Hydlide. Just say that. Hydlide. It sounds terrible and, based on this Angry Video Game Nerd episode, plays just as bad as it sounds.
It’s a role playing game which was popular on various computer systems in Japan and was ported to the NES. It’s similar to the Legend of Zelda in appearance, but doesn’t play much like it at all.
James doesn’t spend any time tearing into the game either – it opens right up with him discussing the terrible name, a tiny bit of its history, and the music, which straight up is an alteration of the Indiana Jones theme.
Control is, as you’d expect, bad — attacking enemies makes no sense, there’s no real feedback from the actual action of killing them, and honestly battle itself has no feedback — he compares it to gambling, or using drugs. Incidentally, he takes this chance to make a little PSA by saying that when “using drugs or alcohol, (but) especially drugs, you always lose.” The odd thing is, he says this in such a way that makes it seem like audio is missing — like he was supposed to say “lose, lose, lose” and the 2 later parts were cut. It’s just an oddity in the video.
Update 12/13/2021 - I've just found out this "drug PSA" is actually a quote directly from the documentary film American Movie, which Rolfe is a fan of. Yes, even the awkward end is delivered identically to how it is in American Movie.
James continues covering more terrible aspects of the game – gaining experience to level up is a chore, the magic system is a joke, and the password system, oh hell the password system is wrecked. “Saving” the game from the menu generates a password, but you have to select another option to actually see the password, then write it down and type it in again when you die.
This leads into a rant about the entire menu system and eventually how you actually complete the game. It’s cryptic, unforgiving, and all around annoying, especially getting killed by nothing. Yep, literally nothing, at a point, kills the Nerd.
James eventually manages to actually complete the game, summarizing everything required to do such before giving his final verdict that the game wasted his time with “cryptic shit.”
He ends by comparing it to the game it most looks and feels like: The Legend of Zelda. While cryptic, the game was fun, and even with frustrating moments it was something one could enjoy. Hydlide, by comparison, is just frustrating and not fun.
Final Rating: 3.5/5
This is a short episode, to say the least. A very classic styled one, at that, pretty much solely focused on the review itself without anything special thrown in. That’s fine, of course, but I think this episode, like some others in the past few months worth of episodes, show the burnout which was coming with James doing two videos a month. Shorter, more straightforward ones like this filled the gaps between bigger productions.
Still, it’s not a bad episode by any means. It’s very straightforward, and certainly was an interesting game choice, but a much more reserved AVGN episode, you could say.