Noah's Ark Reviews

Horrible game, stay away. Piko please make action 52

There is only partial controller support, which means basically no controller support, so even if I configure my xbox one controller through steam, there is an unacceptable amount of input lag. The emulation is poor at best so it runs slow and choppy. All of this makes it unplayable.

Noah's Ark has a reputation among diehards as one of the few NES games released in Europe but not North America, and because of this I've always been curious about it. To get it out of the way, from what I've played this game isn't religious beyond the fact it stars Noah, he has an ark, and there are animals and a flood. I would describe this as a horizontal shooter built around platformer mechanics. Noah can jump and shoot, but the screen is always scrolling (except when fighting a boss) and there is always some amount of water at the bottom of the screen, which you can swim through and jump out of. Noah's jump is very stiff, but when you have the feel for it he's pretty agile. There are a lot of items to collect, and Noah can transform into things such as a bird, a fish and a statue. These not only grant abilities, but as with Super Mario you can take more damage until you lose the suit and revert to regular Noah. You can also upgrade your projectile. The graphics are colourful and the music is nice, and the game is full of bizarre (but kid-friendly) imagery. But game concepts and the difficulty spikes often feel arbitrary, and the stiff controls hold this one back. I can only recommend this to someone raised on NES shooters who isn't afraid of the challenge and is looking for something different. You can earn continues and there is a limited stage select, but this game isn't friendly to unskilled or impatient gamers and the asking price is pretty high for what you're getting. As for this PC port, my Xbox One controller worked just fine and there is a screen-filling border featuring the box art. Otherwise, as far as I'm aware, this is totally bare bones, just a ROM in a wrapper. The game doesn't even save your high scores.