There wasn't really a lot that the NES could offer us in terms of gameplay but it didn't matter in the 80's because prior to the existence of the Nintendo Entertainment System we had been subjected to Atari games that were basically all the same and while they were innovative AF at the time, these days they just look stupid (hehe).
Side-scrollers were a big part of the NES library because there wasn't really much else that could be done. It seems as though side-scrolling punch ups were a dime a dozen and their only variety was how much crap was going to be getting thrown at you and how was it going to happen.
Another box with cover art making promises that the game cant possibly deliver, Trojan bragged about their high-resolution graphics and 1 megabit of memory. One megabit you say!? Well, sign me up!
To be fair we didn't have any idea what the hell a megabit was back in 1986 or even what a "bit" was. That terminology didn't start getting thrown around until the 16-bit systems started getting rolled out.
The name Trojan is a little deceptive, since the game takes place in a modern, dystopian world for the most part. In fact, that only thing that is even remotely Troy-like would be the fact that the main baddie is named "Achilles."
Let me tell you something about this game: It was friggin tough. There are things coming at you from all angles and even though you have a life bar, you can still only take a couple of hits before that is drained. You do have a shield, and trust me, you are gonna need it.
Dudes come at you with clubs in a predictable way that is apparent in really every game like this, and then the guys with throwing knives but this one took it to the next level and had flying people with personal helicopter backpacks. They were out of reach until you got one of the game's just 2 powerups. It was a glowing shoe and it increased your vertical from a 1 foot jump, to 30 meet or something. It was truly absurd.
I don't think I would have the patience necessary to memorize the various aspects of each level these days but I suppose 12 year old me had it in him because while this game started out controller-tossing-ly frustrating, it got the point where I could go all the way through this game from start to finish on one life and barely getting hit at all.
I say that this game was REALLY HARD but to be fair there are a lot of really hard games that exist today as well, particularly in the side-scrolling platforming genre. I don't think I would enjoy this game at all today but for me, back in the late 80's this was one of my favorites, probably because it is one of the few games that I can honestly say that I mastered.
You can download the ROM and get super frustrated in 4 minutes and then quit HERE
