Nessy the Robot was the second game to be revealed as part of the Evercade Indie Heroes Collection 2 cartridge. The game was made available to play for free on Evercade VS for one month in May 2022 as part of the Evercade Game of the Month programme from Blaze.
The game sees you play as Nessy the Robot, who is a cute robot designed to like the embodiment of a NES console. Before coming to Evercade, the game was first made available for PC and original NES hardware. On Evercade, the game is simply called Nessy the Robot and has the NES word crossed out on the title screen.
The game is clearly a callback to the likes of Mega Man and sees you go through levels which mix platforming and shooting. The game looks good for a modern game built on original NES hardware, but from my understanding comes from a very small team. In fact it may have been made primarily by one person, with a few others helping in smaller roles. I only mention this to note that it’s a small game that doesn’t have all the polish of similar games form back in the day that had full teams working on them.
Platforming is simple, and quickly you’ll realise that outside of boss encounters you can run past most enemies in the game. I did get the sense that the game could be improved upon with feedback on the level design. Just to say some ideas of where some enemy or platform placement could have been more challenging or unique. This said, I recognise that it is an indie game and wouldn’t have had the full benefit of tons of testing and workshopping to take it to the next level. But the potential is there.
The game is very short in it’s initial playthrough, which I don’t mind in this release. As a free Evercade download, I can hardly complain about the game length as a value issue, and the same will hold true when you get this as part of a larger package in the Indie Heroes Collection 2. Even it’s PC and NES versions won’t break the bank, but length wise if this had been a NES game from back in the day, it would be of more note that the game can be completed in just a few minutes. Part fo this is down to the fact that you have unlimited lives, but until the final boss I didn’t feel at risk of losing many lives anyway.
This makes the game a fun prospect for speedrunning, and that aside there is an extra mode once you have completed the main game where you get to play through again with scrolling switched off. Maybe this is something I’d get used to for the added challenge, but I just thought this made the game less fun than it was in it’s original state.
Conclusion
This is a fun little game which I can recommend. It’s a great addition to the other announced games for the Indie Heroes Collection 2 on Evercade, and if you’re looking to get it as a NES cart to play on the original Nintendo hardware, it certainly is a fun addition to the catalogue. Infinite lives, and a short length make this fun for a speedrun challenge, but also mean the lifespan is short.
You can get loads more Gaming articles in the Gaming section of the site, and don’t forget to check out all our gaming videos on the Geek Battle Gaming YouTube Channel and the Geek Battle comedy panel show on the Extreme Improv XStreamed YouTube Channel
Support all the Xstreamed shows and content: If you can please consider making a donation to the Extreme Improv Xstreamed Ko-Fi page to help support all the great weekly content including live comedy shows, streaming shows, articles, podcasts and more!
