Reader Review: Tcheco in the Castle of Lucio (PC)

TCHECO_BOXTcheco in the Castle of Lucio is a NES styled retro platformer downloadable on Steam.  My friend Robbie Allen liked it so much that he submitted his own review of it, so be sure and check it out!

If you are as old as I am and had an NES when you were a child, then it’s possible you may have experienced one of the unlicensed NES releases from Camerica/Code Masters. These games came from Europe and most of them were pretty decent, but had a few weird quirks that kept them from feeling like a Nintendo approved game. Something just felt kind of off, or the gameplay was really simplistic, or it would feel like it was almost a quality game but missing some feature or effect. It’s hard to explain, but these titles definitely had a unique feeling of their own, and if you have ever played any of them, than you probably understand what I’m talking about. You’ll probably also feel right at home with this Brazilian Steam title, Tcheco In The Castle of Lucio, or as I like to call it, Brazilian Steven Universe In The Castle of Lucario.

Tcheco is a real interesting, weird, but simple game, and as I said above feels very much like a game released by Camerica on the NES, or at the very least one of the better unlicensed games you’d get on the NES. In the game you play as Tcheco the Brazilian Adventure Boy (who kinda looks like a Brazilian Steven Universe) and you enter the Castle of Lucio and try to make it to the end of the game. From here you go from room to room each represented in a single screen. In that single screen you will see a key and you must figure out how to use the layout of the level to get to the key while dodging all the enemies on the screen. Once you grab the key an opening will appear and you must enter it to get to the next stage. In most cases this will simply be a door, but sometimes it gets a little more creative. For example there is one room where after getting the key; you can’t leave until you kick a soccer ball into a window, which breaks the window which becomes your entrance to the next level.

The game starts off moderately difficult and weird early on, but gets weirder and harder as you go on. With levels where you have to dodge giant swimming women, or mermaid women that become skeletons as soon as they get out of water, to a room where you have to defeat a giant flying baby who drops flames on you. Some rooms also give you things to help you defeat the level; many of these items are references to other video games. Like a poodle that can take on the Rush Jet and Rush Coil forms, the Adventure Island skateboard, or some jet boots that control similar to Solar Jetman. If there’s anything obvious with this game, the creator really did enjoy old NES games and has one wacky sense of humor.

Though the biggest challenge in this game is also i’s biggest flaw. There is no continue option in this game at all. If you die, you are sent right back to the start of the game. No checkpoints, nothing. There is a code that gives you 30 hits before death (type babababy while Tcheco falls to the floor at the starting of the first room), but even then the game is tough as nails and I can’t fathom me beating it anytime soon. Despite this flaw, I still find the game pretty fun. The challenge seems to reach the perfect area where you don’t really feel frustrated when you lose and go back, instead you just feel accomplished for making it a bit further each time seeing what wackiness is presented in each new room.

Overall Tcheco In The Castle of Lucio is an interesting game. It’s fun, but really difficult, and while I don’t find it frustrating, I can definitely see why others would. However I find it really easy to overlook its flaws when the game only costs $.99. That’s not a sale price, that’s it’s honest to God normal price. So go give it a try, I mean for that price, the worst that will happen is you’ll be out a single dollar.

 TCHECO_SCREEN

Kid Factor:

Other than a little crude humor here and there, I can’t see any reason why kids can’t play this. They may find the difficulty frustrating, but hey, just remind them that when we were kids games were really like this, and the lack of continues and saves was fairly normal back in our day. If anything, they might get a new respect for the games they have now.  –Robbie Allen

One Response to “Reader Review: Tcheco in the Castle of Lucio (PC)”

  1. That character sprite reminds me of River City Ransom.

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