To make matters worse you can only take one hit before losing a life. The stages just don’t offer a lot of space to dodge these.
![nightmare in the dark neo geo nightmare in the dark neo geo](https://media1.nin-nin-game.com/76247-pos_thickbox/nightmare-in-the-dark-neo-geo-mvs-used-good-condition-en.jpg)
Given how slowly you move sometimes they can be a death sentence when there’s more than one. They shoot projectiles that hone in on your location and follow you for a set amount of time. I really started to dread seeing the ghosts to be honest. Unfortunately they range from boring to irritating. You’ve got things like ghosts, blobs, skeletons, etc. Snow Bros was better in this respect.Įnemies are all horror themed. It’s a little annoying to be honest, and I kept forgetting this caveat and wound up wasting a lot of attacks. They roll down hills, but don’t fall downward over pits. The main issue that I have with this is with the trajectory of the large fireballs. If you light them on fire you only have a specific amount of time before they put it out and continue on with their regular routine. This allows you to create large combinations if your timing and placement is well planned. At this point you can throw the large fireball and it destroys all other enemies in its path. The gimmick here is that you have to completely encase enemies in flame. You have to get up close and personal to foes most of the time, or even slightly above them provided you’re the right distance away. These fireballs travel only a short distance before falling to the ground, and this has a big effect on how you play. You can walk left/right, jump, and throw flames from your lantern. As the groundskeeper you have only a few actions at your disposal. Nightmare in the Dark is a single screen side view action game. If you’re a fan of Snow Bros then you’re in luck, but if you’re not, then well… you’re not going to have much fun here. It plays almost identically to the aforementioned arcade hit. I don’t mean to spoil the entire game right from the get go, but Nightmare in the Dark is Snow Bros. It’s horror themed, but in a light hearted cartoon way. Despite the story being about the desecration of graves it’s actually very kid friendly. This is when he decides to patrol the cemetery nightly, and it’s a good thing he did because otherwise we wouldn’t have a game to play. He notices that graves have been ransacked and bodies are missing. The opening story scroll tells of an ugly groundskeeper at a cemetery. Nightmare in the Dark is a kid friendly game.
![nightmare in the dark neo geo nightmare in the dark neo geo](http://media.alvanista.com/uploads/game/17/31428/medium_4_screenshot.png)
![nightmare in the dark neo geo nightmare in the dark neo geo](https://store.horje.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/maxresdefault-22-768x432.jpg)
If you’re expecting something gruesome or mature then please leave your hopes and dreams at the door. Let’s find out if this one is a good choice to play in the season of pumpkins and candy corn! Nightmare in the Dark was a late release for the Neo Geo arcade hardware and thus it’s a very rare and hard to find title. Well, that’s almost always the case when it comes to 16-bit (in this case 24-bit, sorry) games. With a name like Nightmare in the Dark it’s safe to assume that we’re dealing with a delightfully frightening and downright scary game, right? Wrong.