A Game You've Played More Than Five Times

I've lost count of how many games I have played more than five times, I could have picked anything for this post with that prompt alone. I chose to narrow it down just a bit and interpret it as a game that I have completed in its entirety more than five times as that number is a lot smaller. There's one game for the SNES that I came back to time and again both for the challenge and the sense of accomplishment when I finally completed the game, that is The Addams Family.

There have been a number of Addams Family games released over the years not all of them are good, the same can be said about the movies and TV shows and extended media. There were 2 Addams Family movies released in the 1990s worth mentioning [I would skip the third it's not worth it] the 1991 title The Addams Family and its direct sequel released in 1993, The Addams Family Values.

Games with movie tie-ins aren't usually faithful, they tend to give a nod to the source material then go in their own direction, often because they are developed before the movies are released to be ready in time for release soon after, The Addams Family for the SNES breaks that habit and does a pretty good job of staying faithful to the plot of the first movie. There was also a second game that ties into the plot of The Addams Family Values, but I never got around to playing it and the screenshots I saw didn't appeal to me as it was very different from the first.

The core mechanic of the first game is the exploration of the Addams' family residence, with five main areas for you to explore and a final sixth area unlocked once you rescue each of the members of the Addams family clan. The antagonists of the movie get a mention and one of them appears although she is depicted as a witch who cast a spell over Fester which is perhaps the biggest deviation from the source material.

The final boss is reached by navigating underground caverns, including a gondola ride in a nod to the movie, and a room filled with chains again another nod to the movie, and just like in the movie if you pick the wrong chain you can end up in a piranha tank. The final battle itself against the corrupt Judge who caused the events of the movie to play out, is set against a visual that looks almost like it was lifted wholesale from the movie scene where Gomez and Fester visit the Addams' family vault showing the sprawling halls filled with piles of gold.

The gameplay style of the game for the most part is platforming, something that you can consider bread and butter for the SNES era, the appeal of getting to explore an extensive mansion is something I would later return to with another game, Casper for the PS1 which was another movie tie in, also starring Christina Ricci no less. That game however had a pre-rendered fixed perspective 3D environment that you explored as Casper the ghost, a game I spent many hours playing and could easily have been my pick for this spot.

I'm happy that a new generation has got to experience The Addams Family with the Wednesday series and the two animated movies that were produced in recent years, but I have to be honest those movies didn't really appeal to me, it was the first time in a new generation that the characters had been portrayed, so it's only natural that they would try to find their footing. I am glad the Wednesday series stayed truer to the cult classics. I am aware of The Addams Family: Mansion Mayhem which was released in 2019 but it ties in with those animated movies so I gave it a miss and I think that was probably for the best. I like the sense of nostalgia I still get from the old movies and I don't want to tarnish that memory.