Topic: Little Samson (NES)

[Zetta]

Has anyone heard of little Samsom (from Taito, I think) that was released in 1993 when the NES era was ending?



It featured 4 different playable characters (a little boy, a dragon, a mouse & a golem) with unique stages and challenges for each one.



LICKLE, DRAGON, GOLEM, MOUSE! TOGETHER THEY FORM...LITTLLLLEEE SAAAMMSSOOONNNN! Or something to that effect.



That game had insanely gorgeous graphics for the NES and was super addicting. Has anyone taken a stab at mapping Little Samson?

[Maxim]

http://www.mobygames.com/game/nes/little-samson/screenshots



Seems not bad... for a NES game.

[JonLeung]

The graphics were good, but the animation was superb, too.  I liked the music, especially the boss battle theme.



The mouse is cute - but also badass, what with his little bombs and all!  Explosive droppings?



It's one of the games I was entranced by just by seeing maps of it in Nintendo Power.

[TerraEsperZ]

I actually started mapping the first few stages of that game without mentioning it, just in case. Since someone else seems interested, I might go ahead and do it all. This would be the first time I ever fulfill a map request too.



It's a great NES game, but it's also difficult as hell once you reach the later levels. Without Game Genie codes, it would be very difficult to survive long enough in them to be able to map them without reloading a savestate every few second or so.



---

Current project: Little Samson



Upcoming project: Not sure yet either

[snesmaster]

I never heard of that game before, but the graphics from the screen shots look pretty good.  Let me know if you need any help finding codes to help map the game.  I can find codes pretty quick using the FCEUX code search program.

[TerraEsperZ]

That won't be necessary. The full map is always visible on screen (no hidden areas) and I've already gone through the whole game once (using Game Genie-enabled invincibility), so doing it again for mapping purposes will be easy.



The only thing that annoys me is how the stages have no official names, and how, thanks to a few branching paths, I can't simply use numbers so I'll have to make up generic names that suit the various environments.



---

Current project: Little Samson (NES)



Upcoming project: Not sure yet either

[Zetta]

Thank you so much for ripping the intro stage maps to this game, King-Hyrule.

I love this forgotten NES classic. KO the mouse is my favorite player.

[TerraEsperZ]

Remember how I mentioned I had already started mapping this game? Well I recently picked it up again to finally finish this project because only the last stage was left to map. And despite how it might look, I was already underway when I noticed that King-Hyrule had mapped the introduction stages.

I emailed him to see if he intended to finish mapping the game and if he would object to me sending my maps and he was pretty cool about it. Of course, in the interest of fair play, my maps don't include the enemies so that would be a reason to keep both our map sets.

Anyway, here they are. I have to mention that the stage numbers and names aren't official but instead the best I could come up with (and stolen from various FAQs...). I decided to have two different stage 4 since that was the only place in the game where you're forced to choose one way or the other; all the other stages can be encountered sequentially if you follow the right path. Oh, and the names of the four heroes were taken from the NES manual instead of the Japanese game so instead of Lickle, Dragon, Golen and Mouse, you get Little Samson, Kikira the Dragon Lord, Gamm the Rock Lord and K.O. the Enchanted Beast. Enjoy!

[LINKS AND THUMBNAILS REMOVED]

*EDIT*

Sorry but ImageShack somehow didn't generate thumbnails for all of them!

*EDIT 27/04/12*

I needed space in my free ImageShack account, so I've decided to remove them from here. See three posts down for a link to them on VGMaps.

[Grizzly]

Very nice game. It looks very good for an NES game. I also once started mapping this game after playing through it because I thought the game would be the ideal candidate for some beautiful maps (what it really is, looking at your result) but I did only finish Little Samson's Intro Stage and did not continue afterwards.
So it's really nice to have a complete map set available for it now, thanks to you 

I don't remember the big crab from the Crab Ride stage so I must have skipped it by not falling (in my case most likely by cheating, using emulator save states). Very impressive size for a moving object.

[TerraEsperZ]

I bet a lot of people never saw the crab since we've been conditioned to avoid falls as they almost always killed you in old platformers.

As for the crab, it's a bit less impressive since it's not technically a moving object but simply the bottom of the screen that remains in place while the top of the map keeps scrolling. It's still a neat effect considering the limitations of the NES.

[JonLeung]

Okay, all the maps are up!

I must've been playing on Easy or something because I don't remember the last stage...

[TerraEsperZ]

I feel that the stage branching is a bit too obscure. I mean, none of the FAQs and walkthroughs on GameFAQs had any idea what determined whether you'd go to the Ice Palace or the Temple for example. Thankfully, the Nintendo Power issues that covered the game stated it but I still felt like testing their claim to be sure.

[Ryan Ferneau]

Yeah, I would have been scared to try to make a complete map set of this game just because of the obscure level skips with obscure conditions like "Beat this boss with this character without carrying a potion", and it doesn't even tell you that you skipped anything.