Alright, I’m gonna be completely transparent with you all for this one: I dunno what the fuck this shit is. I was just sitting around, thinking of a game to play for a good hour or so, and when I scrolled through Rare Replay to find something, I saw Digger T. Rock: The Legend of the Lost City, and thought “Ok, why not”, so I decided to check it out. And what did I think of it? Eh… it was alright. It ain’t the worst thing from Rare that I have played on the NES, and it did have some good qualities about it that made me glad that I played it, but it is really nothing too substantial or noteworthy.
The story is pretty simple, and it is pretty much every treasure hunter story ever, the graphics and art style is pretty good, with Digger himself having a very appealing in-game design, the music is… ok enough, the control is kind of rough to get a grasp on, with that and the movement I will touch upon in a bit, and the gameplay itself is fun and interesting, but at the same time equally frustrating.
The game is an exploration-based platformer, where you explore several caverns, defeat enemies with different tools, collect items along the way to help you proceed through said caverns, find the pillar to open the exit, and get to said exit before it closes up. That is all this game has up its sleeve, but, to its credit, it does have a lot going for it here. You are given plenty of items to help you explore through the caverns, such as rocks that you can throw at enemies if your shovel doesn’t do the job, there are ladders you can use to make traversing down gaps much easier, dynamite which you can use to clear out walls blocking your way, enemies, and other obstacles, and gems that you can either use in specific stages to buy more of the other items, or use as bait to lure enemies away.
All of that is pretty useful, and it allows for a lot of different means of progressing through stages to reach your goal, which I greatly appreciate. In addition to this, there are also plenty of different paths to take, parts of the environment to interact with to change the layout and where you can go, a wide variety of enemies that you wouldn’t even think you would see in this kind of game, and bonus stages in between each level to get more lives (and by that, I mean they repeat the exact same bonus stage at the end of every level, but hey, it is better than no bonus stage at all). All of this made for an interesting time, and I had a good amount of fun with it.
Although, that fun was often halted with the problems that hold this game back, with there being quite a few, but the most important issue that I feel should be brought up first would be both your movement and how you go about traversing areas. Like I said earlier, the control is a little rough, but what buttons do what is pretty understandable, and you can pick it up quick enough to where it isn’t that much of an issue, but your movement and how you move through levels is pretty jank. You have very slippery traction, making it pretty hard to figure out when exactly you should stop moving, and how fast you want to move before accidentally crashing head first into danger. This alone was probably the cause of half of my deaths, as not only is stopping an issue, but in some circumstances, starting to move was also just as much of a problem, as it takes a second for you to truly get going, and when this is paired against something that moves very quickly, the results don’t turn out great.
In addition, moving around through these caverns can be awkward as fuck a lot of the time. Just running around normally is hard enough, but digging around and climbing through tight corridors can be a pain, with it being unclear in several instances when you can interact with a climbable surface, the directions and movement in tight spots being pretty wonky, some enemies being able to attack you easily while stuck in said tight spots, and in some levels, these awkward movement and interaction with the environment are mixed in with ice physics, and I probably don’t need to tell you how much of a mess that was. Although, since I was playing this game on Rare Replay with an Xbox Series X controller, maybe it would be a little more manageable on the original system, but I can’t really test that to confirm my theory.
Alongside this, the game, much like a bunch of Rare’s older titles, has a big arcade vibe to it, and not in a good way. The game is pretty short, so you could get it done in about a half-hour if you know what you are doing, but this also comes at the cost of you having to do the whole thing in one go, and in addition, there are several instances where in order to progress, you need specific items to use to get rid of an obstacle. Not only are these items limited, but there were instances where the level in question didn’t have any of the item that you needed, meaning that you would be fucked, and needed to start the whole game over again. Thankfully, this never happened for me, but I can see this being a problem for others who don’t know what to expect from the game, which was almost the case for me.
With all that being said though, despite the many issues that this game has, I still ended up having a good amount of fun with it. Yes, I wouldn’t say it is that good of a game, but with the amount of stuff you could do, and with the variety of tools you could use, it was fun to mess around and experiment in these caverns, and it was really satisfying to find the pillar that unlocks the door, and making it to that door before any of the game’s traps could stop me. Not to mention, it has some sort of charm to it that I can’t explain. I dunno, maybe it has something to do with how Rare made it look and sound, but I can’t really stay that mad at it for too long.
Overall, while it certainly isn’t going to be leaving that much of an impact on me, and it certainly had plenty of problems, I thought the game was an alright romp with some fun elements to it, and trust me, there are WAY worse games on the NES, even ones made by the same company.
Also, quick little fun thing before we end this off, but at the end of the game (spoilers for a 33 year old game, but whatever), you do end up finding the lost city, and not only do you get to see Digger’s creepy-ass face in this part, but you are also hit with the “To Be Continued” text. I suppose Rare was planning to make a sequel to this game at some point, but… that obviously never happened. So, what I assume happens after this is that Digger just dies of starvation trying to find his way out of the lost city. A tragic end to an unloved hero…
Game #169
The story is pretty simple, and it is pretty much every treasure hunter story ever, the graphics and art style is pretty good, with Digger himself having a very appealing in-game design, the music is… ok enough, the control is kind of rough to get a grasp on, with that and the movement I will touch upon in a bit, and the gameplay itself is fun and interesting, but at the same time equally frustrating.
The game is an exploration-based platformer, where you explore several caverns, defeat enemies with different tools, collect items along the way to help you proceed through said caverns, find the pillar to open the exit, and get to said exit before it closes up. That is all this game has up its sleeve, but, to its credit, it does have a lot going for it here. You are given plenty of items to help you explore through the caverns, such as rocks that you can throw at enemies if your shovel doesn’t do the job, there are ladders you can use to make traversing down gaps much easier, dynamite which you can use to clear out walls blocking your way, enemies, and other obstacles, and gems that you can either use in specific stages to buy more of the other items, or use as bait to lure enemies away.
All of that is pretty useful, and it allows for a lot of different means of progressing through stages to reach your goal, which I greatly appreciate. In addition to this, there are also plenty of different paths to take, parts of the environment to interact with to change the layout and where you can go, a wide variety of enemies that you wouldn’t even think you would see in this kind of game, and bonus stages in between each level to get more lives (and by that, I mean they repeat the exact same bonus stage at the end of every level, but hey, it is better than no bonus stage at all). All of this made for an interesting time, and I had a good amount of fun with it.
Although, that fun was often halted with the problems that hold this game back, with there being quite a few, but the most important issue that I feel should be brought up first would be both your movement and how you go about traversing areas. Like I said earlier, the control is a little rough, but what buttons do what is pretty understandable, and you can pick it up quick enough to where it isn’t that much of an issue, but your movement and how you move through levels is pretty jank. You have very slippery traction, making it pretty hard to figure out when exactly you should stop moving, and how fast you want to move before accidentally crashing head first into danger. This alone was probably the cause of half of my deaths, as not only is stopping an issue, but in some circumstances, starting to move was also just as much of a problem, as it takes a second for you to truly get going, and when this is paired against something that moves very quickly, the results don’t turn out great.
In addition, moving around through these caverns can be awkward as fuck a lot of the time. Just running around normally is hard enough, but digging around and climbing through tight corridors can be a pain, with it being unclear in several instances when you can interact with a climbable surface, the directions and movement in tight spots being pretty wonky, some enemies being able to attack you easily while stuck in said tight spots, and in some levels, these awkward movement and interaction with the environment are mixed in with ice physics, and I probably don’t need to tell you how much of a mess that was. Although, since I was playing this game on Rare Replay with an Xbox Series X controller, maybe it would be a little more manageable on the original system, but I can’t really test that to confirm my theory.
Alongside this, the game, much like a bunch of Rare’s older titles, has a big arcade vibe to it, and not in a good way. The game is pretty short, so you could get it done in about a half-hour if you know what you are doing, but this also comes at the cost of you having to do the whole thing in one go, and in addition, there are several instances where in order to progress, you need specific items to use to get rid of an obstacle. Not only are these items limited, but there were instances where the level in question didn’t have any of the item that you needed, meaning that you would be fucked, and needed to start the whole game over again. Thankfully, this never happened for me, but I can see this being a problem for others who don’t know what to expect from the game, which was almost the case for me.
With all that being said though, despite the many issues that this game has, I still ended up having a good amount of fun with it. Yes, I wouldn’t say it is that good of a game, but with the amount of stuff you could do, and with the variety of tools you could use, it was fun to mess around and experiment in these caverns, and it was really satisfying to find the pillar that unlocks the door, and making it to that door before any of the game’s traps could stop me. Not to mention, it has some sort of charm to it that I can’t explain. I dunno, maybe it has something to do with how Rare made it look and sound, but I can’t really stay that mad at it for too long.
Overall, while it certainly isn’t going to be leaving that much of an impact on me, and it certainly had plenty of problems, I thought the game was an alright romp with some fun elements to it, and trust me, there are WAY worse games on the NES, even ones made by the same company.
Also, quick little fun thing before we end this off, but at the end of the game (spoilers for a 33 year old game, but whatever), you do end up finding the lost city, and not only do you get to see Digger’s creepy-ass face in this part, but you are also hit with the “To Be Continued” text. I suppose Rare was planning to make a sequel to this game at some point, but… that obviously never happened. So, what I assume happens after this is that Digger just dies of starvation trying to find his way out of the lost city. A tragic end to an unloved hero…
Game #169
2 Comments
Rare announcing a sequel in the game without even knowing if they will make the sequel or not seems to be a trend of theirs.
_YALP
11 months ago