Little Samson

Many people love the NES and its library. Unfortunately, I've never been a big fan. However, this month's Lunar League game, Little Samson, may have made me appreciate the console a bit more! Today we'll talk about that, and also hear what our league member friends have to say about the cult classic: Little Samson.

My Thoughts

What is Little Samson?

Released in 1992 in Japan and the US (and 1993 in Europe), Little Samson is a platformer in the vein of MegaMan. The studio Takeru's previous game Cocoron was worked on by MegaMan designed Akira Kitamura, however Little Samson itself doesn't seem to have any direct ties to Kitamura. Regardless, the similarities to MegaMan are apparent. Particularly to the life bar, and the death animation, which feel like they are lifted straight out of MegaMan.

At the start of Little Samson you play through 4 tutorial levels, each one teaching you the mechanics for one of the four characters. Samson (referred to as Lickle in game for some reason, but is Samson in the manual), Kikira the Dragon Lord, Gamm the Rock Lord, and K.O. the Mouse Lord. They each own a legendary bell or some such that allows them to help save the kingdom. After the four tutorial levels, Samson has to face against Kikira for dominance (I think?). The game is fairly plot-light, and while the manual explains a lot more, I'm not here to rephrase the manual. After this you proceed into stages, where you are able to switch between all four characters at will.

The Gameplay

Each character performs a unique role through the course of the levels. You've got Samson, a young boy who can climb walls and ceilings, and throw balls (rocks?) at enemies. Kikira is a dragon who can hover, and has a 3 tiered charge shot (similar to, you guessed it, MegaMan). Gamm, the golem, is incredibly slow and bad at jumping, but has a lot of health and has a powerful attack. K.O. is a little mouse, who can also climb walls and ceilings, but has very little health and an awfully weak bomb attack. The platforming sections and bosses can be fairly difficult, but are made substantially easier by paying attention to which character you are trying to use.

The levels all have sections which favor some characters over others, and if any of them die, you restart the level. You can also collect potions for each character (which you can use from the character select screen) that refill each life bar, and you collect powerups to increase the size of their life bars.

The boss fights are genuinely challenging, and you'll want to fight most of them with Kikira or Samson, to be able to have the most maneuverability, and deal the most damage. The bosses have patterns that you need to learn or you will not survive, you cannot take many hits at all. I would say they are more difficult than most of the MegaMan bosses.

The stages are all visually distinct, some with very trippy aesthetics and enemies. Overall the level design feels good, if not a little unfair at times, until you figure out which character to use. Unfortunately I spent too long trying to push the square peg into the round hole.

The Visuals

I have to lead with the fact that Little Samson may be the best looking NES game I've ever played. The colors are bright, the levels are detailed, and the sprites are all excellent. The overworld map is more detailed than I expected to be possible! You could convince me this was an early SNES title and I would believe you (maybe).

There were a couple of levels I thought were particularly arresting. As an example; this ice castle. The animations of the enemies calling lightning down from the sky are great! The effect of the lightning as it crashes genuinely surprised me.

The Audio

The game primarily features four primary musical tracks, and they're all okay. Repetitive and weirdly short, the best thing I can say is that they are catchy. The boss music has a bit more going on, but overall still pretty mediocre.

The League's Thoughts

Overall I liked Little Samson quite a bit. It's a game that I would've scrolled past on a list without blinking, but it definitely holds up. Definitely ranking near the top of my NES games list (which isn't very long but, hey, I did enjoy it a lot). I'm not alone though, here's what our League Members over on the Discord (free to join and participate, by the way) have to say!

Emory was the lucky duck whose game was chosen by the wheel for June, and he says:

Little Samson is proof that the NES was an absolute power house for its time. Wonderful pixel art, catchy music, and most importantly tight controls. The character selection is a bit clunky but if that’s the only fault I can find in a game then I’m perfectly fine giving it a 10/10

I'm glad Emory loved the game he put on the wheel!

You should read Glen's full review on his Substack, but he has provided a short response for our article here:

Stunningly pretty, and pretty challenging. Cartoony and fun. Music is eh. Little Samson is a top ten NES game for me now, but still not worth $20k NIB.

I forgot to mention earlier in this review, due to the late nature of Little Samson's release, and poor sales, it has become an expensive cult classic, Glen was not joking about that price!

Lomion had this to say:

Little Samson is finally complete. Nostalgic action platformer gameplay, with the unique twist of having four different characters to choose different routes or solve puzzles in different ways. Loved the use of color throughout the game. My only criticism is that I felt lost through most of the game. I could never tell who could use the health increases or not and end up wasting several of them and I really had no frame of reference to where I was progress wise right until I hit the very end and it became obvious. 8/10

I do think the health increases were a fairly confusing mechanic

The Lord of Crumbs weighed in on Little Samson too:

Beautiful backgrounds, funky boss designs, clever (if a little clunky) mechanics and platforming. Read the manual and spend a few hours enjoying a pretty old game that is both pretty and old!

Funky is a great word for Little Samson, and reading the manual is definitely required.

Brend chimed in with:

A platformer with excellent variety in character design and gameplay! This NES game has no right having animations this good, and I wish it was at least twice as long as it is. 🩵

The animations are seriously good!

Finally, Mel B said:

I enjoyed Little Samson! A vibrant, fun, short platformer. I’m so glad that I gave it a shot!

I think her sentiment is shared by us all, and a great way to wrap up this discussion.

Outro

So, what did you think of Little Samson? Have you played it? Did this article spark a desire to play it within you? You should let me know! Also, you should join the Discord to chat about it, and it's certainly not too late to hop into July's Lunar League games: MegaMan X for the SNES, and Shadow Hearts for the Playstation 2! If you participate, your quote will be included in next month's article, you don't even need to finish the game!

Patreon members get extra roles on the Discord, and at Astronaut tier or higher get to join a hidden chat; where you get to say mean things to me in a place where most people won't see. All of that said, thank you very much for reading, I am so happy that I get to write silly little words about video games, and people actually read them. I love you all!