As featured in Retrogaming Times Monthly issue #38, July 2007.

Amazingly one of the most forgotten arcade to NES ports is that of a game that was extremely popular in its day and still brings back fond memories to nearly all who have played it.  The spiritual successor to Centipede, Millipede crawled its way into arcades in 1982 from Atari.  You play the role of Archer, a sharpshooter armed with only a bow and arrow.  Trapped in a garden of giant mushrooms, it's up to you to battle hoards of giant insects.  Beetles, spiders, misquotes and more are on the attack but most terrifying of all, the mushroom field is home to giant millipedes which scramble down from the top of the screen.  When the millipede reaches the edge of the screen it reverses direction and drops down one row closer, the same happens if it runs into a mushroom.  As each section of the millipede is hit by one of Archer's arrows it becomes a mushroom and if the millipede is shot in the middle sections it will break off into multiple smaller millipedes.  Strategy comes into play since when each destroyed section of millipede turns into a mushroom, the remaining millipede behind will hit that mushroom and instantly drop to the next row.  Each section of millipede that reaches the bottom of the screen will cause an additional section to spawn in the shaded area at the bottom of the screen where Archer is able to move.  Since Archer cannot leave this area, only move within it, things get frantic fast once additional millipede sections begin to appear.  Keeping this area clear of mushroom growth is extremely important so that fresh millipede spawn won't have a shortcut to the bottom, there by spawning even more millipede sections.  To help Archer out DDT pesticide bombs appear throughout the mushroom field.  Shooting one of these causes a cloud of DDT to be released which destroys anything in its blast area including mushrooms and otherwise indestructible flowers.  Once the millipede is completely destroyed either by Archer's arrows or DDT pesticide bombs the next level begins.  After every few levels a swarm of airborne insects will swoop down on the playfield, causing massive mushroom growth in their path.  This of course gives the millipedes quicker routes to the bottom of the screen on the subsequent levels unless the growth is thinned out by arrow shots or DDT.

Six years after the original arcade release, Millipede appeared on the Nintendo Entertainment System courtesy of HAL Labs who also ported the arcade classic Joust to the platform.  HAL really had a knack for converting these arcade titles to the NES and Millipede is no exception.  The first task at hand is reworking the control method.  Millipede in the arcade used a trackball to move Archer around, of course this isn't possible on the NES.  However if you didn't know better you'd swear this game originally used a joystick - the control on the NES version is that good.  It is precise and smooth with the directional pad and perfectly responsive.  The single fire button of the arcade is mapped to the NES control pad A button.  Aside from the added pause feature, that's it, controls are perfect.  Sound is done equally as well, with nearly every sound effect from the arcade recreated on the NES including the marching of the millipede and the unforgettable sounds of Archer dying and the mushroom field regrowing.  When the game is running it really does sound as if the arcade machine is in your home.

HAL also did a wonderful job at recreating the graphical feel of the game.  Everything is nicely detailed from Archer's arrows to the mushrooms themselves.  Every enemy from the arcade is brought over and behaves exactly as they did in the arcade.  Spiders randomly bounce around the lower part of the screen, inchworms slow down the action once hit, bees rapidly drop down the screen leaving trails of mushrooms in their wake, it's all done perfectly.  The playfield is scaled down and moved off center so that the vertical presentation of the arcade can be recreated as properly as possible on a standard horizontal television.  Score and remaining player status fills up the remaining space on the right side of the screen.  While the levels don't perfectly recreate what one would see in the arcade version, they're close enough and the game over all just feels right.  I will say however that NES Millipede seems far easier than arcade Millipede.  Possibly the slight differences in screen dimension are what make the difference, perhaps it's the control method.  Either way I've always been able to rack up far higher scores on the NES than in the arcade.  Regardless, the game still has the same frantic pace and fun as the original, and that's really the point after all.  One missing feature is the ability to begin the game with a higher starting score and difficulty based on the previous round of play.  On the NES this feature has been replaced with a more difficult starting setting selectable from the title screen.  This basically doubles the difficulty for the first dozen or so stages until the difficulty of the normal mode catches up to the "B" setting.

It is a shame that the NES version of Millipede seems to have been swept under the carpet and forgotten over the years.  Without a doubt it is one of the highest quality conversions of any classic arcade title, especially given the hardware platform.  While it may not be a perfect verbatim recreation of the arcade original, it hits enough of the sweet spots to make it just as fun and entertaining.  Millipede is one of the greatest classic arcade games, there's no arguing that.  When building an NES arcade collection this game is simply a must have.  It's fun, plain and simple, the cornerstone of the arcade era itself.
 

"InsaneDavid" also runs a slowly growing gaming site at http://www.classicplastic.net/dvgi

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