All Hell Unleashed is one of the many NES homebrews that have helped to keep the system alive long after its main run. While the NES was discontinued decades ago, creative gamers have extended the system’s library by creating hundreds of new games, ensuring that interest in the NES will never die. Let’s take a look at what All Hell Unleashed has to offer.

All Hell Unleashed is Free!

The first positive thing people will notice about All Hell Unleashed is the price. It can be downloaded for free on itch.io and then played in Mesen or another NES emulator. The ROM can also be played on an Everdrive N8 Pro if you want to put in the extra effort to play the game on an actual NES, though many gamers will probably be content to just download the ROM onto their computers.

Travel to Different Horror Worlds

Of course, there are many free games that aren’t even worth the zero dollars you paid for them. Fortunately, All Hell Unleashed offers a worthwhile experience. You can select which level you want to play at the start of the game, meaning that you don’t have to complete levels to see the different worlds the game has to offer. Many gamers will see this as a positive thing since the game is difficult, like many classic NES games were.

The story is that an evil cult tried to harness the powers of famous fictional villains by using a magic amulet, but the amulet shattered, causing a dimensional rift that caused the villains to escape into the real world. Each level is centered around a different iconic horror franchise. There are levels for Friday the 13th, Halloween, It, and many more classic franchises. You can swap between three different weapons at any time, and you can run in order to make difficult jumps.

NES Hard

If this game had been an official release during the NES’s lifespan, it would probably be on many people’s lists of the hardest NES games. While I admittedly didn’t play it for long, during my playthrough, I was often killed by enemies rushing at me before I could react or jumps that needed some planning to achieve. I consider myself fairly good at platformers, and I’m well-versed in hard NES games, so I can tell you this game is hard. Fortunately, you seem to have unlimited continues, so if you persevere (and maybe use saves states), you can get through.

While I didn’t complete a level during my playthrough, there is also a boss rush mode, so I was able to fight some of the bosses. As you might predict, the bosses are famous horror villains such as Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers, and Pennywise. They require extra strategy since you can’t just rush at them with your weapon. Instead, you can only hurt them when they turn red. This makes boss battles an exercise in patience and persistence.

Conclusion

If you can handle the difficulty, All Hell Unleashed is a worthwhile experience. The graphics are sharp, the music captures the vibes from classic horror movies, and the simple gameplay is solid. I look forward to giving it a more thorough playthrough in the future.