Montezuma's Revenge: Too Damn Hard (with Final Rating)

I can't imagine the level of commitment needed to get through this game.

Maybe modern gaming has spoiled me, but I don't have the dedication needed to practice this game long enough to get deeply into it. I remain stuck on the same screens that were challenging of my last posting, despite getting there quicker each time. In a lot of ways, I feel like getting good at this game is a matter of practice more than anything: like I said before, the difficulty is in the precision needed, but the controls are fair.

Needs more practice.

Unfortunately, I don't really have any progress to report at this point: I spent the rest of the allotted time exploring a detour to gain another key, getting slightly better, and dying repeatedly. This didn't really come as a surprise to me, but I guess it bears recording.

I can not imagine being good enough at this game to worry about getting points.

So, with nothing else to say, do the rating for Montezuma's Revenge!

Visuals. The graphics are serviceable for the most part, with special attention being play to the lava pools. The simple animation and a tight band of colors give these pools a vibrancy rarely seen on any system from this time. 

So good I'll post it again.

Other than that, there is nothing truly visually special in this version of the game. 4/10

Audio. The best thing I have to say about the audio in Montezuma's Revenge is that there is nothing too annoying. The sounds are simplistic, as expected from the era and system, limited to a handful of rough noises for walking, jumping, and killing creatures with the word. There was no music outside of a brief intro that played when starting a new game. 3/10

Gameplay. Ignoring the difficulty for a moment, this game controls beautifully. The jumping is precise and in the Castlevania style of conserved momentum. The character's speed is fair, the physics are sensible, and there is no difficulty grabbing onto ladder and ropes as you make your way around.

Brilliant gate placement.

There are a pile of ways to die in this game. Enemies, falling, disappearing floors, and laser gates all present challenges that will instantly kill you and drain one of your precious and limited lives. The plethora of ways to die is compounded by a level design and layout that invites death to come quicky: enemies and traps often appear as soon as the screen starts, meaning movement must quickly be suspended when entering new rooms. Enemies often requiring dodging on tight platforms, and the disappearing floors proved insurmountable for me. 5/10.

Metroidvania Quotient. What's great about Montezuma's Revenge is that it has all the basic elements of a Metroidvania game in place: backtracking exploration,  permanent power-ups, and platforming. That being said, a lot of these elements are rudimentary and I look forward to seeing their evolution.

Basic route planning!

For example, while the map appears to be a large branching map, there are many dead-ends and preferred choices. For example, while the path to the torch has two different ways to get to it, only one will provide the  key needed to get to the torch.

Power-ups are similarly misleading: while you can keep a key, a sword, a torch and an amulet in your inventory, the torch is the only one that is permanent, and the others are limited in duration. The sword would be more useful if there were more of them, but it is a lonely power-up, only occurring in a handful of places that I was able to explore. The key functions as to be expected, and the amulet grants temporary immunity to enemies. 4/10

Set and Setting. This one is really a mixed bag for Montezuma's Revenge. On one hand, Panama Joe is the living embodiment of Indiana Jones, complete with narrow escape from deaths, crossing perilous gaps, and seeking treasure. He has to get by the usual array of archaeologist problems: spiders, skulls and snakes.

On the other hand, Montezuma has a weaponized laser capable of instantly vaporizing a human. There is a sparse story in the manual, and nothing at all within the game. There is really no narrative in this game, besides getting the loot. 5/10

And has perfected the art of storing lava.

All this comes with the note that I chose to play the Atari 2600 edition. From brief online reading, it looks like some of the other versions had significantly different level lay-outs, and enhanced graphics, spread over a few years of releases. I don't know how much the gameplay differs between releases, and if I eventually have more interest I'll check it out. I also found out that when I beat them game, my reward would be restarting with significantly harder differences, such as enemies no longer staying dead, and eventually a completely dark game with no torch.

Overall, Montezuma's Revenge earned a 21/50 score, which is a fine way to start off scoring and get on our way to Brain Break for the Sharp X1.