Friday The 13th is an excellent slasher series that has influenced pop culture ever since its debut. One way it affected pop culture was when it was turned into an NES game. While many hate the title, and it is flawed, there is something many do not factor in. Friday the 13th on the NES, while not a great game, is more a victim of being ahead of its time when it comes to the survival horror genre.
The problem with Friday the 13th is twofold in nature. The first major aspect is that it can be confusing where to go, with no real way to track where players needed to go and this lead to trouble. The game would randomize events constantly to keep things different, which led to many getting stuck on their playthrough, which was bad enough without the combat.
The combat in the game is the second part of the issue and further holds the game back. Moving and attacking was impossible due to needing to throw the main weapon in an arch, for instance, meaning players had to have extreme precision and timing just to hit a common enemy. Fighting Jason was much more difficult than it needed to be, not because of enemy difficulty, but rather due to the controls being unresponsive and extremely sluggish.
Allegedly the designers thought that the player should feel helpless so made this part intentionally play much worse, but confirmation has not come out about that. It does tie into the idea of the game being ahead of its time though, as games playing worse when encountering certain foes is more commonplace among survival horror games now. The confusing layout and combat also fit this setup, as being ideas used more often now.
Friday the 13th is a game that had many ideas that are used now, but a combination of the technology not being quite there yet, and not being used right held it back. That being said, there are some good things about the game. For one, the music was actually pretty good, and the kooky nature of the game seems to revel in its nonsensical nature.
Friday the 13th was not a good game, but one that had ideas that would come into fashion years later. That said, one can still find a tiny bit of joy with it. This is one worth playing just to see what the issues are if you can find it at a decent price. Fortunately, Friday the 13th would get much better games later on as the years went by.