Overall Rating: 1/5 Stars
Back in 1990, a rebellious developer called Color Dreams published a game without Nintendo’s Seal of Approval called Menace Beach, a side-scrolling action title in which the protagonist must traverse twelve levels in order to rescue his girlfriend from the clutches of the evil Demon Dan. This is a rare cartridge, and is also rather notorious; the question is, why?
Gameplay
The player controls the guy on a skateboard, as he will remain throughout the entire game. This poses numerable movement problems, as Menace Beach operates within its own odd bounds of physics; for example, there is inertia and momentum coded for each movement, so coming to a complete stop is difficult and demands countless taps of the opposite direction on the directional pad. The trade-off is that our hero gets to not only jump with the A button, but double-jump throughout the mid-air arc as many times as the player can fit the rhythmic motion into the trajectory.
The B button attacks; while standing, this takes the form of a punch, but perhaps the most devastating is attacking in mid-air, which launching a whirling spin attack. These moves will need to be mastered, in conjunction with unpredictable movements, as a few times per stage the player cannot advance until defeating an on-screen enemy or two. These foes primarily come in the form of ninjas in the neighborhood level, sailors on the pier levels, and Elvis impersonators in the sewer levels. Additionally, hulking Sumo characters may appear on any stage.
The control scheme is unintuitive enough, but the true flaw of this game, as is the trademark for the Color Dreams company later known as Wisdom Tree, is the hit detection. The hit detection is absolutely horrible, demanding the player get used to its own set of rules, which do not completely follow the simple logic that any other decent NES game would display. Instead, the player must flail about in the general vicinity of enemies, watching to see if they turn upside-down to designate a hit. However, there is help in the form of bottles and bombs that are given by background character that the B button can pick up, then throw, to try and kill enemies. In fact, for the massive Sumo enemies, the player’s punches and spins will do no damage and items are required. Humorously, in some portions, the player can simply wait until enemies blow themselves up on tossed bombs.
Perhaps the truest pitfall of this title are the precision-jumping puzzles. With enemies that bounce the protagonist backward, projectiles that do the same, and incredibly irritating systems of springs and bumpers, certain parts of the game are extraordinarily difficult. The sewer portion of level 10 has perhaps the signature example, comprised of a jump to an “island” between two water pits, with mid-air bumpers on each side, that demands an unrealistically slim margin of error and skillful, glitchy manipulation of a frog that must jump into a pit, then jump from the bottom of the screen, which the player must bounce off of while moving forward enough to not hit the overhead pipe and double-jump over two bumpers. The text does it little justice; readers will simply have to trust that, as opposed to other games where portions have a certain way to “beat” it or just demand skilled practice, Menace Beach sports areas that are inherently cruel and stupidly hard.
The player can find extra lives, and has a life meter comprised of hearts that can be refilled by finding hearts along the way, but reaching the end past stage 12 is an arduous, nigh-impossible task. Bizarrely, though, the “motivation” to do so consists of a graphic shown every couple levels, in which the hero’s girlfriend is chained to a wall; with each successive showing, she loses a little more clothing, until she is barely covered at all, as though in her underwear. Then, perhaps more oddly, Demon Dan turns out to be an actual demon in a Hell-like level, who must be killed by the power of love so that the boy and girl can meet for a date with a milkshake. The entire sequence is ludicrous.
Graphics
The visuals are somewhat lighthearted and even a little funny, with the enemies that blow kisses through the air, to the big Sumo guys and the by-far most hilarious part, the animated sprite of the Elvis impersonator foes that will suddenly stand still and gyrate their hips back and forth for a couple seconds. Otherwise, the reused backgrounds, recycled level elements, and overall lack of polish make for an unimpressive-looking title. One notable entry is the explosion effect: If a player blows up, such as when an on-ground bomb goes off, the sprite splits apart and blows up, falling down off the screen in “chunks” of the former character. Creative, though a little silly too. This effect would be used again in future company releases such as King of Kings.
Sound
Menace Beach has crude background music, hardly taking full advantage of the NES machine, seeming to only use one or two sound channels at a time before suddenly being barraged with rapid-fire riffs on the noisemaker. The effects themselves are nondescript and hardly noticeable, with faint bumps and simple thuds in place for all contact and events.
Originality
The idea of what amounts to a side-scrolling beat-‘em-up held entirely while on a skateboard has a bit of whimsical potential. By the name of “Menace Beach” one would have thought it would have been a bit more edgy, but between the wrench-dropping sewer bats and clowns that give the character balloons that he can use to float to rooftops, the experience feels a bit unsure of itself, as though hesitant to even try to be good or take advantage of an innovative idea or two. The end result is a rough-feeling, poorly executed, blandly presented, excruciatingly unfairly difficult piece of work, nabbing a single star out of five, deserving of its full notoriety in the Color Dreams line-up.