The Goonies Demo

Old-school platformers had very little concern for the sanity of the players, given their insane difficulty level. There was no save game option, nor were you allowed to retry the level once you had failed it. Hence, in order to finish them, you had to play them from start to finish in one sitting, or acquire the passwords along the way and use them to gain instant access to certain levels.

The Goonies is a remake of an old Konami game with the same name, although the only part that’s changed is the fact that you can now play it on the computer. Most of the other elements are untouched, which means that you still get to enjoy 8-bits graphics and a wacky soundtrack playing in the background, liable to cause some nostalgia every now and again.

The events take place in a town called Cauldron Point, where a bunch of kids that call themselves the Goonies have stumbled into a treasure map and go on an adventure to find the loot. However, they get trapped by a gang and have no way to get back home. You play as Sloth, a huge man that goes to rescue the children and help them uncover the mystery behind the treasure.

Plenty of different enemies make an appearance as you scour the levels in search for keys, most of which are programmed to patrol a steady route ad infinitum. However, there are some that can be alerted by your presence and fire shots toward you, which are slightly trickier to avoid. You have a vitality bar, though, and you cannot die unless it gets completely empty. Naturally, there are some traps that can kill you instantly, but they are pretty simple to avoid.

Speaking of which, the difficulty level can be somewhat daunting if you are not familiar with platformers, but the challenge quickly gets under your skin and you are soon hooked. The levels are open and you can move freely from one zone to the other, which might get confusing at first, at least until you learn how to handle yourself.

All things considered, The Goonies should be able to bring back some good memories from the 8-bit era, even if they might not look as good on a modern PC. Hence, if you are feeling nostalgic and you are looking for a challenge, this can do the trick as well as anything else.