A Nightmare on Elm Street - NES

ESRB Rating:
Release Date: 10-1-1990
Moby Score (1-10): 5.5
Genre(s): Action, Side view, Licensed, Horror, 2D scrolling
Media Type(s): Physical

Something frightening has been happening on Elm Street lately. It seems that with each waking day another gruesome discovery is made another neighborhood teen has mysteriously passed away into the dark stillness of the night. Everyone says it’s “natural causes,” but it seems as if something (or someone) has been picking them off one by one in their sleep. It’s a horrible nightmare come true...and this nightmare has a name; Freddy Krueger.

It’s up to you and your remaining friends to search Elm Street for his bones, which have been scattered about, then collect and burn them in the High School furnace. If you can just stay awake long enough, you might be able to end Freddy’s reign of terror for good. You had better hurry though, it’s getting late and you can feel your eyelids getting heavier and heavier by the minute.

If fighting for survival against Freddy Krueger appears to be just a little too much for you to handle, don’t worry... because this is a NES Satellite compatible cartridge. With it you can call on 3 of your friends for help and the 4 of you can accept the challenge simultaneously. That doesn’t necessarily make it easier...it might simply mean that Freddy gets 4 new victims instead of just 1. .. that’s up to you.

LJN's NES version of the classic horror series casts the player as a teen searching the houses on Elm Street for Freddy Krueger's bones. Once they are all collected, they must be thrown into the high school furnace to destroy Freddy once and for all (a plot similar to 1987's A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors).

Nightmare has two worlds. In the red-tinted "real world," players fight snakes and spiders while navigating standard platform challenges. The players here have a "sleep meter" that depletes with every hit taken. If the player's sleep meter drops to empty, the game transitions into the blue-tinted "dream world," where enemies take on the appearance of skeletons and ghosts. An invisible timer also starts, counting down until Freddy appears and forces the player into a brief boss battle. The sleep meter becomes a standard life gauge in the dream world, and deducts a life from the player if drained.

Players can find and collect three different icons in the dream world to become "Dream Warriors" with special powers and projectile attacks - both of which give a significant edge when fighting Freddy. Collecting all the bones in a level takes the player to a final level boss, usually taking the form of a monster with Freddy's face or trademark razor glove. Players move back and forth down Elm Street, and a new house opens up as the previous one is cleared.

Nightmare is compatible with the NES Four Score accessory, allowing up to four players to play at once using the same screen.

*** Data by MobyGames.com ***

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