by In 1991, Konami released a licensed game, The Lone Ranger for the NES.
The premise is inspired by the movie “The Legend of the Lone Ranger.” You play as The Lone Ranger, a former Texas Ranger whose comrades were murdered by an outlaw by the name of Butch Cavendish. On your way to avenge your comrades, you’ll also be rescuing the President of the USA from kidnappers with the help of Tonto, your Indian companion. To accomplish this in the game, you’ll be fighting your way through hordes of bandits across top-down action levels, side-scrolling levels, and even first-person dungeon-crawling levels.
So, is Konami’s The Lone Ranger as legendary as his silver bullets, or did they fire blanks? Let’s find out.
Gameplay
The controls are split into three sections. I’ll start with the top-down sections. The D-Pad moves The Lone Ranger in the corresponding direction. The A button talks to people in town and picks up enemy dynamite. The B button attacks and cancels conversations. The Select button changes between weapons, and the Start Button pauses the game. In the side-scrolling sections, the controls are mostly the same, but now the A button jumps. In the first-person sections, it is still mostly the same, but now you have combat and exploration controls. Out of combat, you can’t do much other than move and change your weapons. In combat, the D-Pad moves your reticle, the B button fires your weapon, and when you use the A button and D-Pad together, you can change the direction you are facing to fend off threats from different directions. Also, you can use the Zapper in the first-person sections to shoot. The A and B buttons are disabled in these sections when the Zapper is used.
The gameplay is pretty standard for an action-adventure game and can be quite fun. You’ll primarily play in top-down combat and talk to townsfolk to figure out where to go and what to do next. Platforming and first-person combat are fairly rare, but are a nice change of pace. The controls themselves are very responsive, which is always nice.
The Lone Ranger has 4 attacks at his disposal. Punches, normal bullets, silver bullets, and dynamite. The punches are weak, and the hitbox is a bit awkward. Only use those when ammo is scarce, which it will be early on when you haven’t made much money. Normal bullets take down most bandits in 1-2 hits. Silver bullets kill ordinary bandits and pass through them. This lets them kill more than one enemy. Dynamite is a bit unwieldy, but it is very powerful and is thrown in an arc. It can hit enemies in hard-to-reach places.
One thing that might bring the game down for some is figuring out where to go. Very few townspeople say anything meaningful, so you have to talk to everyone, and even then, that might not be enough. Sometimes you have to talk to someone, go somewhere else, and then come back. I only had this happen once, but it was rather tedious. If there was a clue, it was either very easy to miss or very obscure. Still, I like that the game doesn’t hold your hand like many modern games.
I give the overall gameplay a 7.5.
Graphics
The graphics are above average. Some things look fantastic, like the opening scene where The Lone Ranger is riding Silver in the desert, complete with parallax scrolling. However, there is very little variety. You’ll be seeing the same handful of bandits and NPCs, albeit recolored, constantly. The environments are mostly the same but slightly remixed. There are more environments in the Wild West than towns, deserts, caves, and mountains, so why does everything look so similar?
I’m taking off half a point for the issues mentioned. So, I give the graphics a 6.5.
Music and Sound
The music is actually pretty good. It’s not as good as some of Konami’s other games like Castlevania or TMNT, but it’s still pretty good.
The sound effects are a mixed bag. Some are pretty good, while others are just kind of there. The punches are very unsatisfying. I know that they aren’t strong, but given that they stun enemies, it would be nice if they had some oomph. The dynamite and guns sound pretty good for the time.
I give the music and sound a 7.5.
Final Verdict
Ultimately, I give The Lone Ranger a 7. It’s an enjoyable action-adventure game with some nice variety. It’s not as good as, say, The Legend of Zelda, but it’s still fun. If you like action-adventure games or are a fan of The Lone Ranger, check it out. A loose copy is about $70 right now.
