A vampire, witch, mummy, werewolf, and more have taken Jack O Lanterns from a pumpkin head man’s shop.  Now you must play as that pumpkin head guy and get them back in this arcade style throwback that plays like a mishmash of titles such as Donkey Kong, Bomb Jack, Arabian, and more.  Halloween 1985 is available on all current consoles and PC, but reviewed on PS4 here.

When you start you can first choose to play an easy mode or harder modes if you’ve unlocked them.  The easy mode has you do one round of each stage before it ends, and harder modes let you loop a few times.  The object in each stage is to collect all the pumpkins.  When you do, you can choose the next stage.  But you must climb ladders and jump to avoid monsters and creepy critters.  If you get hit, you’ll lose a life.  Lose all lives and it’s Game Over.

Each stage has a theme and different monsters and objects you can interact with.  In the vampire’s castle, you can jump to open up curtains to let in light.  If the vampire or other monsters touch it, they’ll be destroyed.  You can drop rocks on the werewolf in the mine, dump caldrons on the witch in the forest, hit the evil clown with boxing gloves in the circus, and so on.  You can also get bonus points if you collect the pumpkins in order.

I love how this game looks and feels like an arcade title you might’ve been able to play in 1985.  My only problem is that it’s way too hard, even on the easy mode.  I couldn’t get through a couple of stages!  Mainly because your guy moves pretty slow, and the monsters can go twice as fast as you if not more.  But if you want a classic styled game to play this Halloween, you might want to scare this one up.

Kid Factor:

Halloween 1985 is rated E-10 with an ESRB descriptor of Fantasy Violence.  Defeated enemies just get dizzy stars over their heads and disappear.  If you get hit, you just fly off the screen.  Reading skill is helpful for the text, but not necessary just to play.  Younger gamers may find it too difficult, though.

Tags: Game Reviews