3

5 /5

Battle Kid: Fortress Of Peril is a homebrew 2D platform video game, released in February 2010 for the Nintendo Entertainment System, created by Sivak Games, and published through Retrozone with the cover art designed by Larry Bundy Jr. Unlike most games in the modern era, Battle Kid is available for purchase only on a physical NES cartridge. While there has been a demand for a downloadable version, the developer has stated that the game is currently not planned to be released on any other formats due to a contract with Retrozone.

Battle Kid is very similar to I Wanna Be the Guy, an indie freeware game for the PC, in terms of the design of the main character and the projectile weapon he possesses, the trial-and-error difficulty, and instant death mechanics of all enemies and hazards. However, the similarities end here as the actual gameplay and control is much more in the likeness of Mega Man games on the NES and the boss fights at the end of each major stage. The main character, Timmy, can only be hit once before the player is greeted with a 'game over' screen; however, there are infinite continues and the player will start over from the last save point. There are also keys which unlock different areas of the fortress and enhancement cards which give the player a number of different abilities to overcome obstacles. There are over 500 individual rooms, over 30 different enemy types, and multiple difficulty settings.