Ok, hear me out.
This game is massively flawed, I'd even say it's pretty bad and I wouldn't recommend a full playthrough. That said, I'd be lying if I said there isn't something very interesting hidden beneath its shortcomings, especially for the time.
They really took the hard route for this game. It could easily have been just another generic platformer like the Nightmare on Elm Street game, yet Friday the 13th is one of the very few NES games that aims for actual horror. All in all, it's surprisingly effective at setting its tone and atmosphere. You're just a group of intentionally weak camp conselors at Crystal Lake, and Jason is a looming threat at every turn, capable of showing up when you're least prepared.
At this point, I should mention the actual objective. Basically, you're just a team of 6 camp counselors that have to survive 3 nights at Camp Crystal Lake while caring for the children. You'll be roaming around the camp killing enemies and gathering items like weapon upgrades and health power ups. Eventually, the Jason Alarm™ will go off and you'll have to take the quickest route to the cabin pointed on the map before he starts killing children. You'll have to fight him off; he runs away a couple times but retains the damage from each encounter. When you deplete his health bar, the night's over and a new day starts. Do that 3 times and you're done.
I really like that the theme of the game is pure survival. Sure, you defeat Jason in the end, but he's more of a looming inevitability than a foe you're actively going up against. Aside from the Jason Alarm™, he can show up completely unannounced and deal some heavy damage when you're least prepared. There seldom are any moments where you feel he's not there stalking you.
You also have to manage your resources if you want to survive. You have 6 counselors for all three nights, and if any die, they're gone for good. They all each carry their items individually too, and whenever you switch characters, you can choose to exchange items. However, if you die with said items, they're also gone. This forces you to strategize which characters should carry the best weapons or the health items. You also may have to reluctantly switch to another counselor because you took too much damage with the other one. All this, although unrefined, surprisingly contributes to the rising feeling of doom as you progress through the nights.
It's a shame, however, that the camp counselors are so absurdly unbalanced. Two of them are GOD tier, while the other four are just trash. If you happen to lose one of the good ones, all incentive to continue is lost because the others are wasted effort. It would have been cool to give each counselor a special ability, so the weaker characters could compensate for their lower stats. The loss of a councelor should immediatly propell you into problem solving, not absolutely discourage you from continuing the playthrough.
Item collection and leveling up is also pretty poorly executed. You either have to randomly hop about as items pop into existence, or kill a ludicrous amount of enemies to get the best weapons, and if you lose them, you're pretty much fucked. There are some items that have very elaborate conditions to acquire. They're usually way too hard to get without a guide, and you'll only be geting them by the second or third night, but I really dig the concept, as they encourage the most exploration and even have a hidden surprise that I wouldn't want to ruin for any other Friday the 13th fan.
Of course, the atmosphere is also kinda marred by the awkward map navigation, which, to its credit, does have a logic to it and can be dealt with just fine. It's simpy very counter intuitive at first. However, there's very little variety in the scenery, and that really doesn't help orientate oneself. This is aggravated whenever the Jason Alarm™ goes off, since you gotta hurry and can get lost pretty easily. Worse yet is when you're stuck with a slow as a turtle counselor and have to go all the way to the other side of the map (luckily, you can go into any of the big cabins and fast travel to any other cabin currently occupied by another counselor, though it forces you to change character.) I gotta say, all the orientation issues become smaller the more you play, and realisticaly, no one is beating this game on their first try; it's simply jarring at fist is all. What never gets better are the cave and forest areas tho. They house the best items, but they're beyond convoluted to explore and they're filled with enemies as potentially deadly as Jason himself. You also never get enough time to explore them before the ™ɯɹɐlɐ uosɐɾ forces you to come out. It's a shame, really, cuz they really would have worked to break the pace of the main boring scenerey.
The cabins are also hard to navigate and a common source of complaint, but I'm fully willing to defend them. A great feeling of tension arises whenever you KNOW Jason's in the cabin but you keep looking... and looking... and looking when SUDDENLY he pops out of nowhere with that chilling sound effect (a sound effect so classic that the 2020 game World of Horror uses it as a homage.) I'm sorry y'all, but that's just a damn well built jump scare. Just stop and think for a second: how many NES games can actually pull off a jump scare like that? Hell, there are horror games now at days that don't put half as much effort into building a scare. This game also gives you no time to relieve tension; as soon as the jump scare happens, you're thrust into battle with Jason a la Punch-Out. They're some grueling fights, especially as the game goes on.
To finally put a end to my rambling, I'll say that I think core structure of the game is rather sound and fascinating for its time. It's incredibly unrefined and the criticism it's gotten over the years is proof of that (I'm looking at all you AVGN fans). However, I simply can't say that there's absolutely nothing to this game. Although extremely unpolished, it makes use of some effective tactics that horror games wouldn't really take advantage of until much later.
If an indie team were to pick up and refine the core concept, expand upon it, add some much needed variety and pace breakers, balance all mechanics and inject some character, I'd say it would turn out to be a pretty good game, faithful to the movies.
So there you go, without a doubt the most in depth review of this game that maybe two people will read, if at all, lol.
This game is massively flawed, I'd even say it's pretty bad and I wouldn't recommend a full playthrough. That said, I'd be lying if I said there isn't something very interesting hidden beneath its shortcomings, especially for the time.
They really took the hard route for this game. It could easily have been just another generic platformer like the Nightmare on Elm Street game, yet Friday the 13th is one of the very few NES games that aims for actual horror. All in all, it's surprisingly effective at setting its tone and atmosphere. You're just a group of intentionally weak camp conselors at Crystal Lake, and Jason is a looming threat at every turn, capable of showing up when you're least prepared.
At this point, I should mention the actual objective. Basically, you're just a team of 6 camp counselors that have to survive 3 nights at Camp Crystal Lake while caring for the children. You'll be roaming around the camp killing enemies and gathering items like weapon upgrades and health power ups. Eventually, the Jason Alarm™ will go off and you'll have to take the quickest route to the cabin pointed on the map before he starts killing children. You'll have to fight him off; he runs away a couple times but retains the damage from each encounter. When you deplete his health bar, the night's over and a new day starts. Do that 3 times and you're done.
I really like that the theme of the game is pure survival. Sure, you defeat Jason in the end, but he's more of a looming inevitability than a foe you're actively going up against. Aside from the Jason Alarm™, he can show up completely unannounced and deal some heavy damage when you're least prepared. There seldom are any moments where you feel he's not there stalking you.
You also have to manage your resources if you want to survive. You have 6 counselors for all three nights, and if any die, they're gone for good. They all each carry their items individually too, and whenever you switch characters, you can choose to exchange items. However, if you die with said items, they're also gone. This forces you to strategize which characters should carry the best weapons or the health items. You also may have to reluctantly switch to another counselor because you took too much damage with the other one. All this, although unrefined, surprisingly contributes to the rising feeling of doom as you progress through the nights.
It's a shame, however, that the camp counselors are so absurdly unbalanced. Two of them are GOD tier, while the other four are just trash. If you happen to lose one of the good ones, all incentive to continue is lost because the others are wasted effort. It would have been cool to give each counselor a special ability, so the weaker characters could compensate for their lower stats. The loss of a councelor should immediatly propell you into problem solving, not absolutely discourage you from continuing the playthrough.
Item collection and leveling up is also pretty poorly executed. You either have to randomly hop about as items pop into existence, or kill a ludicrous amount of enemies to get the best weapons, and if you lose them, you're pretty much fucked. There are some items that have very elaborate conditions to acquire. They're usually way too hard to get without a guide, and you'll only be geting them by the second or third night, but I really dig the concept, as they encourage the most exploration and even have a hidden surprise that I wouldn't want to ruin for any other Friday the 13th fan.
Of course, the atmosphere is also kinda marred by the awkward map navigation, which, to its credit, does have a logic to it and can be dealt with just fine. It's simpy very counter intuitive at first. However, there's very little variety in the scenery, and that really doesn't help orientate oneself. This is aggravated whenever the Jason Alarm™ goes off, since you gotta hurry and can get lost pretty easily. Worse yet is when you're stuck with a slow as a turtle counselor and have to go all the way to the other side of the map (luckily, you can go into any of the big cabins and fast travel to any other cabin currently occupied by another counselor, though it forces you to change character.) I gotta say, all the orientation issues become smaller the more you play, and realisticaly, no one is beating this game on their first try; it's simply jarring at fist is all. What never gets better are the cave and forest areas tho. They house the best items, but they're beyond convoluted to explore and they're filled with enemies as potentially deadly as Jason himself. You also never get enough time to explore them before the ™ɯɹɐlɐ uosɐɾ forces you to come out. It's a shame, really, cuz they really would have worked to break the pace of the main boring scenerey.
The cabins are also hard to navigate and a common source of complaint, but I'm fully willing to defend them. A great feeling of tension arises whenever you KNOW Jason's in the cabin but you keep looking... and looking... and looking when SUDDENLY he pops out of nowhere with that chilling sound effect (a sound effect so classic that the 2020 game World of Horror uses it as a homage.) I'm sorry y'all, but that's just a damn well built jump scare. Just stop and think for a second: how many NES games can actually pull off a jump scare like that? Hell, there are horror games now at days that don't put half as much effort into building a scare. This game also gives you no time to relieve tension; as soon as the jump scare happens, you're thrust into battle with Jason a la Punch-Out. They're some grueling fights, especially as the game goes on.
To finally put a end to my rambling, I'll say that I think core structure of the game is rather sound and fascinating for its time. It's incredibly unrefined and the criticism it's gotten over the years is proof of that (I'm looking at all you AVGN fans). However, I simply can't say that there's absolutely nothing to this game. Although extremely unpolished, it makes use of some effective tactics that horror games wouldn't really take advantage of until much later.
If an indie team were to pick up and refine the core concept, expand upon it, add some much needed variety and pace breakers, balance all mechanics and inject some character, I'd say it would turn out to be a pretty good game, faithful to the movies.
So there you go, without a doubt the most in depth review of this game that maybe two people will read, if at all, lol.