Little Samson

Little Samson

NES - USA - 1st Edition.

Developer Takeru Publisher Taito Published 1992-06-26 Platforms NES Genres Platform shooter, Platformer, Shooter Themes Action, Adventure, Cartoon, Fantasy Distribution Commercial

Little Samson is a platform shooter developed by Takeru and published by Taito for the Nintendo Entertainment System on 1992-06-26. Despite being well-made, it was produced in small numbers, and its late release on an 8-bit console after much of the world had already embraced the 16-bit consoles, meant it remained rather obscure until emulation helped revive it. Boxed versions now sell for thousands of dollars.

In the game Little Samson and three other heroes are called by the king to defeat an evil wizard who has escaped captivity and now threatens the world. The four heroes each have their own abilities which come in handy through different areas of the game.

Personal

Own?	No.
Won?	Yes. Easy and Normal difficulty.
Finished	Easy: 2025-02-18 / Hard: 2025-03-25.

I remember stumbling upon this game in either the late 1990s or early 2000s while trying out unknown titles in an emulator. I thought the game was pretty impressive, but I found it a bit difficult, and wasn't really looking for a new challenge. Over the years, I saw it turn up on lists of hidden gems for the NES, so it remained in my mind. After watching a video which said you get unlimited continues, and that it wasn't too hard, I decided to try and beat it. I played the easy mode and found that it still wasn't as easy as the person in the video claimed, but it was doable. However, easy difficulty doesn't let you finish the game, so I started playing normal mode. This was much more difficult because of the bosses, but, by farming lives, I was eventually able to get through it.

Review

6	8	9	6	5

Best Version: NES

Good

• The game has very good art, especially for the hardware. The backgrounds are impressively drawn and the characters have very nice animation.
• I really like the character design. There is variety in movement, attacks, and defense.
• Most of the bosses are well-designed, both in appearance, and their attacks.
• The music, composed by Yoshiji Yokoyama and Yukie Marikawa is pretty good music.

Bad

• Heart containers aren't very useful in hard mode because most characters cap out very quickly. A better solution would be to allow for larger caps, but have enemies do more damage. It would also be nice if heart containers gave some benefit when a character is capped, like healing them.
• Because Gamm hits a lot harder than the very light attacks of Samson and Kikira, and can take a lot of hits compared to K.O., I found him to be by far the best character to defeat most bosses, which made the fights a bit dull.
• K.O. the mouse is so frail, I never used him except in the narrow places clearly designated for him. Since Samson also has the ability to climb on walls and ceilings, and Kikira's hover lets her clear large gaps, there isn't much use for him other than maybe a couple boss fights.
• Requiring the player to farm health after each boss battle in the final stages only adds tedium.
• While the game certainly pushes the limits of the NES hardware, the game's design is still stuck in the 1980s. It's a completely linear platform shooter with only a little variety thanks to the alternate character abilities. It feels like Mega Man II, but, because it was released four years later, it isn't nearly as impressive.

Ugly

• There is a very stark contrast in difficulty between the easy mode and normal mode. This is primarily because the bosses typically kill everyone in one hit if you collide with them, except for Gamm who can usually take two. And, because several of them teleport randomly around the screen with very little time to react, their difficultly is a bit unfair. The harder boss fights, and particularly having to reface them in pairs in the final levels, are a low point in the game that is more frustration than enjoyment.
• Having your companions not resurrect when they die until you finish a stage makes the game a lot harder than it needs to be and makes players less-likely to use them for fear of losing their support in the boss battle. This is particularly annoying in boss fights, and even worse in the final stages. There is a way to ameliorate this, but it's tedious (see the spoiler below).
• Potions let you resurrect fallen companions. So, farm a potion for each of them, but never use them during the boss fight. If you die as a companion, they won't resurrect when you restart the level, but you can use the potion to bring them back. Then, farm another potion for them before attempting the boss again.

Media

Cover Art

• 

  Japan.

• 

  USA.

• 

  Europe.

Documentation

• 

  Manual - USA.

Fonts

The game's font is in the video game font collection.

Videos

Longplay - Japan - Normal difficulty.

Longplay - USA - Normal difficulty.

Play Online

Famicom, NES (Europe), NES (USA)

Representation

Strong female character?	Pass	Kikira is a very helpful asset who is also the only character with additional story elements from cutscenes.
Bechdel test?	Fail	The game has no dialogue.
Strong person of color character?	Fail	Possibly Little Samson, but his race is never mentioned.
Queer character?	Fail	There are no queer characters.

Titles

Language	Native	Transliteration	Translation
English	Little Samson
Japanese	聖鈴伝説リックル	Seirei Densetsu Lickle	Legend of the Holy Bell Lickle

Links