You and your friends are dead. Game over. 37 years later, 8-bit Jason Voorhees is back with a few more bits thanks to a fan-made remake of the cult classic Friday the 13th NES game built from the ground up for Game Boy Color.
I have a love hate relationship with NES Friday the 13th. It's objectively bad, but it's by far my favorite of developer LJN's many retro atrocities. That might be because it's about Jason Voorhees, my favorite horror slasher, but I also genuinely enjoy its mood and tone and think its jump scares were innovative for the time. I'd even say I'm weirdly protective of the game, which is why I'm cautiously optimistic about Zeichi Games' Game Boy Color fan remake.
It looks great, very much retaining the atmosphere of the original while adding texture and depth, like the reflections and foliage you can see through cabin windows instead of the blue screen that's usually there. Jason's transformation is a bit of a disappointment, I must say. The purple jumpsuit and blue mask in the NES original are iconic enough that they inspired Halloween costumes you can buy to this day. I actually own a custom-made mask styled after Jason's NES garb, so I was sad to see it replaced by the more film-accurate but boring outfit in the Game Boy remake.
That said, my favorite element of the remake, by far, is the music. The NES game's soundtrack is an earworm, for sure, but it's been upgraded to a chiptune metal banger that swells into rollicking crescendos carried by pounding drums as that infectious melody bounces across octaves. I tip my hat to Exemia for this bonafide work of electronic art.
Zeichi Games says the GBC remake improves the original in a few key ways: "smoother, more precise controls," a new trading system that lets you trade items with your fellow camp counselors for better weapons, and a related system where you have to protect counselors from Jason so that the "trade chain" isn't destroyed.
One of the counselors, Crissy, gives you health potions that automatically restore your HP bar when it hits zero, and giving the good guys even more of an advantage, Jason has his own health bar you can deplete. Of course, if you've seen a Friday the 13th movie or know anything about slasher movies, he never stays down for good.
It's always a gamble recreating a cult classic, as they're often regarded that way in defiance of deserved criticism, but for weirdos like me who can't stop circling the logically impossible map in NES Friday the 13th every now and again, this seems like a great way to do that on the go. If anything, I'll have the remake running in the background so that I can jam out to that bangin' soundtrack all day.
You won't find Friday the 13th on many lists of the best NES games, but it holds a special place in my heart.
