From 1987-1992 or so, Sunsoft published some pretty decent NES titles, including 1988's classic Blaster Master and 1990's Journey to Silius. This game, unfortunately, is not one of the decent ones. The titular character, the infamous Uncle from the Addams Family cartoons of old, deserved better than to make his NES debut in this poorly-designed flop. The plot of the game is that random hostile aliens have shown up and Fester feels compelled to save the day. As lame as that plot first sounds, now that I think about it, it would be pretty rad to see a random old bald guy fight off an alien invasion with blunderbuss in hand and a lightbulb in his mouth, so I guess I'll have to concede that point.
With all of the rich, colorful characters that the Addams Family universe contains, why are the antagonists of the game random alien creatures? Why is it that when you get a power-up in this game, your gun actually becomes way more cumbersome to use? Why do you only get two health? Why are you slower than molasses when you move? Where is all the thematic flavor? The sound effects aren't even original; they're pulled from the far superior Blaster Master game.
The one thing that I have always enjoyed about this game is the soundtrack. There's not very much of it, and hearing the same few tunes over and over does get old, but this one at least is pretty awesome:
Naoki Kodaka - Fester's Quest Overworld Theme
I also dug the boss music:
Naoki Kodaka - Fester Quest Boss Theme
The composer of the music for Fester's Quest is a man named Naoki Kodaka, who also composed the music for many other Sunsoft titles, including Journey to Silius, Batman, and one of my favorites, Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Today Kodaka teaches composition at the university level.
Enjoy!
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