Gremlins 2: The New Batch (NES Review)

Gremlins 2: The New Batch
Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System
Released October, 1990
Designed by Yoshiaki Iwata
Developed by Sunsoft
NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED

From the director of Blaster Master and using a modified version of that game’s top-down engine (the same one also used in Fester’s Quest), Gremlins 2 is often cited as one of the best NES licensed games. I don’t know if I’d go that far. It took me under two hours to finish it with minimum cheating. What little rewinding I did was used to undo some frankly bullcrap jumping design. Gremlins 2’s main challenge is based around pits, spikes, and electric fences. God knows it’s not the combat. Oh, that’s in the game, but by time you reach the final stage, you’re tank-like. No, in Gremlins 2, you die via falling, frying, or electrocution. A great licensed NES game? Hell, this Gremlins isn’t as good as the Atari 5200 game that I looked at in Atari 50: The Games They Couldn’t Include.

I think this probably stood out in 1990 because it looks dang good for an NES game. TONS of flicker, though.

Playing as Gizmo, you have to navigate a series of mazes, jumping over pits and occasionally fighting enemies. Those enemies might be giant tomatoes, or rats, bats, and eventually Gremlins. Early on, it seemed like the game would be combat-focused. By the halfway point of Gremlins 2, conveyor belts and moving platforms take over for carrying the challenge. Not just conveyor belts or moving platforms, but conveyor belts and moving platforms surrounded by pits that you must hop onto and off of, usually onto another conveyor belt or moving platform surrounded by pits. Or maybe it’ll be fire instead of pits this next time. Maybe you’ll have to hop across electric fences on a moving platform while avoiding enemies and a giant swinging spiked ball. Again, I can’t stress enough: it’s the pits and environmental hazards that completely dominate Gremlins 2 by the time you reach only the second of five worlds. That might not be so bad, except that it’s the cheapest, most infuriating series of platforming sections I’ve seen in a top-down NES game.

Oh, you think I’m exaggerating? Here’s a conveyor with an electric fence AND a swinging spiked ball WITH pits. And usually these have enemies placed specifically in the right spot to make sure you take damage either way, assuring maximum aggravation. Apparently the Japanese version nerfs level 2-2 by slightly decreasing the amount of spikes/pits. It’s barely noticeable, and that’s the only level that does that.

And since there’s only so many jumping gags you can pull off with an 8-bit engine, this style of level design grows old really fast. Thankfully, the game is over very quickly, especially if you have absolutely no scruples when it comes to cheating. What irks me is how this feels nothing like a Gremlins game. Oddly enough, for a title based around creatures that multiply with water, one environmental hazard conspicuous by its absence is water. You’d think THAT would make for an interesting challenge. Avoid water, or else you hatch a Mogwai that needs to be stopped before it reaches food (I’m assuming it’s after midnight). None of that is here. Outside of cutscenes, the actual logic or lore of the movie series is completely missing. Gremlins 2 feels distinctly like a game that was meant to be something else entirely and had the graphics modified to accommodate the license. Besides the character sprites, there’s nothing specifically Gremlins-like about it.

There are Gremlins from the second movie, such as the Fruit Gremlin shown here. But again, they could have been ANYTHING. If the Atari 5200 game could include the rules of the film franchise, why couldn’t this? I mean, the 5200 game is only one of the very best on the entire console and one of the most creative uses of a movie license ever. I sorta wish they’d just remade that with new hazards and faster gameplay.

To the credit of Gremlins 2, the combat is a lot of fun. You start by just throwing tomatoes at enemies.. including larger tomatoes. I guess because there was a giant tomato in the film? Weird. When you finish each of the game worlds, you get a more powerful weapon. Now, I figured the game would handle this upgraded weapon aspect by including more powerful, spongier enemies as you went along. While it does add a new enemy or two every stage, the old ones you’ve already fought keep showing up, and your new weapons do shred them faster. Well, that was unexpected. It gives a genuine sense of progression. You can also further purchase an upgrade to your items from a shop, but once you do it the first time, you don’t seem to need to anymore. Even though the shop keeps selling the upgrades. Okay, that was weird.

I never once short on money to buy ANYTHING in the game. What was the point of that?

In fact, the whole shop system is just beyond stupid. You can only have four hearts, but like the weapon upgrade, the ability to purchase another heart will keep showing up. Also, you can only purchase one item per a visit to the shop, and the shops only show up once per level. This, despite the fact that every enemy drops currency. I just beat the damn game, and if enemies drop health refills, I never once saw it happen. They dropped pogo sticks that work like invincibility stars or flashbulbs that clear all the enemies on the screen, but by the second half of the game, they stopped dropping those, too. It’s all currency, all the time. I suppose if you avoid combat, you might not have enough money to purchase stuff, but that never even occurred to me. Why would I skip fighting the enemies? That’s the good part! The only good part, in fact!

Update: Apparently this might have something to do with the password system, since the passwords start you off with three hearts and no upgrade to that world’s weapon. Fair enough, I guess? I forgot there was a password system, but did this really need one? It’s a very short game.

The final boss, a Blaster Master-like encounter in a black void. I really was stunned that the game ended here.

So, did I like Gremlins 2? I had to think about it, and I really didn’t. I spent most of the time hoping for more combat and less jumping. It just didn’t do enough. Again, I have to go back to the fact that, by the halfway point of the game, the entire challenge is based around jumping. And by that, I mean they created mostly small, player-character-sized platforms and minimal room for error. It’s a really boring, repetitive way of creating a game, and it feels nothing like Gremlins. Just an endless series of gaps/fire pits/electrified fences paired with moving platforms and conveyor belts. It makes me wonder if the combat and sense of empowerment as you get stronger weapons that I enjoyed so much didn’t actually ruin the game. I’ve heard this called “Blaster Master with jumping” and that’s fair, but the jumping physics are hard to gauge. Especially when so much of it is based around hopping on and off moving platforms or conveyor belts.

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Besides the combat, the best thing I can say about Gremlins 2: The New Batch is it’s over quickly. I needed about ninety minutes to finish it, and I was ready for it to be over when it was done. There’s only ten stages divided into five worlds. While the graphics are dazzling for the era and the set pieces are nice, it feels like a game that was short on ideas. The first world doesn’t even have a boss fight, for god’s sake! As for the four bosses, they’re massive letdowns. I was hoping for Blaster Master-like gigantic creatures. Instead, I was able to cheese each of them without dying just by spamming my attack. At least those end with Gizmo triumphantly holding his new weapon. As opposed to the non-boss levels, which just suddenly end with the victory music playing, often when you reach a seemingly arbitrary location. As far as games I’ve given a NO! to, this would be in the upper-tier of them because the combat is fun and it plays well enough, I suppose. It’s not that there’s NO fun to be had, but I spent most of the game rolling my eyes as it regressed to the same jumping gags over and over. Gremlins 2 is one of the NES’ most overrated games. Good graphics, though!
Verdict: NO!