Little Samson is one of the rarest releases on the Nintendo Entertainment Center. This is due in part to it releasing after the emergence of the SNES, and having a very limited production run. While most gamers have never heard of Little Samson it’s infamous for being one of the most expensive authentic cartridges on the system. Expect to spend up to $500 on this baby. I was lucky enough to have procured it at the time of release, and I’ve long been a fan of the title. Taito released it in an obvious effort to cash in on the platformer craze of the 90s. Unfortunately they made a few bad decisions with Little Samson. Had it been released earlier when the eight bit era was in full swing it might have been a hit, but it was too late. The cheesy box art certainly could not have helped its cause either. It’s a real shame that more gamers haven’t had the chance to play this one because Little Samson goes toe to toe with the Nintendo Entertainment System heavy hitters like Mario, Mega Man, and Castlevania. That’s quite a compliment if you ask me.
There’s no in-game description of the story, but you can piece together bits from the introductory sequence. This game takes place in a magical fantasy kingdom. An evil wizard is released from his seal during a thunderstorm, and the castle is in trouble. The king sends out four carrier pigeons in an effort to summon four heroes to challenge and defeat the evil warlock. Little Samson should be familiar to anyone who has played any other side scrolling platform title from this era. Gameplay is two dimensional as you move left, right, and jump. This title is more action oriented as your characters are armed with their own weapon, and this is your only method by which to defeat enemies because jumping on their heads is ineffective. Your character has a life bar on the left side of the screen ala Mega Man, and you can both restore and expand it by collecting power-ups strewn about in each stage. Unfortunately these are the only power-ups you’ll find aside from extra lives. So what exactly makes Little Samson so special you may ask?
You can switch to any of the four characters at almost any time, and they each have unique abilities and characteristics. At the start of the adventure you select one of four stages in any order. Each is played with only one of the characters and only after completing each of these levels can you switch between them. First up we have Little Samson. He can throw bells which move across the screen horizontally, and he can also cling to as well as climb up walls and even across the ceiling. The next character is a dragon who also uses a projectile attack but these fireballs more in an upward arc. Instead of climbing you can fly for brief periods of time which makes many of the platforming sequences easier. The next two are a little quirky; a golem and mouse. The golem has limited range with a punch that can be aimed horizontally as well as up/down, but he can’t jump nearly as well as the other characters. Fortunately he makes up for this with an increased life bar, extra defense (he can walk on spikes and take no damage), and his weapon is the strongest of the bunch. The mouse is pretty much the opposite. Weak and suffers from low vitality, but this character is the fastest and has the highest jump. Unfortunately he has no projectile attack and can only plant small bombs. Like Samson this character can also climb walls and traverse across the ceiling. Switching characters is a painless practice and is done via the start menu. You can change at any time except when incurring damage or in the middle of a jump which is an understandable limitation.
Because you can pretty much switch on the fly this is a very unique feature that was ahead of its time. The differing abilities and characteristics make them all useful in different circumstances. For the most part you can simply play as your favorite one but many situations require their use. That’s what I like about this game; the character switching doesn’t feel nearly as much like a gimmick because it’s not always necessary like in so many other similar titles. The level designs are one of the high points of this package. Throughout the game you’re introduced to brand new mechanics. A lot of the time with other games you’ve seen all there is to see just a few levels in. It’s refreshing to see developers that had ideas throughout the creation process. Little Samson is also quite challenging but it’s never cheap like Ninja Gaiden or Mega Man. I do have a few very minor complaints; the first of which concerns the boss characters. They’re usually quite dark and foreboding which clashes with the happy go lucky style of the rest of the game. It’s certainly not a big deal, but I’m grasping to find any flaw in this package. I’m disappointed that, rather than featuring battery backup you’re stuck with a password system. Thankfully these are only four digits long.
The developers behind this game pulled off some real wizardry in the graphics department. This could easily have passed for an early Genesis title and lacks only the overly used parallax scrolling of that system. The characters are among the best looking across the entire system, and they animate beautifully. Every single frame is full of detail. The backgrounds are the real highlight though. These are chock full of detail, and hardly suffer from any noticeable pixelation at all. Even as a late generation NES title Little Samson is simply beautiful. The soundtrack is pretty standard for the system technically, but it’s full of charming themes and is highly memorable. The basic stages lack their own individual music, but what makes up for this is the fact that each character has their own theme. This switches as you change characters, and I found the effect to be a very cool one. It’s a small touch, but one of my favorite elements in eight bit music. Admittedly I’m not too fond of the golem’s theme, but Little Samson as well as the Dragon feature fantastic music. The soundtrack is really good overall and deserves to be remembered.
Okay so here’s where things get tough. I can’t recommend Little Samson at its current asking value. Perhaps one day it will be released on digitally for another system (it’s unlikely but I think the virtual console would be a good choice) but until then there’s no real viable means by which to play it. With that said Little Samson is one of the best pure platforming titles for the system, and if you happen to be one of the lucky ones that picked it up when the price was reasonable then you’re in for a lot of fun should you choose to revisit this hidden gem. It’s unfortunate that Taito is only a former shell of itself under the reign of Square-Enix because this is a very amazing game that deserves far more recognition than it has ever received. Given the circumstances it’s probably eternally doomed to be a hidden gem. Please re-release this one!
