The Rube’s Review: Trojan (Capcom/NES 1986)

Believe it or not, even though The Rube owns an arcade, I don’t get a lot to free time to play video games… but since I’ve been home for 3 days with a stomach flu, I finally had some time to sit on my butt with some old timey Nintendo games.

Originally this review was going to be about Kid Icarus (NES), but you know what, even as fun as that game is, it’s a real pain in the ass. It’s too long and most of the game you have to spend lots of time shooting purple winged snakes just to collect mini hearts to buy stuff. On top of that, once you die (and you do, a lot), you have to start the level over again or type in a DaVinci Code that’s full of 0’s and O’s just to continue, which I can’t stand. So far, I’ve been stuck on Level 1-3 for 4 hours now and I just can’t do it anymore.

Sometimes you just need to take a break from a hard game and start anew, play an epic game that won’t take all day. Sometimes you need an easy win to get your pride up. Sometimes you just need to play a quick game of Trojan.

The best way to describe Trojan in a single sentence is this: It’s just like an easy version of Ghost N’ Goblins, but it’s in a post-apocalyptic future instead of a cemetery (which makes sense since both are Capcom games that came out in 1986). There are 6 two-part levels, each with a mini boss, and then a final boss. You fight as Trojan, which is an 8-bit dead ringer for Lion-O (Thundercats) through the post apocalyptic city streets. For some reason I always thought of it as Detroit… I blame Robocop. Anyway, you fight your way to battle that level’s boss. Your goal is to reach the end of your journey and defeat “The King of your enemies,” it’s as simple as it gets.

I like every weird thing about this game. The soundtrack is a loop of creepy-organ fighting music while you battle toughies like a jumping, spastic lunatic that looks like The Joker, a Mega-Man throwback with a boomerang robofist and an “armadillo man” that folds up and rolls like a shielded ball of doom.

Every side-scrolling level is an adventure, which is not too hard or too easy. They’re just hard enough to keep it fun and challenging. Even though you only start with 3 lives, it’s easy to find “hidden” 1-UPS. The only down side for this game is that there are no continues, but believe me it takes no time to get back to where you where and you still have fun doing it. The best part of Trojan is no matter how many times I play this game, I can never get bored with it. I always feel a sense of accomplishment every time I beat the King and enjoy watching the villain recap credits, which were a very common thing with most Capcom NES games. Also, once you get the hang of it, you can literally beat the game in 9 minutes.

So, if you’re ever having one of those “bad game days” where you just can’t seem to kill that final Zombie Boss, collect that last gem in time, or shoot that last sniper on one of those high tech game-play’n machines… just close your eyes, count to 10, and take a break with my buddy Trojan.