At a Glance: Seta USA brings us The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, although I'm not quite sure why. If you couldn't get enough of this Mark Twain character and his other zany adventures, then this is the ROM for you. Be forewarned, no fence painting will be involved, however at times I wish it was. The game is practically the same as all other platform games; you run across the screen battling a barrage of enemies in front of slightly different backgrounds. Oh the Tomfoolery!

Platform: NES (Download Emulator here - 192k)

Download: Download ROM here - 115k


Note the counter in the upper left. It counts up as the level progresses for added craziness!Game Plot: It's a dream. Need I say more?

Weapons: There are two. The first is your endless supply of rocks, which you throw like a little schoolgirl, and the other is a slingshot. However, you really don't get the slingshot all that much, so when you eventually get to use it, you are so accustomed to the rocks that you miss half of the enemies you're trying to hit. There is also a way to become indestructible; this is done by obtaining a magic heart container. I know what you are thinking: "Isn't a heart usually associated with getting more energy or possibly another life?" The answer is yes, usually that is the case; however, Tom may be some enchanted cannibal that has the ability to gain the life force of person he eats the heart of, which could result in Tom's superhuman ability to withstand death. This is just a theory.

Enemies: There are actually quite a few. Some of the enemies are as follows: seagulls, pirates (yes pirates), mice, squid, penguins, Orcas, butterflies, grasshoppers, monkeys, bats, skeletons, ghosts, fish, scorpions, and dragons. Lets get right to the pirates. They approach and jump at you while wielding a knife; however, your uncanny ability to throw rocks like a little girl incinerates them and leaves them as of dust, just like all the other enemies you kill in this game. Another interesting opponent was the squid, as they fire two different projectiles - a blue ball and a black ball. At first the black ball will render your character blue, and then you must then be hit with a blue ball to return to your original state. Originally the blue ball will kill you, and if you're hit with a blue and then black ball, you will be killed as well. It's best not to think about this too much. Avoid all squid balls of any color at all costs, even the red ones. While the enemies individually are not hard, the sheer number and placement of these enemies make this game quite difficult.

Number of Levels: There are six different levels in this game; ship, the river, the forest, haunted house, the clouds, and the cave (every Nintendo game has a cave level). My favorite part about the levels is Tom's ability to transport from a forest to a haunted house without any explanation. I wish Tom had used some of his teleportation technique to teleport himself to the end of the level or at least teleport me to the hospital. We start on the ship, filled with pirates, mice, and squid. You would think the squid would be in the water, but these squid are obviously more evolved, hence their ability to shoot multicolored balls. 

If God thinks his force field made of tiny balls can save him he's got another thing coming.The following river level is easy, but the killer whales and flying penguins get annoying after a while. The next level is the forest that contains the horrible grasshoppers. Be very careful of these grasshoppers, as they are just as powerful as the knife wielding pirates. At the end of the level you will come across some monkeys that morph into a super gorilla. That in itself didn't surprise me, but then the gorilla began to command large rocks from the sky, and that really freaked me out. Luckily I was armed with some rocks of my own (note: I'm not referring to the half-dozen crack rocks I'd already smoked after playing 20 minutes of this game) which I threw like a schoolgirl at the gorilla to vanquish it back to hell. I believe that in the next level I fought Satan himself. Obviously it was he who was behind all these horrible creatures and their determination to destroy me. I knew it was Satan because he was at the end of the Haunted House level. 

Next up was my favorite level, the clouds. Not only did I get to fly / maneuver on a cloud, but it was at this point I figured out who the TRUE enemy was. I had believed that I would win the game after defeating Satan, but someone else was apparently behind all of this. There was a reason all the enemies seemed to know my every move and weakness. At the beginning of the level strange beings fell from the sky and then stars began to attack me. Eventually I would face the ultimate puppet master... God himself! Yes, wily ole God would try desperately to kill me by throwing lighting bolt after lighting bolt in my general direction until... yes you guess it, I defeated him with my rocks... which I threw like a little girl. Maybe after my battle with Satan my rocks had some sort of demonic power, who knows? Certainly not me, and I've even beaten this game! So now I know that if there is one thing I should take into the afterlife, it should definitely be ROCKS! LOTS AND LOTS OF ROCKS TO KICK GOD'S ASS! 

However, God wasn't even the final villain of this game, it was the nefarious Injun Joe. If you do actually play the game, I'm warning you right now: DO NOT TAKE YOUR OWN LIFE WHEN YOU SEE INJUN JOE RIDING A DINOSAUR! That is how the game normally goes. Anyway, kill Injun Joe and save some dream girl. Unfortunately the dream ends after Tom gets a kiss from the chick. Why Tom doesn't stay asleep for the dream sex he is most certainly going to get after saving the dream girl from the dinosaur riding Injun Joe is beyond me, but this is a Nintendo game.

Number of Bosses: See Levels.

Defining Moment: When I learned that not even God could defeat me. I knew the final boss was in for some punishment!

Graphics-8
Gameplay-8
Story-10
Sound-7
Fun-6
Overall-39

Each category in the rating system is based out of a possible -10 score (-10 being the worst). The overall score is based out of a possible -50 score (-50 being the worst).

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About This Column

The Rom Pit is dedicated to reviewing the most bizarre and screwed up classic console games from the 1980's, the ones that made you wonder what kind of illegal substances the programmers were smoking when they worked on them. Strangely enough, the same illegal substances are often necessary to enjoy or make sense of most of these titles. No horrible Nintendo game is safe from the justice of the ROM Pit.

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