Is Willow [NES] Worth Playing Today? - SNESdrunk
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- Опубликовано: 8 сен 2024
- Thanks to JazzySpinalFusion for the request via Patreon.
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The effort that capcom put into licenced shit was really above and beyond.
I want that Capcom back. They're killing it with Monster Hunter and DmC these days, but damnit, give us Mega Man (Legends 3 pls), MvC, and all the other good stuff they've slept on for years. It's bad enough that Konami makes gross fanservice-y Castlevania pachinko machines and nothing else.
Capcom is doing great stuff these days. Resident Evil 2 and 7 are top-notch, as was Mega Man 11.
@@ChargeQM
The best news I've heard is that Konami is going to let other people make their games. They've treated their franchises like crap for way too long.
@@ChargeQM Is still refuse the existence of that castlevania pachinko machine.
There's also a megaman pachinko game (rockman ability) with original designs for the characters and cinematics. There's way too much effort into that one, it's kind of impressive.
Capcom and Konami made the best licensed games back in the day
Man, is it me or does this game look INCREDIBLE for the NES? If it had a better color palette, I'd definitely confuse it for an early SNES game.
Yes, that's a very good use of colors for a NES games.
Looks like a master system game
There is a lot of depth to the sprites because they are so big!
The boss fights aren't quite as epic as would match the rest of the game sadly. Bavmorda was a real disappointment.
7 year-old me played it at a friend's house and the wind effects blew my mind. It was such a dramatic effect, and I don't think I saw any game properly try anything like it again until MGS3
I think we take the quality of your videos for granted. So I'll just remind everyone they're just great :)
About that...
NES Willow's no joke. A difficult game, menacing music, excellent visuals. It takes a lot out of you.
This game's musics scared me when I was a kid
Remember kids...Willow did ocarinas and flying bird friends to carry you around the map before Zelda did.
Zelda had the flute that summoned tornadoes in 1986
Much as I love Willow, he can't summon tornadoes
@@ChibiKami I think he can call lightning, though
@@ChibiKami yeah but a bird is far less harmful to summon than a tornado. My house keeps getting messed up everytime I summon one. With a bird I might just get a little poop on my shoulder
And had a sword that slashed, instead of just awkwardly stabbing.
@@ChibiKami great point
One of my favorite NES games. Lots of nostalgia for this one.
Holy crap. John RiggsXSNESDrunk is the crossover I never knew I wanted but now absolutely need.
Yeah man... really dug this one too! As well as the movie ;)
That would make the arcade title the other other Willow for me Lol
@@IanDeMartino That happened already! Look it up on John Riggs channel. It's the video called "SNES games that should've been on NES"
I tried to send you the link but for some reason my comment was deleted.
One of my favorite movies that I never knew had a video game.
I sort of remember this game and I remember enjoying it. I loved the movie. Aren’t they making a sequel soon?? Ugh I know but I’ll watch it.
God the sound that monsters made when they appeared, mixed with the backgrounds suddenly coming to life used to scare the crap out of me as a kid.
I thought I was the only one. I remember being around 4 or 5 and walking around the village with it's happy go lucky music playing then encountering some of the enemies with the music suddenly changing definitely gave me goosebumps. It's funny when I think about it now.
@@therealmccoy15 yeah, it's definitely hilarious looking back on it now.
You're not alone in that though, for a little kid, that's spooky as hell. Like out of nowhere spooky music starts, the world starts wobbling around, and skulls start popping up from the ground, lol.
What scared me the most were some of the faces for the portraits. Bavmorda's facial expression in her portrait shown in this video is frightening for 8-bit hardware.
Willow is one of the greatest entertainment licenses nobody under 30 remembers.
Cause it's old af derrrrp
@@ramrodbldm9876 I absolutely refuse to believe a movie is "old af derrrrp" just because I was 7 when it came out. 0_O
Good review, but ... that there is no object or spell with which to recover life until almost the end of the game? The Healing Mace can be obtained from a house in the first town you encounter in the game, allowing you to regain life at the cost of a few magic points.
Very true, but that healmace is super easy to miss; if you just fight Bogarda without first getting the wood shield and THEN talking to the elder of Dew, the elder never gives it to you.
It is true that there is such a possibility, although I have never seen it so "super easy", although not unlikely. It may be because the moment I received the shield and they explained to you that you should speak to the chiefman, I quickly went back to visit the houses that I knew were inhabited, specifically the only two with unique portraits. The clues and instructions that the game leaves for you are so clear and exact compared to, for example, Simon's Quest or Zelda1, that it gives me the feeling that to skip something you should not have been paying attention or wandering aimlessly avoiding talking to the NPC.
I remember doing it on my second playthrough...spoke to the chief first and then the shield guy, did well enough fighting that I never needed the mace, and didn't check for it until after beating Bogarda. Some players might not realize the chief's text changes after recieving the shield...especially those who just gloss over the text because they'd like to get to the next action part.
Yea don’t miss the mace. It makes the game almost bearable. Almost
I was going to mention the Healmace that the chief of the second village gives you as an early healing spell, but since someone beat me to it, I just want to say that this Willow has one of the best adventuring tunes ever.
I never get tired of you saying, thanks for watching and have a great rest of my day. I love your content, keep up the great work my friend.
Ahhh, Willow on the NES! One of my favorite games on the platform. As a kid it blew me away on how good it was! I remember that I used to be scared of playing because the monsters would appear so suddenly on the map, the wind would blow and the music would change to a very menacing tune! The caverns also made me so nervous! To this day, it's a game that I love and still own my NES cartridge. Too bad a lot of people don't know about it or haven't played it because it's an "adaptation" of a movie. It's a real treasure every NES fan must play.
So basically you're saying you were/and still are a betawimp
Sometimes I get amazed how advanced some NES games were for their time of release. This looks awesome. I should pay more attention to NES as a source of good gaming experiences. Thank you for raising awareness of those titles SNES drunk!
I hope Warwick Davis is getting his royalties for this.
Nope. He was paid about 10p for willow. Unfortunately the prejudice in those days affected pay packets as well as everything else
Oh hes not even human hes a midget
The high majority of time, actors don't own rights to anything created in a film, because they didn't create it. The character, Willow, wasn't created by Warwick Davis. He was a paid actor, paid to represent that character. It's called "work for hire", and it is what it sounds like. You get paid for work. And it's usually a flat fee.
George Lucas, Ron Howard, Bob Dolman & Nigel Wooll got rich from it, though. :)
@@j0nnyism They hired a TON of people for Willow, and they had a low budget (not super low, but low enough that they felt they couldn't offer a ton of money, considering they had to pay Val Kilmer and Billy Barty, and a few other big names). Warwick's low pay had less to do with prejudice and more to do with budget.
The fact is, he got the role because George Lucas wrote the story specifically for Warwick. They had been doing the Star Wars stuff. Warwick played Wicket. Lucas had a lot of respect for Warwick and rewrote an older story of his specifically for Warwick to play the lead role. Lucas had practically begged Warwick to do it. Warwick had mutual respect for George, so he accepted.
But, Warwick was only a teen while filming the Star Wars stuff. Willow was a dad, and a bit aged. George needed to wait many years for Warwick to be old enough to fit the part well. It was about 15-17 years worth of planning, on George's part. lol (he came up with the concept for Willow in the early 70s, but needed a short person for it. It was called Munchkins, at the time. When they filmed the Star Wars stuff was when he watched Warwick acting and changed his entire premise of the story to fit Warwick...ending with Willow releasing in the late 80s)
Residuals then...
I remember getting the healing spell pretty early.
really hard to keep track of where you are and where you're going though. I'd call it overall mediocre, but has some very impressive stuff for NES, and for it's time it was probably quite competent.
For decades I’ve had that town theme randomly pop into my head. Glad to know I’m not the only one!
One of my favorite games, based on one of my favorite movies. Shame the arcade game never got a console port. Capcom needs to give this the "DuckTales Remastered" treatment (along with Little Nemo and Darkwing Duck).
This was an exceptionally good NES game, and one of my favorites to this day.
Rented this game when I was a kid, and It became one of my prefered ones in the NES.
Man I loved this movie as a kid. General Kael was so badass looking with that helmet and armor. Great costumes and armor designs in that movie. At 2:33 under Magic there’s an Ocarina which instantly makes me think of Zelda.
Looks like Zelda also took some inspiration from Willow.
Airiks gauntlet sword thing was super badass too. the easily a top childhood movie for me.
The scene where everyone turns to pigs is still scary
@@johnm3907
I still remember it. Had freaking nightmares
It definitely is! Willow is also still worth watching today!
I watched it a while back yeah its still good. Trolls and the part where all army turns to pigs is still scary ha
written by George Lucas back when he took feedback, directed by Ron Howard who is always on point, and exceptionally well acted by an excellent cast. Totally worth watching today
though after you watch it, see if you can track down the novelization; it adds some scenes and fills in a few blanks based on extraneous material
for example, what happened to Willow's third acorn: on the boat to Fin Raziel's island Willow had to fight a sea monster. He used an acorn there and the entire sequence is skipped in the movie
@@ChibiKami That sea monster sequence was shot, but was cut from the finished film, which is why Willow's hair is inexplicably wet in the next scene. The scene is apparently included on the blu-ray release.
@@ArcaneAzmadi
Very cool.
@@ArcaneAzmadi
neat. Was wondering if it was deleted footage or merely storyboarded
One of my favorite childhood movies with two great games attached to it. The soundtrack is also what always brings me back to this gem.
Fun fact: Tokuro Fujiwara, the director of this game, gave us many Capcom classics. He was behind Ghosts 'n Goblins, Commando, Bionic Commando, and Sweet Home. He also conceived of Resident Evil as a remake of Sweet Home. If you look at Sweet Home (which was released the same year as Willow) it uses the same core engine and is a fantastic game. Unfortunately we only have access to the fan translation as it has never been released in the West.
I just played through Willow not long ago. Soundtrack is a BANGER. One of the better NES action RPGs. And in the era before the internet, without the strategy guide, I remember it being tough as a youngster. Love it. Great review.
Love the nes and grew up with it and remember playing willow(I loved capcom and all their games, this is when they were a straight powerhouse, now they can be hit and miss)I could play nes and snes all day today and not even miss the current gen haha. Just love the way they did things, also ps1 😊❤🔥👏 thanks for this, just seeing the screens and like you mentioned, the music(in nes games as a whole)just awesome. I still hum alot of them now and they have inspired parts in my own music as well 😊👍
it is easily my all time favorite NES game, and one of the top 5 or so games i miss the most from all the various now obsolete systems i have had through the years. i only have 1 complaint about the game, i remember there were two different points in the game where you couldn't really move forward without raising several levels. which basically meant just walking off and back on screen a thousand times to fight the same monster over and over so you could progress.
The music at Bavmorda's castle is a masterpiece!!!
Willow is so much nostalgia for me even tho i never got very far as a kid and that music is still awesome!
Put many, many hours into this game. It was deeper than I expected and I was already a huge fan of the movie.
I love this game and feel lucky to have nostalgic memories attached to it. My only small gripe is how it's a bit cryptic regarding where to go/what to do in a few spots, but easily overlooked.. And you're dead on about the soundtrack. Absolutely killer tracks from top to bottom.
I played this week ago
It's one of a masterpiece
I'm surprised that you didn't bring up any of the enemy design... especially that one that spams the spell that turns you into a pig and won't let you leave the screen until you turn back to normal. SOOO annoying; although it doesn't ruin the game in the end.
Yeah, that enemy was a nightmare Indeed. However if you get the Devileye sword, magic enemies are more easy to kill.
He can't turn me into something I already am.lol
5:09 I can almost hear Daria sheathing away the extra murderiest of daggers.
I loved this game as a kid. It seemed like several capcom games like this would go under the radar and end up in bargain bins at walmart. I remember this one, Little Nemo, and Street Fighter 2010 all being random bargain buys that ended up being tons of fun.
I literally bought a cart of this at a pawn shop today! Then 3 hours later this video is recommended to me...spooky!
This might be one of the highest quality pixel art I’ve ever seen on the NES.
This and Batman Return of the Joker are probably 2 of the best
Check out The Guardian Legend & Faxanadu as well
Have you even seen guardian legend
I grew up with this game and loved it. Still love it today.
Oh my god when that music started at the beginning I got chills. This game was so good for it's time. I'm not sure why it wasn't more popular. About 4 years ago I went back and beat the game and man it felt good.
I just picked up this game on eBay. I'm looking forward to playing it after watching your review. Thank you very much for the video.
The soundtrack for this game was awesome. The Advantage does a really good cover of it, too
As Zelda was my first love when I was 3, Willow was next. The top down was much easier for a toddler. Its one of my most memorable games in the 80s. Its still an under appreciated game.
This is one of my very favorite NES games and one I always recommend to any young gamers enthusiastic about the platform. The graphics are amazing for the time without a doubt and the game under it is spectacular too. Nockmaar castle theme remains among my favorite NES tracks, although I do wish the run time of the game's music was longer.
I still replay this on occasion, and happily. It's one of my comfort games.
This looks more enjoyable than most 2020 AAA games. Emulators save me so much money. Amiga, SNES, PS1 and PS2, XBOX1, MSDOS, so much abandonware. I really can't wait for PS3 "Dantes Inferno", that game was nuts. But an online remake of "Dust 514" would be insanely sweet, that game was so good !!!
Willow would make an excellent title to port to consoles. I'd pick it up and play it again.
I always loved this game. The music was amazing. Listen to the music in the background of this video and how it starts to show its chops around 2:18. The music from this game still runs through my head to this day and I find myself humming it. Fun game and well made, even if not totally true to the movie.
I first played this game at Nintendo Powerfest 1990 and it was one of the few impressions that really stuck with me for years afterward. I was a fan of the movie, so the idea of playing an adventure/RPG of it on NES was really appealing. I only ever managed to rent it once after that, never finished it and never managed to go back to it (the SNES came out shortly thereafter) but, to this day, it's one of the NES games I remember having the most anticipation for. I'll have to give it proper service and finish it one of these days.
Underrated movie and underrated game.
😅 Hell yes it is! Never played through the entire Willow Arcade but I was lucky enough to get set up to give it a go. Really looking forward to it as it's absolutely gorgeous and the effort put in shines through. Happy Spring everyone! ✌😊
Id love to see more videos about multiple games on SNES, NES or Genesis, etc. games. Those are my favourites. Weird categories and stuff like that.
Fun game. Cousin had it. Spent many hours/nights playing this one.
Thank you so much!!!
Awhile back something had sparked a memory of this game. So when I checked your vids and didn't see anything on it, I searched RUclips... There were a lot of bad channels to sift through. I finally just gave up lol. This just made my day! Thanks man!!!
Ooh thanks for making my morning. I've always been curious about this game, but never gave it a chance for more than a few minutes.
All of my favorite childhood NES games were mentioned in this video. Willow, Crystalis and Faxanadu.
I vaguely remember this game, but something that really stands out was getting to a part of the game where I couldn't do any damage to one of the bosses, couldn't figure it out, then gave up.
That soundtrack was awesome. One of the best in the 8bit era in my opinion.
This is one I have yet to play but I do love everything about it for all the reasons you've mentioned here. Nice work!
I loved this game but never managed to beat it until last year. It is one of those games that essentially has a timer in it because you can't beat it without completely leveling up Willow. You have to either be enormously good at the game or you have to max out your level to beat Bavmorda.
I played this as a kid and loved it. Couldn't beat it, but watched a friend do it instead. The game itself was impossible to find when I was a kid, my friend borrowed it of one of his friends, who had the only copy we had ever run into.
Legitimately one of my favorite NES games and one of the best on so many levels. I do hope these games resurface again for the masses to play again.
I'm glad you pointed it out because the first thing I think of when I remember this game is the soundtrack.
I haven’t finished it yet, but it’s definitely a high quality game. I feel like you get the healing spell/rod by the time you’re in the 3rd town or so, and not so much toward the end of the game.
It's in the second town after obtaining the wooden shield. The chieftain will give it to you if you have that shield.
Willow's okay, I found it a little tedious toward the end. I just wanted to finish it, but it kept doing that 'plateau' thing. You know, where it feels like it's the end of the game over that next hill, and it turns out it's a plateau and in front of you is another hill. Rinse and repeat.
I did like the 'feel' of leveling up in this game, how when you get a new sword you must get strong enough to swing it worth a smack. Then when you're all awesome with it, you can quickly just smash through foes.
finding the swords I really didn't feel this is too much of a problem. I still to this day love the idea of having a more powerful sword but at a cost to how much damage in total in addition to slow swinging. Makes you need to perfect that timing prior to it becoming easy. Now I did feel this way regarding the shields. Just as soon as you get one, you're trading it up for the next. Now that I'm older and very familiar with the game, this comes off far worse than how fast you move through the swords. The highest levels only seem tedious now, when you breeze through most all the game and only want to bump your level up so that the best sword is swung with ease. Otherwise I still love the game.
Recently purchased this one off of Ebay and it still holds up. It's still as fun as I remembered it was 30 years ago.
I LOOOVED this game and I never understood why all of my friends hated it. I'm happy to see a good review on it! And like you said, that music... It get's stuck in my head every time I hear it. My only major gripe was the passwords save system.
My brother and I were just sending each other Willow GIFs and then you posted this. I unfortunately never got to play any of the Willow games as I kid but I watched the movies tons.
Loved this game as a kid, and it is one of those that still (mostly) holds up today. My only real complaint is that it is EXTREMELY grind-heavy, to the point that it gets a bit tedious later in the game. I do have to agree about the soundtrack, as it is pure 8-bit awesomeness. The music when you first reach Bavmorda's castle is hauntingly ethereal and I would love to hear a modern reprisal.
I own this game and played it once several years ago and completely discounted it (I think because of the slow swording and Nintendo Hard combination), but this video has convinced me to give it another go some day. All right, I want to thank you for making videos and I hope you have a great rest of your day!
I had this when I was a kid and enjoyed every moment of it.
My favorite memory of beating this game was during the credits when the wyllow theme music played for a quick moment.
Haven't heard the music in over 25 years, but instantly stuck in my head again lol.
Just restarted this game recently, and it definitely still holds up. Thanks for the videos!
I got this game for Christmas in 1990. I loved this game dearly, next to Super Mario 2 and 3 it was my favorite game.
Willow was a great Blockbuster/Video Store classic because of that archaic password system. It was nigh impossible to beat such a game on wits alone in 2.5 days back in the late 80s. You needed a guide, and even still, most people didn't have the killer gamer instinct they do now. The password system allowed you to hop right back into your adventure, even if someone else snagged the game for a weekend while you were at your grandma's house (and might have erased your save game if battery backup was the method).
I haven't played this game since I was a kid, when it was "new". But I still get that song stuck in my head all these years later, I just didn't know where it came from until now
Great review! This is one of those good games that I didn't beat back in the day, one more for my backlog. Keep up the good work!
That town theme stuck in my head for years. Great soundtrack
I recently got a haul of NES games from my cousin and Willow was one of the games in the haul. I'm excited to get it cleaned and try it out.
You failed to mention it had no map. My brother and I had to stay in my grandparent's basement in 1992 for 3 months while my parents split. During that time we mapped out the entire game one screen at a time on my accountant grandfather's graph paper cause we had nothing else to do. We taped the edges together and when it was all together it covered the floor of the family room. It took us almost the whole 3 months, but without a map, the game has so much backtracking it's ridiculous. The grass and trees reminds me of the Mana series and Sieken Densetsu., but there's never quite been a game like this one. Hold's a very special place in my heart.
This is the first time the video game character matches the height of the actual actor
Imagine: Willow Vs the Leprechaun! Starring Warrick Davis in a dual role like Austin Powers!
You're high . .
Madmartigan vs Iceman though . . bare knuckles, I'd vote for that
If there's one thing I'll bring up, it's the map layout.
The maps are all mazes. They're usually just grids, so pretty easy to find your way around each map segment at least, but to find treasures and often to find what needs to happen next, you need to explore every single screen. And they're fairly large.
It's worse than the usual NES fare by a good amount, esp. since the close comparison is Zelda, where the dungeons are, well, dungeons, where each room matters in most dungeons.
If you already have maps in Willow, you can easily skip, I'm going to guess >80% of the screens.
Not every screen matters in dungeons in Zelda. There are lots of extra keys, extra rooms (including pointless locked doors).
Have you played it recently?
@@kekeke8988 If you'd played Willow recently, you might see my point. Most maps in the game are MxN grids or slight variations thereupon. It often manages to be maze-like only through sheer length, between-floor transitions, and exactly identical rooms.
In Zelda 1, even the 'empty' rooms play a specific role in the dungeon design, if not for the player, and often they also play a map-role in terms of symmetry and shape. At the very worst, a room in a dungeon matters because the shape of the dungeon matters.
Most of the rooms in Willow play neither a room specific role, not even to the point of merely delaying the player, neither do they play a specific map role, as symmetry isn't a feature, relative placement in the map is meaningless, and there are no special map shapes.
The only role that most of the rooms have, is the meta map role of making the maps large enough that the player can get lost in a simple grid shape.
Absolutely loved this game as a kid. It's a great game. If I had some extra time, and hadn't finished this game like three times already in my life, I'd play through it again.
I do love those animated tiles of grass and trees blowing in the wind.
I rented and beat this back in the day and have been wanting to play it again ever since. It’s a very accessible RPG for people who don’t typically care for RPGs.
This was one of the first NES games I got as a kid growing up and because I was a dumb kid I kinda resented it. See, I had already played the arcade Willow game at a Chuck E Cheese once before so I was expecting something like that. I didn't really know how to appreciate this RPG game until like... I was in high school and I gave it another try. But then I beat it and yeah it's a good game
This is great to see this game getting some exposure! I speed run this game and it is actually quite a lot of fun!
I own this game, having found it either in a used shop, or in a box of random games from a garage sale. I've begun it a few times, but just ended up starting something else instead. Not that it was because I found it boring or didn't like the gameplay. I have several NES titles that are TRULY on my bucket list. Games I promise myself I will beat before I die. This is one. I really should dig it out again...lol.
The arcade Willow was awesome. I'm glad it got a brief shout out here.
I've seen this game over and over, I need to go ahead and pick it up. Looks like a fun time to playthrough.
It's more fun toward the middle than the loooong beginning and the dull end stage.
I love when you go from SNES Drunk to NES Drunk. This is a game I spent a lot of time & rentals on. And that music is so good, brings back the memories like mad. I can almost smell the sour cream & onion Pringles me & my brother scarfed while playing this.
I loved the arcade version of Willow and was so put off at how different this was that, sadly I didn't give this version a real chance. Seeing you review it makes me want to give it another try. Maybe this weekend. Really great videos, btw.
I was surprised he didn't mention anything about the cover art for the game
Loving SnesDrunks voices lately.
Willow will always be one of my favorite RPGs for the NES. There's a hilarious Willow hack called "Mr T Ate My Balls", I recommend that game as well haha My only complaint about Willow is no map and the color palettes are terrible. But hey, if that's the worst you can say about it, that says something!
Yeah I finished it last time with that hack, it was funny. Great game overall, Capcom rarely made bad productions on the NES
Favorite movie growing up!! Drunk your voices are on fire.. and for the second year in a row the Oscar goes to Drunk
When I was a little kid the music change and trees moving when monsters came out used to scare the hell outta me !
I rented and eventually got this game thanks to the 2 issues covering it in Nintendo Power. The only problem I have with this game is the FORCED GRINDFEST TO LEVEL 13 that is needed to reach the end of the game. That also reminds me of Crystalis in the same way both games required you to be at a certain level to proceed and the XP you got from enemies was never enough. Still a fantastic game.
It went away? I dwell in darkness without you, and it went away?!
This is one of the few NES games that I havent tried but always wanted to give a try some time. I will put this on my list.
The constant moving grass and trees is really cool. Pretty sure its difficult for the nes to do that many moving tiles at once. Real nice. Reminds me of witcher 3 a bit.