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Review: Freddy Farmer (Nintendo Switch)

What do you call a successful farmer?

A man out standing in his field.

I’ve always enjoyed that joke, but I’ve learned from Freddy Farmer that it’s inaccurate. A successful farmer is apparently someone who has to search the landscape for potion ingredients, collect them while avoiding deadly enemies, and mix them in a pot to save his daughter from an evil dragon.

Such is the premise of this latest entry in Flynn’s Arcade, this time developed by Catcade Games. It’s a 16-bit throwback to ’80s/’90s arcade action, but with a couple unique twists that make it worth playing in these ’20s.

The intro tells the story. Freddy’s daughter is kidnapped from that second story window that all barns have for reasons I never understood despite growing up in rural Ohio. Freddy visits the local wizard for help in saving her, which kind of had me hoping for a Pumpkinhead-esque revenge story. But no. This wizard, who’s apparently a cat, simply explains Freddy must collect potion ingredients to reach the dragon. The twist is that they should be collected in order.

Enter gameplay. We’re presented with Burger Time style arcade levels with said ingredients scattered about. On the left of the screen is the collection order; on the right is your progress. Placement of the ingredients is random, so you’ll need to take a second to find your first objective. No more than a second, though, because the enemies come at you right away.

Matters are complicated by the fact that you have no weapons. Freddy has to use his parkour skills to get what he needs, and it isn’t easy. Although each enemy has a pattern it sticks to, the game requires jumps and ladder usage to avoid the enemies; one touch from them, their poisonous spores, etc., and you’re bones. Don’t think you can camp out on the ladders, either; you’re either moving up or down, you can’t stay put.

Equally important, you want to avoid the ingredients Freddy doesn’t yet want. You can complete a level by collecting ingredients out of order, but you’ll miss out on bonus points and you’ll make poor Freddy cry. Between agricultural funding freezes and his daughter’s kidnapping, he’s dealing with a lot at the moment.

There’s also a level-timer to consider, but it’s pretty generous; I never once ran out of time (on normal mode, anyway). You only have four lives before it’s back to the start, but you can get bonus lives by grabbing fairies as they fly across the screen.

This takes place across five different locations, each containing seven levels. So, unlike the games it’s honoring, Freddy Farmer doesn’t wear out its welcome. The randomized ingredient placement helps, too, as you can’t simply memorize patterns. An interesting development choice is that you can play the locations out of order. Tired of messing around in the forest? Just go to the mountains. The ingredients may require a proper sequence, but the levels do not.

The subsequent drawback to this is that Freddy Farmer never really gains any momentum. This many levels require a decent story to compel you, and that’s not here. The puzzle/arcade action alone has to hold your attention, and it’s perhaps a bit too chill for that. The unlockable 8-bit mini-games (fun in their own right) do provide something to strive for, however. Those and the simple gameplay approach were often enough to keep me at it.

And let’s not forget the appeal of playing a new, retro arcade game. Flynn’s Arcade excels at bringing us games like this, and Freddy Farmer doesn’t disappoint in that regard. The graphics feel a bit more NES than classic arcade, it seems, but they expertly embody the era.

Same goes for the music and audio effects. And now that I think about it, the numerous levels, path to completion, and the difficulty in getting there are more console-like, too.

So, I don’t view Freddy Farmer as a game I’d play at the local arcade. It’s the game I’d play at a friend’s house after the arcade closed. And since it only costs $5.00, we’d have enough left over to rent Pumpkinhead from MotoMart when we’re done.

Originally posted by purenintendo.com

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