To follow on from our last post, The Addams Family ZX Spectrum game, we had to see if there was a game featuring those other mirthful monsters, or should I say Munsters. Indeed, Herman, Morticia et al also had their own game on Clive Sinclairs ZX Spectrum computer, the imaginatively titled “The Munsters”. So what do we think of this game? Read on my friend, read on.
Firstly, the Munsters game is not completely different from the Addams Family one, in that you have to walk around finding things and other characters around the stately home of the titular family. The sprites however are much bigger and there is no platform jumping to be done, just the walking around and killing or avoiding things. To kill things you have to kill the spooks to increase your spell strength, then you can kill the bigger enemies. Walking up and down stairs you can avoid the other enemies, and take alternative routes. As you progress you get to control other characters (I learned this from other YouTube videos, checkout the RZX Archive walkthrough.
The title screen has the familiar Munsters music on loop, not a great rendition, but recognisable, and on this screen you can choose your control method. Starting the game you are immediately in the world of the Munsters, in a large bedroom with a four poster bed, and soon the ghosts come and you can start filling your spells bottle by killing them. Walk around and you come across witches, zombies and mummies, all the standard horror tropes of the Munsters era, and all require strong spells to dispatch them. So there is a lot of killing minor ghosts, powering up and returning to kill the bigger badder baddies. The game does look nice, and plays smoothly too, it’s another that will take a while to find all the rooms, and how to power up your spells along the way.
Another ZX Spectrum game worth playing then, but it may get frustrating quite quickly unless you have more patience than I do. See my lack of patience, comment here or on the video below if you played this Munsters game or the Addams Family game.
